Such a day

We spent good money on an 8 hour tour recommended by the hotel. Neto , an entertaining Brazilian that spoke English.  We covered 5 of the top 10 in Rio. 

Cristo Redentor

Parque Nacional de Tijuca 

monkeys 

jack fruit

Catedral Metropolitana de São Sebastião

Huge will sit 1000 people and very contemporary

The largest favela in Rio

The view from sugar loaf 

Finally the sunset at Arpoador 

Yes we are tired. 

Buildings in Sao Paolo

Architecture reminiscent of Mussolini time, from the 1930

Similar  to the Empire state building 

The Martinelli building, recently restored. The family lived on the top floor.  It is day it was the highest building in SP.

Looking from the Martinelli building,  Gotham City

Sao Paulo pictures

The fish market

the main cathedral finished in 1954, so it's not that old. It is Neolithic, reminiscent of Notre Dame in Paris.  However, in lieu of cherubs, at the arches that is coffee beans, corn and other " commodities"

 Cashew nut fruit

Sugar apple 

Cacao seeds that eventually becomes chocolate

My security guard

Just  few comments about waiters in both BA and SP.  I am not sure  what they are waiting for, not the customers.  Hands down, overall best waiters in the world USA.  For as much as I am in love with the Sofitel in BA, in the morning, most people want coffee, more than once.  Then the check.  Do they want to be paid?  Our table has been cleared of plates, there is no water left, we are NOT smoking.  In fact we are barely talking to each other, glancing around for the waiter to get the check.  What says not ready to leave. And BTW, the universal hand sign for check please is air scribble .  

One more thing before I forget, pretty sure Brazilian food is not any good, really simple, plain but not  in that down home way at all.  I am hesitant to say worse food ever, there was really no dinner or lunch I couldn't wait to have.  Really in BA as well.  However their beef is pretty tasty.  Apparently Brazilian's have a different cow because of the heat and it is known to be not as tasty.  They have to use a brahma cow.  

 

After a disappointing dinner our  first night and overall lack lustre hotel room, I decided that staying at the hotel while Marci  worked is not what Batman would want.  I hand been researching private tours  of Sao Paulo.  We had been warned over and over again about the crime in SP so I was hesitant to go alone.  Plus SP is massive. Portuguese language sounds like mush.  It's not like any Spanish, not Italian  or French . Really communication is a matter of charades

After the hotel breakfast I decided to try out the hotel gym on the top floor of the hotel (21st floor). A far as I could see buildings. Pretty intimidating.  

The front desk, 'concierge like'young man showed me a brochure and upon my review asked him to contact this agency .  

Best luck. Gabriel Kiss ( pronouced Kitsh) was my guide.  He introduced himself and explained a bit of hismpast experiences.  He was 62, same DOB as mine, worked for Colgate for many years in Supply chain.  Born in Hungary, raised in Buenas Aries, married a brazilian women, has 2 grown children, 26, 29. Spoke a ton of languages.  Serendipitous.  

I spoke some about my interests, and off in his air conditioned SUV . I learned so much about Brazil, 7th largest economy , biggest exporter of orange juice and the 13th largest stock exchange in the world.  One of the top exporters of coffee.   Sao Paulo was founded before Colombus arrived to our Americas.

 I saw churches, old buildings that were now abandoned, old buildings that had been restored,  the stock exchange, the fruit market, the fish market, the everything else market.  Here the security sits on tall ladders in the aisles of the stalls.   I saw beggars, homeless, business men, the rich. I saw architecture from 15th century, originally from Jesuits, Benedictine monks, to recent Oscar Niemeyer building.   We walked alot and drove arpund as well.  At many of the places we stopped to visit, they seemed to know him.  

Sao Paulo Monday through Friday has 20 million inhabitants .  Most multinational companies have an office there.  Again massive, the traffic is reminiscent of Rome.  I noted police security stands occasionally on the corners.  

