More Sao Paulo

In an interesting turn of events, Todd met a member of the church who agreed to take us around Sao Paulo and show us some of the sights. This turned out to be really great because they knew exactly which busses to take, how to get around the centro downtown, and they also took us some places where I am glad we had fellow Brazilians with us :)

We started out at Parque Ibirapuera, sometimes called Sao Paulo's answer to New York's Central Park. It is quite big, but having never been to Central Park, I can't make a comparison :) Below is a statue outside the park of the bandeiros, who settled Sao Paulo. Since climbing on this thing required Todd to give me a leg up (is that the right term?), I considered this picture to be quite the daredevil feat  (okay, we weren't breaking any laws or anything :)

 As we made our way around the outside edge of the park, we stopped and snapped pictures of a few more statues.

 In the area below, there were quite a few groups of people sitting and talking, and kids playing on the playground. This was a fun bench, with a really cool tree in the background. The other advantage of having a tour guide with you is that you have someone to take pictures of the TWO of you, which is nice!

 In the background of the picture below, the obelisk represents four of the country's heroes, who are buried there. I'm pretty sure they were bandeiros too. Also, going on in the background is the only field hockey game I've ever seen outside of the US :) (well, outside of Maryland to be quite honest!)

 This building was designed by a famous architect in Sao Paulo, Oscar Niemeyer. It's really a theater/auditorium. I guess people there refer to it as "a lingua" (the tongue). You can see why :)

 After leaving Parque Ibirapuera, we grabbed a bus and headed back downtown. Also, as a slightly related note, if you have light skin and blue eyes, people tend to stare at you. It's really awkward. One time in Embu, this kid had his mouth stuffed full, and when he saw me his jaw full of food dropped open, and he continued to turn and stare at me as I walked by. I felt like an alien. Like I said, awkward. On the bus, kinda the same thing. I try not to make eye contact!

 This is in front of the law school in downtown Sao Paulo (above), and below is a statue in front of the building.

 We headed on towards the Prace de Se, which is basically a big square block. There were preachers getting their Saturday preaching in, very enthusiastically, I might add. There were people playing music, and other people selling things, and other crazy people who will just walk up to you and tap you on the shoulder and start saying stuff in drunken Portuguese. But mostly, there are people visiting the church and milling about waiting for busses, or walking with their families.

 This is the church in Praca de Se. We didn't take any pictures of the inside, but it is really impressive. Beautiful stained glass and high ceilings and gold-leaf altars.

 This slab below points to the other main cities in Brazil. The ones you can kinda see are Rio and Minas Gerais.

 Us in front of the statue. Many of these churches have a patron saint, and I THINK theirs was Benedict or Peter?? Not sure, get them all mixed up!

 We would our way around more of the downtown historial area. Many of these areas were constructed in the 1500's. Most of it has been restored, although some of it is original.

 We were hungry, so we headed back to the Mercado for some grub. The last time we were there, we were too full to get their "famous" sandwich, so we got it today. It is basically a glorified baloney sandwich, with lots of yummy gooey cheese. However, the meat is better than baloney, that's for sure. It was greasy and delicious. I got another shrimp pastel (like last time), which was stuffed full with shrimp and cream cheese...a very yummy heart attack! While in line, we met a lady and her college exchange student who goes to Tulane. It was fun talking to them about Brazil and what she is doing here.

 We shot this quick picture in front of another church before we headed over another aqueduct. Our guides told us that a river used to below the bridge, and where the Mercado is, used to be a port where ships pulled in. It was fun to imagine it that way.

 These were our tour guides, Irmao Toposky (Irmao means brother, like how we address each other as Brother and Sister at church. But here, Brazilians usually follow Brother or Sister with their FIRST name as opposed to last name like Americans do. So in the temple, I tell the sisters my  name is Irma Megan). Oh, and his cousin Paulo. They were really goofy and a lot of fun, and traipsed around with us so I could find my Brazil jersey :)

 I just liked the big graffiti man on the side of the building :) There is graffiti EVERYWHERE! Some of it looks like chicken scratch, but a lot of it is quite creative!

 Another church. The darker-skinned Brazilians used to be segregated out (I think this was a REALLY long time ago, during slavery). This was one of the churches they used.

All in all, we had a fun but exhausting day. It was nice to see some of the more historical parts, but also see some things that were familiar as well. We are grateful Todd ran into Irmao Toposky and that he volunteered to take us around. I also have to thank my translator Todd!