Out and About in Sao Paulo

Since the last blog post entry we have been spending our time acclimatising to Brazil, its weather and its culture, and checking out the sights and sounds of Sao Paulo. On Sunday we made our first foray in to the Avenue Paulista district with a visit to Sao Paulo’s Museum of Art, (MASP). Not only does MASP have a great collection of Brazilian art, it also has a world class collection of art from around the world, including a really comprehensive selection of French Impressionist painters, from Cezanne to Pissarro, and Monet to Manet. I was in my element swanning around the art gallery and spotting some of my favourite pictures from history, it looks like

that time at art school was noit completely wasted.  Suitably cultured-up, we wandered across the road to a park called “Parque Tenente Siqueira Campos”, which is a recreation of the Atlantic maritime rainforest that existed here before Sao Paulo came into existence. It was a very impressive collections of native trees that formed a natural canopy, serving as a cool refuge from the Brazilian heat. We wandered through this park at our leisure enjoying the unique ‘jungle’ experience in the middle of a busy city, and as this was a Sunday, there were plenty of other locals doing the same.

Hunger was setting in so after a quick consultation with ‘Foursquare’ I found an Argentinean restaurant about a block away and off we trotted. The restaurant was a pretty swanky affair but we soon lowered the tone and set about ordering some beer and very large cuts of meat. When they arrived they looked delicious and just as we were about to start the waiter came by with a side serving of rice, yum, nice, I’ll have me some of that. Just as I was contemplating a second attempt to get stuck in, another waiter came by, this time with some bean side dish, okay, that looks good. This process occurred another two times until our plates were over laden with not only some great meat but a heap of additional sides. Boy, am I enjoying eating out in Sao Paulo.

Monday was ticket collection day so we jumped on the subway and after a swift interchange, we were at the FIFA ticket collection centre, in the Sao Paulo Cultural Centre. At past World Cups we have had to queue for up to 2 hours to collect our tickets, even in South Africa, which was a pretty sweet collection process, we still had to queue for a short while. When we rocked up to the collection centre this time, it was empty, as Yates and I were only people in the place, I swear there were more security people on hand that people collecting tickets. Nice, we were in and out in about 10 minutes, and what was even better is that we each had a fist full of tickets... We still had no luck getting tickets for the opening game of the competition, and are no resigned to having to watch the game in a bar somewhere... What a hardship....

As we now had a ton of time on our hands we decided to head into the centre of the city and go to the Banespa Tower, to take trip to their observation desk and check out the size of this place. After some fannying around to actually find the place, it shouldn’t have been so hard it is the tallest building around, we finally joined the queue to check-in and ride the 2 elevators and climb 2 flights of stairs to get to the 33^rd floor...! It was a bit arduous with all the queuing and waiting around, but when we made it to the top the view was staggering. I had read that Sao Paulo was the 3^rd largest city in the world, and that it is rightly called a ‘Megalopolis’, but the 360 degree view of high-rise building & skyscrapers to the  horizon really nailed it home. By the time we got down from our precarious viewing platform it was time for lunch, which today consisted of a huge buffet where they weight your meals before you ate them. I won the heaviest combination of main & dessert, go figure. After lunch we walked down past where the FIFA Fan Fest was being set up and then to the main Cathedral for a short look around, and then caught the subway home.

We have been hearing TV news articles about trouble on the Sao Paulo metro with strikes and protests, even the use of riot police & tear gas..... We have been travelling around Sao Paulo completely unaffected by these demonstrations, and in fact I was beginning to wonder if there was another Sao Paulo somewhere that they were referring too. Having seen the vastness of this city from the skyscraper, I can now easily imagine that there could be something happening in another part of town that could go unnoticed where we are.... It’s really that big.

On Tuesday, Fiona led us on an expedition across town to check out the recently renovated and re-opened Museum of Immigration, which told of the various phases of immigration to Brazil over the past 3 centuries. This was a bit of local history that none of us had any real understanding or knowledge of before, and the interactive museum housed in Brazils’ version of ‘Ellis Island’ was very interesting and informative. The renovation work had been carried out very sensitively, and the building and its grounds were now very attractive, plus part of the complex was also now being used to help feed local people who were down on their luck. Our luck was just fine so we went back towards Avenue Paulista and found a restaurant specialising in Chicken, and once again stuffed ourselves with some sumptuous food....

Today’s adventure was to the Sao Paulo Museum of Football, which was only a 15-20 minute walk away from our apartment. Thus was the first museum that was truly busy and I guess it’s no real surprise given that the World Cup kicks off right here in this city tomorrow evening. As you can imagine there were fans from all over the world shuffling through the various exhibits, but the Croatians, whose team would be playing Brazil in the opening game tomorrow, stuck out in their bold red and white checked colours, but it was all very friendly and fun. The museum itself is located inside the Pacaembu Stadium, and is spread over 3 floors, and whilst it is a little biased towards Brazil, their world cup history & tradition, it was probably one of the best laid out & interesting museums of its type I have seen anywhere. There was plenty to see, and if we could have read Portuguese we would probably have gotten even more out of it than the 2 hours we did. I would recommend this museum even to those that don’t have a passion for football.

So that just about wraps up what we have been doing out and about in Sao Paulo these past few days. In between the adventures above we have been lazing around our apartments, taking mid afternoon siesta’s, and wandering the local area to find a bar and meal most evenings. We have mostly overcome our lack of being able to speak Portuguese with the use of ‘Google Translate,’ and navigating our way through the labyrinthine city using ‘Google Maps’, and also using technology to get cabs using ‘99Taxis’ and finding restaurants using the ‘Foursquare’ applications on our iPhones. Things have changed beyond belief since Yates & I started coming to the World Cup in 1994.

Tomorrow is the Opening Ceremony & match of the 2014 World Cup, and we have managed to reserve a table at the bar just round the corner, thanks to Google Translate & our new best friend ‘Celberson’ the waiter.  Then it’s on to the city of Fortaleza on the Northern coastline of Brazil, where we see our first game, Uruguay v Costa Rica.