playing tourist in São Paulo

This past week has been busy. I can’t upload any pictures because I don’t have my camera cord with me, but I’ve uploaded some I found online so you can get a feel for what I’ve been seeing. After being here for two weeks, I’m finally playing tourist a bit.

For my Wednesday afternoon class, my teacher took me to the Museu de Futebol (Football Museum), which is located inside the Pacaembu soccer stadium in São Paulo. The museum itself is fairly new and very hi-tech. It basically gave the entire history of soccer in Brazil, helping its attendees to relive the glory days of Brazilian soccer, of which there are many. Brazil has won the World Cup five times, more than any other country. On Wednesday some friends of my host parents, Carlos and Yvette, arrived to stay with us until Sunday. At dinner that evening, Yvette casually mentioned that I have very nice facial skin. Thanks?

Thursday evening I got to share a very special moment with the family. We all went to the hospital to see Alice, my host parents’ new baby granddaughter, who was born on Monday. She was really small and very cute (like any newborn I suppose).

On Friday for class, one of teachers took me to the city center for a solid few hours of touring. We walked around the center then went to the Banespa building, which, at a mere 35 stories, is one of the tallest buildings in São Paulo. The top has an observation deck where we were able to see some incredible views of the city. From there, I really got a feel for how enormous the city is. Interestingly, there are no skyscrapers, but there are buildings of 10-20 stories as far as the eye can see. We then got some lunch at the famous Cervejaria San Jorge (St. George’s Brewery), which has murals and pictures of famous Georges (from W. Bush to Costanza). Later, we walked by the Brazilian Stock Exchange but it was unfortunately closed, then we headed the Catedral da Sé, where the official center of the city begins.

The Banespa Building

Catedral da Sé

On Saturday, the five of us went to visit my host family’s daughter Priscilla and her husband and two young kids. Later, we went to Libertade, which has the greatest concentration of Japanese people outside of Japan in the world. It is basically the Chinatown of São Paulo, with immigrants from many different Asian countries. The five of us ate lunch at a great Chinese Restaurant in Liberdade and walked around some to explore the neighborhood and the street market there.  Saturday night, I went out again with Lucas to a balada (club). The night ended with a hot dog at Black Dog (pronounced Blacky Doggy), a 24 hour-Brazilian version of Cookout. I’m not sure if a hotdog at 6:00 AM counts as breakfast… 

Liberdade

      

A final thought: Brazilian Portuguese has imported many different words from English. In Portuguese, words that begin with r make an h sound. In addition, words don’t end in hard consonants, so imported English words get extra vowels at the end. The result is usually amusing, but nothing more so than the pronunciation of rap and hip-hop, both of which exist as genres of music here. Imagine a strong accent saying happy and hippy-hoppy.

I now have one week left in São Paulo before I head to Rio.