Brazil Trip

Well, we made it back safely.  It was quite an adventure.  I'll start with the flight to Brazil.  Since we flew standby, we were seated in the only open seats available on the way there.  These just happened to be in first class.  I've flown first class before, but never international.  It was kind of incredible.

The seats each had their own tv screen, reading light, electrical outlet, and they reclined until they were completely flat.

We were served a 4 course dinner and the food was really pretty good.

These are the perks of flying standby.  But I should tell you before you get too jealous, that Ryan and his parents got stranded in the airport for two days trying to make it back.  Luckily we got me a ticket home so I went back on time, although, I did have to ride in coach.  Now that I've seen first class, I've been ruined.

When we first got to Sao Paulo, we picked up our rental car and drove to the center of the city.  Driving in Sao Paulo was really very exciting.  We almost got killed like 5 times in the first 10 minutes, but after that Ryan got a little more used to the "culture" and we were driving as crazy as the rest of them.  We turned right from the middle lane a couple times, and drove on the shoulder in a particularly nasty back up.  But hey, everyone else was doing it.  

We drove by one of Ryan's areas and stopped by the church to use the bathroom.  The missionaries were there playing basketball for P day so we stopped to talk to them for a while.  I think they were excited to get to speak English and see some Americans.  After that we went back to the hotel and rested up after our exhausting 15 hours of flying, and 1 hour of driving the streets of Sao Paulo.

The next day we toured the center of the city.  We saw the Luz train station.

Next we walked through Jardim da Luz, which was this really cool garden that had some art pieces throughout it.  

It also had really cool trees.

The police were patrolling the park on horses.  Pretty much everywhere we went there were police out patrolling the streets.  It was kind of comforting.

Here's Ryan checking the map.

Next we walked to the municipal market.  This was the view from a bridge on the way there.

The municipal market had a ton of vendors selling meats, and fruit, and spices.  Some of the meat displays were kind of nasty, but overall is was really cool.

 The fruit displays were my favorite.  I ate so much fruit in Brazil and it was all so delicious and ripe.  I will definitely miss that.

After the market, we went to this street called the 25th of March.  There were just a bunch of little shops and street vendors.  There were so many people everywhere.  And some of the streets that we walked on were really steep as you can see in this one.

Next we went to this bank that's the tallest building in the city.  They do tours to the top where you can look out across the city on all sides.  Even on a clear day they say you can't see the end of the skyscrapers on either side.  Here's a panoramic view.

And here's this picture of us at the top.  I know you've already seen it, but I think we look so cute!

Also, my camera has this cool effect that it does called miniature effect.  Check out what Sao Paulo looks like in miniature mode.

It looks like it's made out of Lego's or something.  Sorry, that doesn't really have anything to do with the trip but I thought it was funny.

Next we went to the Se Cathedral.  Here is the view from the top of the bank.

And here is the view from the front.  That short pillar thing in front of the cathedral is also the center of the city.

The inside was really pretty too.

Then we headed back to the hotel and had a late lunch.  We ate pretty much every meal in the concierge lounge.  It was free and it had this awesome view of the city.

We checked out the temple that night (you already saw that picture) and found a restaurant close by for the wedding luncheon the next day.  I'll wait to do the wedding pictures in another post.  Overall, I really liked Sao Paulo.  I mean it was crowded and dirty and had a lot of graffiti, but there were a lot of interesting places and old beautiful buildings to see.  Next time I go somewhere foreign, I'm going to try to learn a few more words first.  I only knew how to say "thank you", "excuse me", and "please".  At least I was polite.