Blogs from São Paulo, Brazil, South America - page 46

Sorry I just realised I have missed a bit in my last blog about Guaruja and Sao Paulo (just found the photos!). ... read more

Day 6 We arrived in Sao Paulo and had a walk around. It felt really unsafe and wasn´t a particularly nice looking city. We went to the highest building in Sao paulo (Edificio Italia) to look out over the whole of Sao Paulo - it is absolutely massive, stretching to the horizon in every direction you looked. We then watched the sun go down over the city and had a few drinks in the very expensive bar! Day 7 We made our way adventure stylee to the snake farm which was in the middle of nowhere to see lots of different snakes. Scarily enough, pretty much all of them live in Brazil!! The snake farm is where they milk the snake´s venom to make anti-venom but unfortuntately we didn´t get to see that. We then took ... read more

On Thursday night (3rd November) I went out to dinner at a typical Brazilian pub with Bira's family and the German Contingent ("GC") Bira's brother Fernando married his German girlfriend, Catrin, the weekend before I arrived so a group of about 12 had come over from Germany. Steffi, a friend of Catrin's from Germany with whom I became acquainted when she was living in Melbourne, was amongst the GC. I have much admiration and respect for Steffi due to the fact that although she has a hearing disability her command of the English language is so superb that I originally mistook her as being a native Australian! She has a beautiful nature and is one of the most interesting people I have met. Steffi and I shared our thoughts about São Paulo and she told me ... read more

Today I visited my first Brazilian supermarket with Bira's mother, Magali. There were 50 checkouts. Yes, FIFTY CHECKOUTS. The supermarket had entire aisles dedicated solely to pasta (even Barilla, my favourite & the only one I buy), aisles dedicated solely to cheese, aisles dedicated solely to mayonnaise, aisles dedicated solely to biscuits... need I go on? There was even a fountain spouting red wine and forget FlyBuys - they have cars instead. Yeah, buy enough and you'll get a car. The fruit section of the supermarket was about the size of a normal ordinary Safeway. The meat section is a carnivore's paradise. And as for the laundry & cleaning products, obsessive compulsive cleaners such as myself would find themselves in paradise amongst all the sprays, liquids, gels... oh and Jif is called Cif in Brazil. And ... read more

Well, I have arrived... Everything so far has been great (appart from the weather). Anderson´s family and friends have been feeding me great food and showing me how to make Minas cheese bread (tastes really good). Elizangela and me have been spending time getting on way too many buses and missing stops and generally behaving like nutters! Love it... Anyway, just wanted to put a really boring first entry to see if it works and stuff. I hope everybody in the Uk is ok...... read more