Sao Paulo in Ninety-Six Hours

In hindsight I realise that it was an ambitious list. Clearly it was not going to be possible to do it all, particularly once unforeseen activities got added in! It was, however, a brilliant ninety-six hours, even if some of them unfortunately did have to be spent sleeping.

What I did manage to do:

Great eating (was it even in question?). Thursday night was at Mercadinho on Avenida Consolação in Jardins/Ceqaria Cesar; Friday night at Buttina on Rua João Moura in Pinheiros; Saturday lunch at Fulô, an organic vegetarian place on the corner of Haddock Lobo and Itu (or possibly Jau); Saturday dinner was at a simple but delicious Lebanese place on Pamplona across from the Carrefour; Sunday lunch was at a fair stand in Parque Agua Branca; and Sunday’s afternoon snack was soy ice cream at a sorvetaria on Augusta (going towards the city centre from Paulista). Sadly, Sunday dinner was a stuffed potato (now that’s been years!) at the airport....

See people. Ended up spending five hours at the office moving slowing from one room to the next renewing friendships and catching up on the last fifteen months of news. Five hours! Who would have thought? The rest of my Sampa friends were also around and I managed to see them several times each.

Shop. Spent Saturday morning on Rua 25 de março (right), the local bargain if-it-exists-you-can-buy-it-there shopping strip and Saturday afternoon in and around Jardins the local if-you-have-to-ask-the-price then-you-definitely-can’t-afford it district. Two extremes, Sampa in a nutshell.

Wear my sweaters. While the first day was sweltering hot (read: hotter than Recife hot), Saturday and Sunday were more reasonable (high in the mid twenties) and the nights were definitely cool enough to merit a sweater and light jacket. What a treat!

New Stuff! Visited São Bento church in the City Centre, a small gallery in Vila Madalena which was hosting the quirky Osgêmeos exhibit (right), and Agua Branca park which was hosting the Revelando São Paulo festival, a celebration of rural São Paulo culture. In a One-Country-Many-Brazils moment, I noted that while a celebration of rural culture in Recife would exclusively feature Forró, a particular brand of Brazilian country music, the São Paulo version exclusively featured classical music!

What I didn’t manage to do:

Have brunch at Santo Grão, coffee & sweets at Figueira or visit the Central Market. Ah, a great excuse for next time....