Gabriel told me a few stories  in his guide position.   He has accompaned some CEO's in armoured cars.  Often accompanied with security with guns.  Apparently the Japanese executives prefer transportation in Sao Paolo this way.  Another story was with some executives but in Colombia.  There is fear of kidnapping there.  Apparently his prior employer Colgate utilizes his guide skills often.  

We each shared about our grown children.  He saw that I was emailing Marci.  She had emailed me to say her day was over.  Since we were close to the hotel, he offered to pick her up and show us both Batman Alley.  This incredbile alley of graffiti in SP.  Apparently graffiti is the new underground art there.  Kind of Bansky on steroids 

often whole buildings

Marci thought this was über cool

coincidently we met one of the artists through Marci's work colleguege while at dinner.  her name is Zumi, she is from Argentina  See below

Arriving in Sao Paulo

The hotel was  only 15 minutes from the airport and coincidently we had the same driver from our arrival to BA.   We arrived in plenty of time and attempted to spend the leftover Argentinean  pesos based on  the current recommendations. Dump your pesos.

We arrived in Sao Paulo, a 2 hour flight.  Flying in, below looked like lego land with different size building, massive.  Miles and miles of lego land , different sizes, different colors yes even blue.    You fly over all of this before you finally land.  It is eerie. 

  Customs was easy enough however there was no driver to collect us as arranged prior.  The airport is well known to be mad house. People everywhere 

we made our way the information booth.  Thank god I have a translator on my iPhone.  They acted 

Ike they had never heard a foreign language before.  After some trial and error he called the hotel .  I also I must point out, that he also acted like maybe he had never seen numbers before.  We had to underline the phone number.  

The driver was an hour late, she came running in, apologised in English and we drove towards the city. They  came as a couple and he wore driving gloves  

Tryp  Iguatami

Between the massive amount of skyscrapers , the favelas we saw  and traffic on the way, the grafetti ; I have named Sao Paolo Gotham City.  Think of the Batman movie and how they portray Gotham in the cinema

Palermo Soho

Had lunch with a beer and Gancia. Beer was like Coors, no thanks, didn't finish it.  The Gancia is an aperitif like Apersol

This is the son of Onofrio Pacenza.  He was selling his father's print.  Onofrio born in Buenos Aires on May 6, 1904. He studied architecture and decoration and entered the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1928 he graduated as Professor of Drawing and teaches at the institution, courses in drawing, painting and composition. He also teaches drawing and geometry at the National School of Fine Arts "Manuel Belgrano". Make a study tour to Europe. Between 1930 and 1940 part of the group of modern painters sponsored by the Friends of Art and then, between 1946 and 1952, integrates Friends of Books. In 1960 he was invited to participate in the Sesquicentennial Exposition of the May Revolution.

Above a translation from Wikipedia .  But his son explained this all to us between spanish and English. he was darling

The Latin beauty, can't get enough of Palermo 

More graffiti but in action!

 

Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Buenos Aires)

 This is Buenos Aries Museum of fine art. It contains European and international are for the middle ages to the 20 th century.    They have pieces be Manet, Tolouse-Latrec, Monet, Cezanne  along with room of De Goya,. 

It seemed to me that the collection of  the above artists was maybe their lesser pieces.  I can recognise a Monet, a Degas, Tolouse-Latrecc etc. but none of them had that wow factor that I was accustom to at the other museums. 

 Rodin god of war, Mercury

My orientation to art is Europe such as the French  museums  (eg Louvre)' Italian museums(e.g Uffizi), British museums (the National Gallery) and then the U.S. (de Young, the Getty)  so it might not be a fair comparison.  My interest in art really is more tourism and a fsri amount of Bill Fredlund's class.  I am not art expert but it was interesting observation.  Additonally, I would come upon a piece of art and guess the artist but it would be a Latin artist.  I couldn't interpret if it was a Spanish artist or a Latin American artist but I would recognise 'the school of'. For example I would swear a piece was a Caravaggio or an impressionist and it  would be a Latin artist.  So my guess is that the ' school of' was not limited to Europeans and a few Americans

 This room took my breathe away, both were parents holding their dead sons.  The painting is Bougereau, the sculpture, I did not recognise 

Perfect for a Christmas card

this little wooden medieval Saint had pig.  My research found this is St. Anthony the great, patron saint of pigs!

