Sao Paulo Nightlife

Today I will write about the Nightlife of Sao Paulo and try to include many different aspects of going out in this great town.

On my first weekend here in Brazil, I wanted to go out in order to get to know the nightlife of Sao Paulo. However when you are in Sao Paulo for the first time, there are a lot of reasons, why you should better stay at home. The main reasons are:

.) Logistical reasons: It takes you approximatley one hour and two buses to get to the place you would like to go

.) Security: Sao Paulo has another dimension than European cities and most other cities of the world. Many negative things are happening here at night. There are also many positive things happening here at night. Let's say there is some kind of balance.

Well at this weekend I decided not to go out... big mistake!!! :D

My first "Go out - Experience" here in Sao Paulo was an unexpected phone call at 11:30 P.M. The person told me to be ready in half an hour to go out. Well that's Brazilian flexibility :D

The best thing which can happen to you is when somebody takes you with his/her car to the place you want to go out. This is called "Carona" in Brazil and avoids a lot of logistical issues and walking around in small black alleys near some poor neighbourhoods in Sao Paulo :D

A typical thing about the "Carona" is that you are not the only person which will be invited. So you actually go all around Sao Paulo picking up friends and spending a lot of time on telephone conversations. But I have always enjoyed these kind of things, because you visit different people, take one or two drinks at their homes and go to the next guys.

When you finally reach the balada (disco), university party, festa (open space event) or whatsoever you just pay an "all-you-can-drink" ticket with your credit card and then you start to drink (Brazilians drink a lot) and to flirt.

Let's start with drinking:

In Brazil people prefer to drink beer. Well you cannot compare Brazilian beer with German, Austrian or Czech beer but it is okay.
Brazilians also like to drink Cachaça, a very strong alcoholic beverage, which is a basic ingridient of Caipirinha. If you don't want to get headache the day after the party (resaca) avoid mixing beer with Cachaça. If you want to have a lot of fun at the party mix it like hell!! :D .

Now comes flirting:

Well flirting or let's say "courtship" works very different in Brazil than in Austria, because people are more informal and easy going. Before going out, guys usually prefer to talk about girls for hours. The objectives of the evening are very clear:

.) Take as much girls as possible (Pega as mulheres!)

--> IMPORTANT NOTE: To take a girl in Portuguese means to kiss her (French kiss). Not more!

The cool thing about Brazil is that it is actually more difficult to get a hug than a French kiss from a girl. I suppose, it is a cultural thing but only god knows why... So just enjoy it. Normally when there is a foreigner (gringo) around, it's a hobby for Brazilian boys to help the gringo to get the girls. When the gringo achieves to kiss (French kiss) a Brazilian girl, the Brazilian guys start to clap, shout "Pega gringo, pega!" call the gringo a "matador"and "pegador"and everybody is happy! :D

In Brazil, a French kiss from a girl does not mean that she is automatically interested in you. That always causes a lot of confusion in foreigners. The most important thing is to take things easy, although it might be difficult somtimes ;-)

So going out in Brazil is all about meeting friends, drinking beer and kissing girls. And to be honest it's not too difficult to meet all these needs during an average weekend.

That's the beauty of Brazil. The informality of the people enables them to get what they want and if they don't get it, they will be happy anyway as they don't take things too seriously.


Although I will leave Brazil very soon and head towards Argentina and then Chile, I will write some additional stories about my life here in Brazil. I hope you will enjoy reading them.

Stay tuned for new stories of my upcoming experience in Santiago de Chile!

Thanks for reading!

Patrick