Vinte-Cinco de Fantasma da Ibirapuera!!

Title doesn’t make sense? Don’t worry, it will.

This weekend was my first weekend in São Paulo in a month. ….Ya. And I’m glad to say it was a very good one!

I spent Friday in the office as usual. There were quite a few people there that day, so that was nice. Then in the evening I went with Diogo to the MC transition party. For non-@ers, that is the party to celebrate the new national team taking over. It was at a club in Vila Madalena. Before we went there we met up with some other @ers from GV and one from Campinas at the house of a former GV LCP, Marcelo. We talked for a while and then we drove to the party. There were lots of @ers there. From USP it was me, Diogo, Super, Juan Pablo and Benoit. Vlad was there, and Gu from Itajubá. Plus a bunch of the trainees from GV that I had kind of met before. It was really awesome because they had a live band there that actually played good music!! (Note: Brazil in general plays better music than in Canada). They were playing anything from the theme from Friends to Born to be Wild to some swing stuff. Exactly my kind of music. We left the club around 3:30 in the morning, but the buses and subways weren’t running yet. So I went with some other @ers to a supermarket which had a little bakery attached. Not only was this supermarket open at 4:00 am, but there were a lot of people there! I was surprised. We had some snacks and killed time until the subway was running, then they dropped me off on Paulista and I headed home.

I only got a couple hours of sleep because I had to get up to meet Renata and Tiaia at Sé at 9:30. I managed to get there by 9:40 despite sleeping in until ten to nine. Our plan was to go to Vinte-Cinco de Maio which is a street downtown that is full of vendors selling stuff. We needed to get Brazil stuff for Renata to take with her to Mexico for her CEED. So we wandered around for a while. I wanted to take pictures, but I figured it wasn’t such a good idea to do so in that area of the city. I managed to find some stuff for Canada day in a party store. I bought red and white balloons and plates and cutlery. Corny… I know. After wandering around for a few hours we left the fair and walked around some other areas of downtown and grabbed some food at Habib’s. Then Tiaia had to home to get the tickets for that evening, so I went with Renata to her apartment near Paulista. When we got there, I was soooo glad to sit down. We had been standing and walking for 6 hour straight! We made some lunch – pasta with tomato sauce and meatballs, and then we both had a quick nap. Tiaia came back with the tickets and we headed off once again. The show? O Fantasma da Opera! Yes, I went and saw the Phantom…. In Portuguese! The girls already had tickets and I didn’t. In typical Brazilian fashion, we showed up 5 minutes before it started and still had to buy one extra ticket. We had some great luck though, because we found a lady who needed to sell a ticket because her friend was sick and couldn’t come. It was a $R150 ticket, right near the front. And I paid the student price for it - $R37. So I got to see the Phantom from like 5 rows in for less than twenty dollars! Good deal, neh? It was in Portuguese but I know all the songs well enough to know what was going on. And the singers were great. The whole production was very well done. After the show Renata had to go, so I went back to Paulista with Tiaia. We went to The Black Dog which is this place that has these absolutely famous hot dogs. And what a hotdog it was! It even had Parmesan cheese! Earlier we had made plans for Sunday, and it was getting a little late, so we decided I should just go back with Tiaia to her house. We had chocolate milk and watched Ray, which was quite good.

Our plan for Sunday was to go to Ibirapuera, which is a HUGE park in the middle of Sao Paulo. We walked there, which took around 45 minutes, but we got to see part of a really nice neighbourhood. We walked past an open house, so Tiaia decided we should go have a look. It was HUGE with a pool, sauna, high ceilings, crown molding and more rooms than I could count! And hey, it was only $R11 million!! Anyone interested? We made it to the park, which is gorgeous. And it was a nice sunny day to boot! There are a bunch of lakes and the place was crawling with families and cyclists and joggers. Lots of guys were without shirts, and this in “winter”.

A paradise in the middle of the city

We walked around a little, and then we rented a two person bike for an hour and rode around. I was very tricky to steer! I almost crashed a few times to Tiaia did most of the driving :P Then we went to a museum which was featuring an exhibition on design. It was pretty interesting actually. You can tell that Sao Paulo is very business focused though, because one of the panels was all about the evolution of a company’s logo, and all about their branding. Ahhh… !! There was also an exhibit all about Petrobras and some rather interesting furniture. Then we went to an art museum, but neither Tiaia nor I was that impressed. Not really much of an art museum fan I’m afraid. But outside the museum there were some interesting sculptures. They had one that it you threw rocks at made sounds like phasers from star wars! No kidding! And my personal favourite:

hmmmm.. I'm thinking they are probably not human....

We took a bus back to Paulista and stopped in a little market. They had some really cheap snacks and I loaded up on the rolls of cookies that are only one Real. Seriously. One Real for like 20 cookies. It’s dangerous! Then we went to a restaurant called America for dinner, which was really good. And then I headed to the metro Consolacio, which, in English, could be called Consolation Station :P. (pretty soon I’ll have funny names for every subway ;) )

So it was a really good weekend and I got to see a few of the places I had wanted to see for a long time. Plus I had wanted to hang out with Renata and Tiaia for a while.

My partner in crime (and photographer), Tiaia

On a completely unrelated side note, brazilian numbers keep confusing me! In Canada we would write a large number as such: 1,300.89. In Brazil, it’s 1.300,89. The dot and the comma and switched! It looks so odd to me, and I have to stop every time and figure out what the heck the number actually is.

Oh, and here’s another funny sign for Colin:

Water fountain..... or face wash???

*****

Time of posting note: This morning it was not only POURING but there was also thunder and lightning!! Crazy!