I arrived on Friday January 11th; the plane left Buenos Aires about an hour late - typical.
I arrange for someone to pick me up from the airport as I heard the airport is not so close to the city and a taxi can be a bit costly. Lino met me at the airport and we drove back into the city; at first traffic was not bad; but when we got to Paulista street in the heart of Sao Paulo, it slowed down quite a bit. It looks very modern here with all the tall buildings and glass and like many big cities in the world. The bus network looks quite modern in comparison to Buenos Aires; the buses in Bs As are privately run and in and various different states of condition; you dod see some smoke belching behemoths on the road there. Driving around Sao Paulo the city looks fairly well kept; many of the buildings look they were built in the last fifty years; some favelas were pointed out to me. A few people mentioned how the river here is quite polluted and can really stink on a hot day; the government says that want to clean it up like the Thames in London was but so far has anything been done?
I took a nap as I had not really slept the night before; I got the airport at about 4:30 in the morning to catch my flight; for International flights you are asked to get the airport two and half hours before the flight is to leave.
I was staying in apartment with Rodrigo; originally, I was going to stay with his sister Mari but she already had someone staying with her. I had made contact with Mari from a posting on the "Thorn Tree" forum on the Lonely planet web-site.
Later that night I met Rodrigo and Mari's family and had Sabbath with them and there was a great amount of food. I had never been to Sabbath meal before and here I was going to one in Brazil. The fish was very good. Their father had recently returned from Israel and he was showing everyone the photos. He has a really impressive house kind of a bungalow style house and they have 3 dogs and a parrot. The parrot started talking and I was told the parrot bites; so I did not get too close to his cage; he did seem to like having some attention and reacting when people paid him attention. I did wonder about him being in a cage all the time. Birds like parrots can be very social animals and many live in flocks. We then went for a drive and were going to check out a Samba rehearsal but it was too busy to hard to find a parking spot. We then met some of Rodrigo's friends; two of his friends were moving out of the city; so it was a going away drinks. It was a group of friends who knew each other from university.
On Saturday the 12th, I met with Junia and her family: Leonel & Sofia. Junia I had met some years ago when she was living in London; so had not seen each other in what seems like 6 years or longer. Sofia is so cute at 4 years old. We went to a very good restaurant in Villa Magdalega called "Pitanga"; it was buffet style and I was really impressed with the quality and variety of dishes.
After lunch we went to a kind if flea market where you can buy art, curios and vintage items in at Praça Benedito Calixto in Pinheiros. I saw some really clever artwork that was based on the Brazilian flag; I would have bought one but they would have been to big to add my luggage. Before leaving, Argentina I was quite ruthless and getting rid of things that I no longer needed.
I later met Ben W. I know Ben's brother Mark and this the first time we met. We went out for Sushi near where he lives in heart of the town there is a street of restaurants; It was called Daisho and when we left there was a torrential downpour; I guess I should not be surprised as this here I was in a semitropical region. We got a taxi and i had the address of the apartment but the driver did not know the street; it is a side street after all; I had to call Mari long distance using my UK phone; it took a little while to get there and the driver was very friendly and was speaking Portuguese with me; I understood some of what he was saying. At the end he was saying something like "pi canya" when we were just near the apartment.
I tried Cashew juice for the first time while here and it was quite good; why don't we have it in the UK? Maybe the juice does not travel well?
It is now Sunday January 13th. In the morning, I heard some squawking and looked outside across the street there was a green parrot sitting in the top of a tree; I called to it and it seemed to notice me; I was telling the bird to "come closer" and shortly after he flew off and it turns out there was another parrot who I did not see in the tree until they both flew away. I later told Rodrigo and showed him the photo; he was surprised he had not seen any parrots before in the area.
I have been listening to Portuguese and I am definitely understanding some words here & there. It is, of course, similar to Spanish and I find myself remembering the few Portuguese words I 'knew' from being in Portugal with a friend in 2006.