Day 2 - Sao Paulo

Well today we were prepared for rain and well....we got sunshine, which we weren't prepared for. You'd think we were novice travelers or something. We decided to take the bus to Praca da Se today. This is an old part of Sao Paulo. There we found the Catedral Metropolitana which was completed in 1954. We went inside and found Easter Mass taking place, so we sat down and watched for a bit but didn't understand a word. The square with the cathedral was quite nice, though it really hit me that there is a high rate of poverty here. There were people sleeping on the streets everywhere. I think there is a really large gap between the rich and poor here.

A lot of places were closed today with it being Sunday. We tried finding Solar da Marquesa de Santos which is a museum situated in an eighteenth-century manor house. We couldn't find it, probably because it was closed and ended up going to a juice bar and buying a fresh mango smoothie type drink instead. It was extremely good and refreshing in the hot sun. We just ended up walking around and looking at the buildings because nothing was open. Sao Paulo is a mixture of old and new buildings with many high-rises and skyscrapers.

We ran into a local who spoke English and she suggested we head to an area called Luz. This area was not one we planned to visit as our guide book describes it as an area that has fallen on hard times and is now a red-light district. But our local said that there is a beautiful park there, called Parque da Luz, worth checking out. So we hopped on the metro to Luz. She was definitely right about the park. It was quite nice and located right next to the Luz train/metro station, which was also quite nice. We did notice that the area did look like it had gone through some tough times, but that some revitalization was going on as well. Parque da Luz was Sao Paulo's first public garden and has quite a few bandstands and ponds in there. We saw some fish and a turtle in one of the ponds. As we were making our way back to the metro station so we could head back to the hotel to get ready for the football game, we stopped and listened to a couple locals sitting on a bench singing and playing guitar. They were quite good and if we had more time, I would have liked to stayed awhile longer a listen. But we really wanted to get to the football game, so off we went. Next up our football game experience.....