the streets of são paulo

brazil brazil brazil!!!
the birthplace of Ayrton Senna, Gisele Bündchen and approximately 12million beautiful people (and a couple of not-so-beautiful ones too, but they’re everywhere)

i had such an awesome time in são paulo: yet another place where a 28-hour stay is just not long enough!


and after my shameful efforts in beijing, it was nice to be back to my old self:
taking a thousand photos,
spending all my allowance on food and shopping,
and minimal time spent sleeping (not such a good idea when you’ve then gotta go and operate a 15-hour flight, but we live and learn!)


i'm told that são paulo has a population of 20million people -- that's kind of like the entire population of Australia jammed into one city!

of all my destinations, i think i struggled with the language barrier most of all here in são paulo – largely because i speak not one single word of Portuguese, well, aside from one rude sentence my friend taught me at dinner in Sydney one night whilst waiting for our meals (thanks Carl).
by the end of my stay here in são paulo, i’d well and truly perfected my “intellectually-challenged, i-have-no-idea-what-you’re-saying, please-take-pity-on-this-ignorant-Australian” smile.

i'll be coming back to brazil, no doubt in my mind!


my adventures in Brazil:
eat Brazil Nuts, in Brazil!! (except here, i think they just call them "nuts") . go to a restaurant, and order "Frango a passarinha - exclusivamente do quintal da vizinha!" -- which i'm told loosely translates to "Chicken -- exclusively from the neighbour's backyard!" . drink a brazilian beer, which i disliked just as much as i dislike any other beer . sit and watch a live band, and watch the crowd rumba (or samba or tango or actually i have no idea which dance they were doing, but this is Latin America, so it must have been one of the above -- wow mitch, way to let your ignorance shine through!) . when you're done partying for the night, take a taxi back to your hotel, travel for fifteen minutes, screaming around corners -- all with no headlights on . the next day, go shopping, and after telling a shopkeeper that you're from Australia, have him start speaking to you in French -- excusez-moi? . buy the obligatory fridge magnet for the collection . help an old lady collect frangipanis off the ground (and then climb the tree to pick them because the ones on the ground are ugly) . with no underground metro at your disposal (i'm told there is one in são paulo, but nowhere near where i was or where i wanted to go), be forced to catch a bus -- i was terrified of navigating the bus system in my small hometown of Newcastle, i don't know who i thought i was getting on a bus in são paulo! . chat with a woman for 40-minutes whilst waiting for your bus: she spoke not a word of English, and me not a word of Portuguese, but it made for a fun game of charades -- i think her name is Virginia, i think she's been to Sydney twice, and i think she likes to play Bingo on sundays in a purple fur coat whilst dancing the cha-cha (ok, so i may have misinterpreted that last part) . offer to help an old man drag his rubbish-cart, and be flatly refused -- he probably thought i was gonna run off with his trash, i guess i do have that "garbage-thief" look about me . after searching fruitlessly for hours for the Havaianas flagship store, where i'm told you can customise your own pair of Havaianas, you feel somewhat cheated that you now have to buy "off-the-rack" (but obviously not too cheated because your suitcase subsequently contains six pairs upon leaving the country) . on a street corner, buy a bottle of agua de coco gelada -- i'm still not sure what it was, though i'm quietly confident that it came out of a coconut . go to the local supermarket, where the price-check girls wear roller-skates (i kid you not) to retrieve prices faster -- or maybe just cos it looks cool, either reason is fine by me . buy a chunk of watermelon, and eat it with your hands -- nothing terribly Brazilian about this, i was just too impatient to wait for Room Service to deliver me a spoon . ask to take a woman's photo, be denied, then have her chasing you down the street ten minutes later cos now she wants her photo taken . try and speak Portuguese to an old lady in a church, and have her laugh at your poor attempt at her language, but don't mind, cos you're being laughed at IN SÃO PAULO!!!!


here are the photos:



stay tuned, next week: CALCUTTA, INDIA!!!


let the good times roll!!