Day 1 - Sao Paulo

It was overcast, but quite humid when we arrived...you could feel it right away. So much for priority tags on our backpacks as they were one of the last ones off the plane. Once we got settled in at our hotel, we thought we'd try and make the most of the day and start our exploration of Sao Paulo. We had been watching the weather reports and it was calling for rain, but we decided to forego our instincts and just head out with no rain coats or umbrella, in fact we didn't even bring an umbrella along on the trip. Lesson here is always follow your instincts and also listen to your mother. My mom warned me before we left that when it rains in Sao Paulo it RAINS in Sao Paulo. So off we went using the heel-toe express in search of Parque Do Ibirapuera before heading off to an area called Jardins and another called Bela Vista. We found a grocery store along the way and decided we'd check it out and see if perhaps we could buy some food for lunch. We were amazed at the selection of fruit and how good it all looked. We got ourselves lunch and head off to the park for a picnic. As we got to our picnic spot, it started to sprinkle a little and then it started to rain a little heavier. We found some cover where others decided to gather as well....and then the sky opened up and it RAINED! We think it rains in Vancouver, well let me tell you, it's nothing like what we experienced today. So here we were, at the park, no rain coats and no umbrella. It wouldn't stop raining. After waiting about 1/2 hour, we decided to heck with it, we'd walk and see if we could find a store that sold umbrellas. I'm not one for walking in the rain without some sort of protection, so I was getting a little annoyed and when I saw a taxi, I flagged it down thinking we could explain where we wanted to go and everything would be alright. Well, the language barrier is a huge challenge. Not many people we have encountered so far speak English and this taxi driver was one of those people. We tried explaining and showing him on the map where we wanted to go. He did understand that we wanted to go shopping, but unfortunately he took us to this upscale shopping mall where we finally found an umbrella but the cheapest one was $195Real. We weren't going to pay that much for a stupid umbrella. To make this long story short, we left there and went back to the area where our hotel is and found another more reasonable shopping mall a couple blocks away and there we bought an umbrella.

OK, that story was long winded. By the time that whole sage ended, we were both getting hungry and we had not made it to the two areas we wanted to go today. It was still raining and we needed to find somewhere to eat. We thought about taking the bus to Jardin, but couldn't really figure out how to get there because the map we have is not a bus map. The bus maps at the bus stops are not overly helpful either. I was feeling a little overwhelmed by all this because we couldn't communicate well and we just couldn't get our bearings in the city. The hotel desk clerk provided a suggestion for dinner and said he would arrange a shuttle bus for us. So, we agreed. We ended up going to a restaurant called Grill Hall, a Brasilian BBQ restaurant, with all you can eat meat and buffet/salad bar. Overall, the food was really good and again because of the language they ended up giving us a little brochure that had a picture of a cow and the various parts of it. This brochure was in all sorts of languages so the servers could just point and we could figure out what it was in English. Very good idea. The servers were very attentive but it was a little overwhelming for me as they hovered by our table. It wasn't that busy when we first got there, but by the time we left around 9pm it was starting to get real busy. Perhaps the Brasilians eat late, like the Europeans? At first we thought the price was a little steep at $80R per person and a little more than we had wanted to pay, but in the end we thought it was a good deal especially with the free shuttle. I tried my first new thing at dinner. As they were bringing around the various different foods, Ziad announced "Oh, chicken hearts". I'm sure the look on my face would have been quite entertaining for anyone to see. Apparently Ziad grew up eating chicken hearts on special occasions, so he was quite excited to see them; me not so much, but I did come around to trying 1/2 of one. They are so tiny to begin with, but the thought of a whole one just didn't sit well with me. It wasn't too bad, kinda tasted like sausage and had the same type of texture. There was an Elvis look-alike two tables from us, guess they're not only in Vegas. That topped off the day after our park experience, where we saw a Zena warrior princess look-alike and a group of what I could only describe as Jedi Knights in training practicing fight moves with foam swords. We also saw some volleyball players, too bad we couldn't join in, with one wearing an Olympic team shirt. Did we see one of the Brasilians men's volleyball team members and not even know it?

That concludes the first day....we're hoping for better weather tomorrow. We found out there is a football (soccer) game on tomorrow and hope to get tickets.