Sao Paulo

I thought airplanes almost landing on the rooftops only happens in Lisbon. Until we landed in Sao Paulo. The city is huge, just to get from the airport to the city center can take 1.5 hours or more.

During our short stay we tried the sweet pizzas, visited the local market, been to a samba school, attended a free concert of Norah Jones, seen a football match, been on a theatrical concert, seen cracolandia and the museum of Portuguese language.

The samba school of VaiVai was great: they literally closed down an entire street, where dozens of girls were shaking their butt to the rhythms provided by the guys. They were practicing for the upcoming carnival. We made a couple of photos with them, most of them looked better from the distance, the blondie next to me had the worst smelling breath ever, so we quickly ended the conversation.

Later on we went to some samba dance club, with good friends, lot of Xiboquinha (local drink with cachaca, only consumed by the friends of Simone) and plenty of butt shaking:)

Cracolandia is the saddest and ugliest part of the city. It lays just one block from a big train station and the museum of Portuguese language. Dozens of homeless and drugged people hang around here all day long, doing nothing, waiting for occasional free food from some charity organizations. For obvious reasons we have no photo of this area, here is one from pessoaldofaroeste.blogspot.com.

Just for the city, Sao Paulo is definitely not a place you must visit. The people we met there were great though and huge thanks to Verica, Simone and Tercilio who not only hosted us, but also showed us the real Sao Paulo. Obrigado queridas!:)