days 1-3

Day 1 - Tori and I were miraculously able to meet up in Sao Paulo with nothing more than a few thrown-together plans via facebook. I was so excited I screamed. After settling, we pretended to make plans online for a while, then got dinner. In my rampant quest for sushi, I led Tori to Little Japan, not the best neighborhood at night, we found out. The restaurant the guide book recommended was no where to be found so we ended up in the Brazilian version of Mai Lai Wah.

Day 2 - All the touristy stuff we could pack into a day including a 3-hour walking tour where we saw unbelievable graffiti and tons of churches, some of which even had whores soliciting out front. Tori tripped on a rock and pulled my hair to catch her fall. It was hilarious. Since I´m obsessed with going up, I forced Tori (who later told me she´s scared of heights) to go to the top of the tallest vantage point of the city and I am unable to explain how massive Sao Paulo is. The photos do not even do it justce. Apparently, Sao Paulo has the most helicopter traffic of any city in the world because the rich use them to get around. They even have helicopter-sharing, for the bargain price of $40,000 anually.
We saw about a dozen in a span of less than 5 minutes.

At night, I tricked Tori into going to an expensive sushi restaurant. When we got the $1oo bill, she made me promise to not lie to her for the rest of the trip. Afterwards, we went to an expat bar. We should have stayed away because the only Phillies game I was able to watch since I´ve been here was a disaster.


Day 3 - First bus trip, 6 hours, not too bad for me, pretty bad for Tori as she left half her clothes in the overhead. We are now in a hostel perched high above in the hills with a breath-taking view of Rio de Janeiro and about to meet the famous Spence, a good friend of non other than Brian Sirhal.

Before parting, a few more remarks about Brazil. A fascinating mix of beauty and squallor, the country is infamous for the grand inequality of classes (think gypsies with 3 kids begging, helicopters). Brazilians don´t have a specific look, so it´s a bit odd to see black people, Asian people, German people and every other kind of people speaking Portugese. The juice is the ubiquitous and delicious. They use fruits I´ve never even heard of and every time I just point to some word that has x´s and ç´s in it and I get a wonderful, cold surprise. I even drank straight from a coconut.