one of the most frustrating thing about latin america is the inability of people here to say no. it’s as if, ‘no’ is a 4-letter word. for instance, when asking for directions….people will often give you a definite answer, even if they’re just guessing. when i was looking for a job in chile, i met with several people, from the vice-dean of a university to a product design startup. all were excited to meet me and suggested several courses of action. however, undoubtedly, the meetings would either result in more meetings or in nothing happening. unsurprisingly, a similar thing seems to be happening with nissan hq in curitiba. last week, i met with some folks from marketing. they were extremely excited about the trip….so much so that they took some pics of the car in front of the plant and were going to launch a press release about the trip. naturally, i care more about the outcome of the car than any press. two weeks later, nothing has happened (i drove back down to curitiba specifically for this purpose). of course, i haven’t received a ‘no’ yet….just another ‘call me tomorrow’. i know it’s poor form to criticize the same people who might help me…..but i’m not really criticizing…..just stating the facts….like i have always done in this blog.
on the other hand, i stopped by the tourist office today to ask about cheap hostels/hotels here in curitiba…apparently there are none. however, the tourist lady (betty) and i got to talking. it got a bit awkward when she started talking about her upcoming gall bladder surgery and showed me a scar from a previous occurrence. after that detour, however, she told me that her old boss (beto) did the reverse drive several years ago (curitiba to alaska). randomly, beto’s family also owns the second largest restaurant in the world (well, supposedly according to guinness). so, this evening i went to see him at madalosso. he was cool and we got to talk a bit about our trips. unfortunately, they didn’t have any insanely great solutions/recommendations for getting rid of the car. their best recommendation was paraguay…..which seems like an anarchists paradise.
