São Paulo
I got to São Paulo by 11PM and took a metro to the Consolação station where I met up with my host Renata and her friend Silas. We walked to Renata´s place, just a few blocks down on Av. Augusta. After getting settled in, we all hung out in the living room, sitting around and drinking wine.
Renata
Silas had some fun playing with the Ken dolls, more people joined and then left again...
Silas
[By the way, stingoo and bramio, you should meet this guy... I'm sure you guys would get along great... and not (just) because of the following picture.]
Around 5AM Renata´s friend Karim came over and all ended up talking until dawn.
Karim (who looks/acts an aweful lot like PJ Otten)
The next morning/noon, we went out for brunch and filled out stomaches with some feijoada (typical dish of brown beans), rice, meat and fries.
After the filling brunch, Renata took me for a tour around downtown São Paulo (third biggest city in the world, mind you).
Teatro Municipal
Catedral Metropolitana
While Renata was finishing up some business at night, I hung out with Karim and his friends, all exchange students from the University of Leeds, UK. They invited me for dinner... who would have thought the best food I would have in São Paulo (famous for its many good restaurants), would be cooked by Brits. ;)
Lucy and Karim
At night we went out to a club called Berlin, where we saw a local band (friends of Renata's) perform a good show, or at least the last two songs of it.
Sunday was spent relaxing, hanging out with Karim along the Av. Paulista, talking and enjoying the view over the giant city.
Av. Paulista
At night we caught a screening of The Departed, which was quite enjoyable.
Monday was another day of laziness and hanging around, but on Tuesday I decided to be productive and visit the Intituto Butanta, a snake farm with over 1000 serpents. After a major detour (taking 3 metros to get to the place where my Lonely Planet said to take the bus, only to see it pass by Renata's front door some 90 minutes later), the bus headed towards the Southwestern part of the city, where the 'snake farm' was supposed to be. Before I realized it, however, the bus continued its way back into the city, and my Portignol seemed to be insufficient to inquiere about the correct wherabouts of the institute, so I spent another hour stuck on the bus, at times moving at about 200m/15 minutes. São Paulo traffic, you see.
Refusing to let the bus fiasco make this another unproductive day, I paid a visit to the Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo (MASP), where I was enchanted by one of the Picasso paintings. The lines, the perfection... it literally made me dizzy. In a good way.
the MASP
On Tuesday night, I did a photo shoot, yet for once I wasn´t the one behind the camera. Renata and Silas needed a model to pose for a picture that would be used in their magazine. I had a lot of fun posing for the picture, but let's say I prefer being behind the camera... it wasn´t so comfortable sitting there with all kind of tube in my mouth, ears, nostrils, staying super still (as we needed a 0.5 or 1 second shutter speed). Luckily my discomfort was softened by a fair amount of beer and vodka at Karim's place later that night.
camera battle :)
Josh
After boozing up for a while, we all headed out to a birthday party of one of Renata's friends. One word. Epic. OK, two words, crazy, too.
Karim, Renata and I