The MALBA

The contemporary museum , not nearly as edgy as I had anticipated but I am NOT an expert.  I was thinking with the history of political turmoil, crashed economy it would be more statement orientated.  Maybe there is an underground that I'm not aware 

Below are a few that I enjoyed 

Lilliana Porter. These are miniatures; pick axe, sweeping, pulling in net; laborers that their works only widens as there work progresses Born in BA famous for ambiguity and wit.  All of them are to perform colossal tasks

 Payment of the Argentine Foreign Debt to Andy Warhol with corn

Antonio Berni a contemporary fresco painter, associated with Nuevo Realismo, an extension of social realism. His work an also  be seen Pacifico Mall in Buenos Aries

Belèn de Escobar

Today (1/23/14) is about as hot and humid as I've ever experienced.  My iPhone says 97* but with the humidity (40%), I am sure it is hotter.  

Marci left early for meetings so I decided to visit the fitness center.  They had the usual elliptical trainer, stationary bicycle, treadmill.  They also had the new  "power plate". The fitness trainer assisted me.  The concept is a vibrating platform used a exercise equipment (I had read about in the WSJ) .  The base vibrates, about 25-50 times per second; super fast.  This is suppose to tone and strengthen muscles while you perfom a few exercises, squats, arm pulls. The vibrations shorten your workouts.   The trainer suggested only 30 seconds per arm, squats and then finally abs by sitting on it.   She explained it to me in Italian 

The sitting part vibrated all up to my nose however she warned me.  I wondered if this was anything like electric shock therapy.  Maybe the CIA invented this.  It wasn't painful but certainly  like an electric shockish or maybe what electric proding cows into their corrals is like.  It was hard not to bust out laughing.  Hey I'm game and will try it again.  Certainly takes no pain, no gain to a different level.  

I grabbed a taxi later in the day and met Marci at the GOOGLE office.  She wanted to visit her 'offsite' where her event was to be held.

It was in Belèn de Esobar, 40 minutes outside of BA.  Our hotel had called a taxi for me and his english was pretty good.  On the way there he chatted about the traffic, this is BA vacation time for most.  Marci met me and since the taxi driver hadn't left yet, we asked him if he would drive us to this place.  Although he admitted he wasn't sure where it was, if we had a map he would try.  Marci showed him the map on her laptop and said the magic words GOOGLE & he was game.  

Now, bear in mind, in the taxi on the way, I had already vetted him (hotel called him, decent english speaking, nonsmoker, clean cab, named Leonardo Souto, married etc) & I

knew that we needed an honest taxi driver.  So 45 minutes later best friend taxi driver....                             He pointed out various points of interest .  The port, the River Plata, Uruguay across the river.   

In that 45 minutes we saw all that and at least 3-4 polizia had pulled over a few trucks with containers .  I noticed that coming from the airport  as well.  I guess spot inspections for illegal goods I  bet.  This was a toll roads, but we also saw a family of 3 on a motorcycle.  No helmets, toddler of about 3  years in the middle, (baby sandwich!) and when we were off the highway a donkey cart pulling 2 people ( no this was not a sweet little tourist ride.) My mind just spins.  I was thinking how desperate one has to be.  in the  US we are so lucky, we have no idea, we are so naive

Leonardo stayed in the cab during  Marci's visit.  We offered him water and something to eat but he declined .  Still so very hot outside though so upon returning to the hotel the thunder storm started and the torrent of rain.  Just in time.