It´s all about drinking and eating!!

---

We said that there wouldn´t be another blog until we leave, but considering that we´ve got nothing else to do, we decided to share with everyone what we were up to at the end of year festivities.
Christmas was great! We had an awsome lunch, so much food - good food, prepared by my Mum and delicious Caipirinhas prepared by Tom. He even got a Caipirinha shirt for Xmas, with the recipe written on it in english!
For New Years we went to Sao Paulo and stayed with my 'little' sister Anaïs. We got there on Friday and went have dinner at an all you can eat japanese restaurant - yummy, but a bit complicated for someone who doesn´t like fish! Saturday Anaïs took us to visit the old centre of the city, which we hadn´t seen yet. At the moment it is the most dangerous part of SP, although the council is trying to clean up everything to make it more interesting for the tourists. It´s really worth seeing, there´s a lot of beautiful architecture.
We visited the City Market, awsome for people who like to eat or cook, or both together. So many types of fresh food, spices, nuts and other things. They sell, as well, the 'mortadela' sandwich - you need to have a very strong stomach and be really hungry, but worth every little bite of it!
Our New Years Eve was a bit different than usual, nonetheless very nice. We had another yummy dinner and walked about 3km to Paulista Av, where they were having shows and fireworks at midnight. Unfortunatelly we ended up missing the fireworks, because we couldn´t find the entrance for the Av. seeing all the streets were closed and the cops kept telling us that it was at the next block. Five blocks later we still hadn´t found the entrance and the fireworks were gone. It was fun anyway, there were 2 million people but the crowd was well behaved and everyone was just about having a good time.
The next day we went for a drive, but there wasn´t much happening. The 2 Jews with their cool car were one of the few people out, and they seemed to be having a great fun catching all the attention.
That´s definately it from us in Brazil, we leave in three days for merry old England. At the moment we are just trying to brace ourselves for a 25 degree drop in temperature. We´ll let you know what happens.

---

Photos

Too many caipirinhas?
Or too much food? Or maybe both?

Catedral da Sé
The start point of the city of São Paulo, which was built all around this Cathedral

São Paulo City Market
They sell all sorts of fresh foods in there. Very nice!

She just couldn´t resist
Anaïs buying some goodies for dinner

Tom waiting for his "Mortadela" sandwiches
Translated in the dictionary as "large Italian sausages".

Traditional Mortadela Sandwiches
For some reason those sandwiches are traditional at the São Paulo City Market. You find them everywhere.

Big Bite
Taking a bite of this thing is hard work!

Rogerios first big night out
We went see the fireworks at Paulista Av. (important Av. in São Paulo). It´s a shame we missed the lights in the sky that I had so much promised to Rogério (my nephew).

New Years Celebration
There were around two million people in the Av., but it was fun and we didn´t really feel the crowd, everyone was busy having fun!

New Years Celebration
We tryed to keep up with the Brazilian tradition of wearing white for good luck and a peacefull year.

Good start
A little bit of rain just to start well 2006

Three grains for goodluck
Says the tradition that to have a good year you have to eat three grains of pomegranate on the first day of the year and keep the seeds in a white paper and put it in your wallet

Cool Jews
Father and son, Jews, driving around in the first day of the year. We loved those guys!

Paulista Avenue
The most important Avenue in São Paulo. There are some residential buildings, but the majority are Banks and offices. Very expensive m2.

Paulista Avenue
Stage where the bands played the night before.

Comments

[Rachael]

Mmmmm
Sounds like my kinda place!! Those sandwiches look AMAZING! Maybe you should give Roge the recipe and he could whip them up at Muffin Break! I'm sure we will be seeing you guys very soon....in LONDON! Travel safe. Rach and Justin

[Ang & Court]

Watsup!!!
IT looks fantastic over there. And I am hangin for one of those sandwiches (Yum). Take care and have fun, Your Cuz's