August | 2012 | Live Inbrazil Live in Brazil

5 Easy Visa Types for Living in Brazil

Aug 31 2012

So, you want an easy way for living in Brazil for longer than 6 months but don’t what types of Brazilian Visas let you? Let me see if I can solve that problem for you in this post!

I run into this type of scenario constantly: Chris travels to Brazil, spends 3 months there and loves it. He then goes to the and extends his Brazilian tourist visa for 3 months more. As the months go by he becomes desperate, he wants to stay but can’t figure out what types of Brazilian Visas will let him!

After a 6 month love affair with the country he gets onto an airplane, feeling like he left his heart behind together with all the friendships and experiences.

Figuring out types can be a pain in the royal a-hole, and don’t get me started on the waiting period… But not if you know some loopholes and tricks that I will now show you!

UPDATE: since writing this post, a lot of developments have happened within the visa area. Therefore, I’ve created an .

An Inconvenient Truth

The sad truth is that Governments don’t really care how you feel; they only care about the rules that they put into place. And to be honest, most immigration rules are set based on visa (a smart way of saying “America makes it difficult for Brazilians, so we will make it difficult for Americans too!!”)

The ugly thing about bureaucracy is that you are not the center of focus, BUT the one beautiful thing about bureaucracy (and especially in Brazil) is finding loopholes. So many rules contradict others that it would literally be impossible to follow them all!

I will cover 5 different types of visa “” scenarios and tell you how each one could benefit you in order to attain your dreams!

Disclaimer: any advice I give here is purely informational – use it at your own risk. I neither approve of nor am asking you to do anything illegal or against traditional wisdom… ESPECIALLY loophole #5! Ok, now that’s out of the way 😉

Pão de Queijo – an Easy Recipe for a Difficult Addiction

Aug 28 2012

Pao de queijo, cheese buns, brazilian food, food culture For over 8 years, I’ve battled with an addiction. But no worries, I view it as a healthy addiction.

From time to time, the urge comes and I must give in to – a soft in the center, crunchy on the outside, cheesy bun made with cassava flour…mmmm…

Today I am going to show you what Pão de Queijo is all about, where it comes from and how you can very easily make your own!

It all started when…

My so called Pão de Queijo addiction started 8 years back at home in the USA, I had been introduced to a group of really awesome Brazilians who wanted to show me a good time.

They invited me to spend a weekend at a little cabin in the mountains where we would partake in tons of tasty homemade Brazilian food, dance to lot’s of Brazilian music and just have a good time.

And as the food lover I am, I hung out in the kitchen pretty much the entire time looking, observing and trying to gain an understanding of the Brazilian food culture.

One of the first things that went into the oven at that party was one of the things I grew to love the most – the coveted Pão de queijo.

Sinking my teeth into the cheesy, crunchy outer and meeting a soft, cheesy and doughy center was just heavenly….I was sold!

Hopefully if you haven’t tried it before you are sold, but if you have, then you know what I’m talking about 😉

Exchanging to the Real – 3 Money Savings Tips

Aug 23 2012

Real, Reais, Dollars, Money, Exchange If you are like me, you hate wasting unnecessary money on fees, especially when exchanging money.

I mean the 20% I lose by exchanging money at the airport could be put to MUCH better uses!

But what if all you have is a bank account full of your national currency and you want to get the highest possible – what do you do?

In this blog post, I will explain to you 3 ways that you can effectively and easily get the best bang for your buck when converting to the .

This is intended to be a help to people who are looking for more immediate and/short term money exchanging solutions, if you are looking at moving large sums of money then that will have to be another blog post!

I personally remember the first time I arrived in Brazil, before I left I exchanged some money so that I had some Reals in hand upon arrival. But once I arrived, I realized that not every place takes credit/debit cards like back home, I needed an easy and secure way to withdraw and exchange money from my American bank account.

After some networking with other foreigners in Brazil, I figured out 3 effective ways to get some good old cold, hard Brazilian cash.

Aug 19 2012

I get asked this question a lot: “How do I get a CPF number and why can’t I get anything done in Brazil without it?”. Today I will explain exactly what it is and 3 easy steps to get one right away, even if you are a tourist in Brazil and don’t speak Portuguese!

Note: make sure and out if you are looking for useful information to start a life in Brazil.

A CPF number is called a or translated “Registration of a Physical Person” and is the ’s (The Brazilian Tax Authority) way of keeping information about a person in a centralized database.

