Sao Paulo in Pictures--Part 1

WARNING: There are a TON of pics that are in this post and I assume will be in the next as well. So sit back, relax and enjoy a tour of Sao Paulo! And I didn't end up taking my new camera because I felt nervous about it and it turns out that it was a good thing that I didn't because we already stood out like a sore thumb. So these are all taken with my Canon Powershot A95 and I think that bad boy didn't let me down.

We walked a lot and after riding in the car with Tyson's dad driving  I am sure now I know why walking is the main mode of transportation (his driving wasn't bad, it was all the other crazies). It was crazy and I am sure there are nail indentations left in the seats of our rental all from me! I even found a gray hair in my head the day after we returned and I swear that it was from kids and old age the driving in Sao Paulo! The traffic and lack of road rules in Sao Paulo made me miss downtown Atlanta traffic! :) Pedestrians have no right of way. You have to watch out for the cars not the other way around and motorcycles will honk and zoom right by you going faster than traffic and squeezing between vehicles that are already too close for comfort. YIKES, I know! :)




This is the view from our Hotel window. This is not the center of the city. We are almost on the outer rim, but every where you looked there were skyscrapers. It was and is a HUGE city!



Here are some pics from our walking adventures. I LOVE old doors and had to get a nice pic of some that I thought looked picturesque! I also have to say that the thing I looked forward to the most about this trip (aside from a break from kids and hubby's school) is the architecture. Ever since I was a little girl I have LOVED it all! The buildings were packed so tightly together and had multi levels stacked on top of each other. They put the house frames up, then brick it with a red brick, usually put stucco on the outside and then paint it. The bottom right picture, in the above collage, shows the red brick. Either the people here are too poor to do more than that or these are new construction.

All their sidewalks are tiled (it'd be fun to put the design together) and it is called, are you ready for this, parlay-lily-peepee-doo! No joke that is the name...and my kids LOVE it! It still cracks me up! :) If they have to replace some of the tiles, they just dig out the tiles and put new ones in. Pretty neat and is probably more efficient in the end!

The pic of the car is what most homes had right in their front yards...a small garage or parking area gated off. Also the upper right hand corner pic is of a soccer stadium, but every time we drove by we said it was their Quidditch field.



This was our first trek into one of the downtown sections and what we first saw after coming out from underground on the metro (subway). I was fine with being here until I saw this, then I felt the culture shock start, but it didn't take long before I loved the newness of it all, although I am not one for cities I still enjoyed myself. And yes that is a McDonald's...one of many that we saw!



They have a very eclectic style in all their buildings. Modern, Greek, French, German, Italian, Spanish and I am sure if I really sat down and thought about it I would find some more, but it was amazing!




I LOVE that they are so bold and use color on their buildings. Though the funny thing about their city, to me because of my American view on what is clean and unclean, is that you can have beautifully old and worn buildings that are painted here and there like the one in the pic above, but then a few buildings down, there will be graffiti on another. To them graffiti is art while to us it means...bad part of town. So the entire time I felt that almost everywhere I went was unsafe because of the appearance of the area. I had to keep reminding myself that it was art. :)









If you look at the buildings in the back of the above picture, you will see that the buildings are built rather close to one another. The neat french styled building in the far corner has no view out those windows other than more building. They really know how to cram in tight spaces here.




Let me just say that they skies were GORGEOUS! Always blue with some awesome clouds here and there. Some days more clouds than others, but always beautiful!



This was one of the poorer sides of town that we drove by on our way to Santos to go visit the beach.




This was one of my favorite buildings in the Japanese section of the city and it is a police station.




Here is the gate around the police station. As a matter of fact all the homes have high walls and/or gates around them with razor sharp glass broken and sticking straight up, sharp decorative tops or some form of protection to keep people from climbing them and breaking in because thievery is their main crime here.




This is the closer view of the inside of a brazilian home. Right past that garage area and opened door is a courtyard that leads to another small building that has a few rooms in it. Kind of like the mother in law apartments. When my father in law was a missionary this was where they would live. The main house is up front as seen in the picture below.









Some more homes.




Awesome looking telephone booths! I love the green! My father in law says they used to be orange...thank you for change.




It was fun to go inside this cathedral and I wish I could have taken some pictures inside, but there was a sign posted that said "No Cameras" and although several others were taking pictures, I refrained out of  fear that as an American I would be singled out and get into trouble  respect. :)