Sao Paulo

Carol and I were able to go into the BIG city of Sao Paulo (third largest city in the world) for the first time this past Friday. It is about an hour from Itu. We joined Mark, Ali, and our friend Vitinho for a fun filled day of lots of walking, people, and merchandise. Our first stop was a large market that is inside of an old train/bus station. The building itself is really neat with lots of natural light and stained glass windows. Much of Sao Paulo has a large European influence. They had EVERYTHING at the market. You could find really expensive olive oil. Olive oil is a really important ingredient in Brazilian food. They add it to potatoes, chicken, salad, and even pizza! We also tried garlic from a vat of olive oil and a large seed of which I cannot remember the name. They had fish and meat everywhere just out in the open covered in a lot of salt. They had the prettiest selection of fruits and vegetables I have seen. We tried some large blueberry-like fruit that grows on tree branches here. My big purchase was 250 grams of dried apricots. My favorite new food item has to be candied lemon and orange peels (so good). After finishing a large slice of pineapple, we went to Rua Veinte Cinco de Marzo (forgive spelling errors) which is known for the shopping. Ali was rug shopping but was unable to find one she liked. Vintiho bought a watch. They had the largest collection of knock-off designer watches I have ever seen! I was tempted to buy me a fake Swatch watch, but decided to keep my $6.25 for now. After our shopping phase, we toured the refurbished stock-market exchange. Since most of the stock market is done via computers, the trading floor has been redone as an homage to the past days. We watched a 3D movie on stock investing and trading. My favorite part was the interior design. They had these really neat round doorways and a exhibit in a series of “blue lit” glass rooms that housed museum type stock market paraphernalia. The last stop on our extravaganza was the Cathedral de Se. The Cathedral is at the heart of the city and is actually the starting point for all kilometer markers in the state of Sao Paulo (it is a state and a city, kind of like if there was a Texas, Texas). The Cathedral was reminiscent of a gothic cathedral one might find in Europe. It was HUGE! It was interesting getting into the cathedral because all of the Postal workers that are on strike here were staging the strike on the Cathedral steps. By the way, I will NEVER, EVER complain about Houston traffic again. Sao Paulo is much worse. Thank God I was not driving. After the Cathedral we went to our friend Pedro’s apartment and made the best grilled chicken on a George Forman grill. At 12:15 we went to see the new BATMAN. It was awesome, but really dark. Any of the healthcare architecture majors will appreciate the use of hand sanitizer in the hospital scene (that is all I will give away). After going to bed at 5:00 AM, we got up and made French toast on the George Forman grill! It is amazing how much you can do on one of those things! We rearrange Pedro’s furniture (for which he was thankful) and we headed back to Itu.
Saturday afternoons are filled with dance lessons! I will have to take picture next time. The dance classes mainly focus on a Brazilian dance called Forra (once again I don’t know how to spell this.) It reminds me of swing dancing mixed with two-stepping and a little salsa. The dance class is actually all members of the yuppie group from church which makes it a lot of fun.
On a great note, we started Portuguese lessons today at 7:00 A.M. It is hard to speak English at that hour! Hopefully I will be able to add to some Portuguese to this blog in the future. Well, you are probably tired of reading and I am tired of typing so until next time, have a beautiful day!

Love ya, Amanda

P.S. Please check out my Sao Paulo pictures at:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2060793&l=85f62&id=54602315