You could compare it in many ways to how the American is used except that it is required to make pretty much any purchases beyond basic items. Here are a few things to give you an idea what you need a CPF for:

To buy a dresser
To buy an air conditioner
To buy a house
To buy airline tickets
To open a bank account
To buy a car
To get a cell phone
To have an online membership

So in essence, you will need a CPF for everything and to be honest, it is not as hard as you would think to get one. You can get a temporary or permanent CPF depending on if you are:

A tourist in Brazil (1 day)
A resident in Brazil (1 or more days)
A non-domiciled tourist*

*To get one as a non-domiciled tourist, you will have to do it through your local Brazilian consulate, which is more time consuming and very expensive compared to getting one in Brazil. on how to do that.

Be aware that as a tourist, you can get either a temporary one for just your immediate visit or a permanent one if your stay allows. A permanent one will allow you to buy and maintain real estate etc.

Update: have been told that many from our community haven’t been successful in doing this, this could be due to them fazing out plastic cards and giving everyone CPF print outs on the spot.

Step 1: Filling out a CPF Application

Resources, Tips and Tricks to Teach English in Brazil

Aug 14 2012

Tool, resource, trick, teaching This is the last officially programmed part of the “Teaching English in Brazil” series, which has been a large labor of love. I have taken the best tips and tricks about teaching English that I know of or could find, compiled them and put them in this one blog post!

I wanted to give you the best “fat of the land” so to speak in regards to teaching English within one blog post. With that said, these are the “best of” tips and tricks.

All of the tips and tricks assume that you have read the relevant parts of the “Teaching English in Brazil” series, if you need a refresher, then feel free to do so.

I did separate many of the parts of this series into different scenarios and I asked you to choose a scenario that fitted you in part 1 – it would be helpful to double check and make sure you remember which scenario you chose (or choose one) as I divided these tips and tricks according to the scenarios.

Here we go!

5 Ways to Build a Friendship with Brazilian People

Aug 10 2012

This is an actual picture of some friends of mine in Florianópolis, Brazil.

When many people think “Brazil”, they think about amazing, open and all around friendly people who wish for nothing less then to show their huge smiles and hospitality.

I don’t disagree with that in any way, Brazilian people are some of the most amazing and caring people I have ever met in my life – and for me, one of the main reasons as to why I love the country.

They are an especially diverse group of people as well who can claim roots from all corners of the world. Check out this little video with a slide show, showing the diversity of Brazilians (it has some cool music too):

But Brazilian people are culturally very different to many of us (even if we identify with their culture) and if we don’t learn to see eye-to with them, this difference could cause a lot of unintended confusion, misunderstandings and conflict in the long run.

Self Employment Teaching English – Getting a Loyal Following

Aug 05 2012

There is no doubt that giving private English lessons is the most lucrative form for teaching English in Brazil – if not one of the most profitable and easiest jobs a foreigner can have.

But the roadblock I see most teachers encounter is how to have a reliable and loyal following of customers who show up on time, pay when they should and take the classes seriously.

Today, I am going to hit the root of these core problems and tell you how you can achieve this while teaching private English lessons in Brazil.

This is part 6 of the “Teaching English in Brazil” guide and covers scenarios 3 through 5 from part 1 of the “Teaching English in Brazil” guide (Self Employed private lessons/teacher).

1. Be what your Customers aspire to

The first and most important part of creating a loyal following of customers when teaching English, is to be a sincere and honest person and most importantly, just to be you.

People can smell insincerity a mile away and know when someone is out just to benefit from them. Think about it, how many pushy advertisements are you confronted with daily? Actually, more than you may be aware; this is due to the fact that we are conditioned to appall pushy advertising and just ignore it. We have some type of built in defense mechanism that goes up when we are approached by people who are out to get our money.

The 2016 Rio Olympics Starring You!

Aug 01 2012

2016 Rio Olympics, Summer Olympics, Rio de Janeiro

With all the current hype of the 2012 Summer Olympic games in London, what will the in Rio mean for you as a foreigner?

4 years is a long time until the next Olympic games, but a short time for the unorganized and bureaucratic nation of Brazil to get it’s act together in order to keep it’s end of the deal it made to win the 2016 Olympic bid. But at the same time it is an exciting wait as it will be the first time ever that any country in South America will be a host of the Olympic Games.

I followed live and saw when then President Lula and Co received the good news: they had been chosen for the games. Tears rolled down, hugs were given and lots of partying ensued.

But that is just the beginning, pandemonium spread to Brazil when they learned of the news.

Just see this video:

[pinit]

Archive - August 2012