Serendipity, Sao Paulo

It was love at first sight for me. From the moment I discovered
the Internet, I was hooked. To seal the obsession, I was part
of the team that developed the launch campaign for the Internet
in Bahrain, inet for Batelco. I was one of those copywriters
who liked to believe in the products she sold, and with inet it was easy.

I could go on and on about the joys of the Internet, but for now
I'll rave about just one of them -  the way it connects us all,
around the world. Every day that I check my blog, I'm amazed -
and awed - that there are visitors from continents I may never see,
from cities and towns I have never heard of, or places whose names
bring back memories of books I have read or songs I've listened to.
Every now and then I like to google and look for the deeper connection
between myself and these places or the people who come to this blog from them.

This morning I blog-hopped over to Angela's blog in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
It was all in Spanish, but there was one little box in the top right corner,
whose contents I recognised immediately.

Se Deus e por nos,
quem sera contra nos?

It's a line from the Bible's New Testament, one that I'd heard
so often as a schoolgirl, but nothing that I've kept top of mind.
This morning, however, I was disturbed and confused about
something I'd read last night, and there were a zillion questions
bouncing around my mind. My little blog-hop to Sao Paulo
gave me the answer to them all.

Thank you, Angela, for being my connection to this.

The fish stops here.

And so do the Swedes and Cambodians, and people from over fifty
countries around the planet. I don't know why, but over the past week,
there have been so many new visitors to this blog. What was it?
Audrey Hepburn's middle finger? I honestly don't know.

I'm thrilled to have more hits, of course, but what I absolutely
love is seeing the names of places from where people are connecting
to me. So many are names I have heard of or read about, and a few
that I've visited. But it's the ones I've never heard of before that are
the most exciting. Once I've checked my Visitor's Map and then
updated my alphabetical list (a most joyous task for anyone with
obsessive-compulsive  tendencies), I then pick one of the
previously-unknown places and google it.

Which brings me to the title of this post. Somewhere in the state
of Sao Paulo, in the country Brazil, there is a city, nearly 250 years
old, called PIRACICABA. They call it "the bride of the hills".
I have no idea what a Brazilian bride looks like. The only
Brazilian women I've ever seen were in carnival processions on TV,
looking very exotic, sparkly and feathery. So I deduce that Piracicaba
is a sizzling hot place, with a nice set of hills.

I found a connection, too: every year Piracicaba is host
to the International Fair of Humour, where work from cartoonists
around the world is on display. In tribute to my Piracicaban reader,
I must dig out my favourite cartoon and post it here.

You're still wondering about the fish? Well, the city is bisected
by waterfalls, and fish that swim upstream to reproduce - I'm
presuming some type of salmon - can be seen here. The name 
"Piracicaba" is from a word in the Tupi language that means 
“place where the fish stops”. 

I find that delightful.


P.S. Anyone know how the name is pronounced? I'm choosing 
to say pee-raa-chi-KAA-ba. That's what it looks-like-it-sounds-like to me :o)