Hey! It has been a while so I thought I would update you all on whats been happening here over the past few days. We have been organising things like Andre's drivers license renewal and obtaining his degree certificate, so lots of driving around! But it is has been very interesting seeing Andre's university and a massive building where you can get all your documents in one place to save time. Leandros car broke down outside a photo shop! Lucky it was in a good area, Leandro fiddled with some stuff under the hood and eventually it started again (of course after we had arranged a tow truck and someone to pick us up!). We think it may have been dodgy petrol stuffing the motor up a bit.
That night we had Pizza Rodizio (which means as much as you can eat) and it was only $14.90 each! They came around with huge pizzas for us to choose slices from and also had a delicious dessert pizza with heaps of bananas and chocolate! YUMMMMMMM
One night Andre took me shopping to a very expensive shopping centre in Sao Paulo. It was really beautiful but I think I will save buying expensive things until the end of the trip if I have money left! There is a brand of jeans over here called Colcci I thik, gisele bundchen models for them, very sexy. The jeans were about $259 real which is under $200 australian which is ok, but you can also get jeans here for $15! So I might wait a bit. There is also a brand of clothing called Totem, which we have a bit of here in Australia, they are based in Rio and they have such beautiful prints on skirts and dresses etc. Check out their website, I think it is www.totem.com.br.
Arleide has been cooking all sorts of yummy things for us like Lasange, fish, chicken and she is so sweet she has been making sure there are vegies for me as well! She also made a little bread called chuvas (rain) in the morning which is a bit like ollie-bons (not sure of the spelling but that dutch sweet like doughnuts).
We went to visit Andre's friends at a bboy/hip hop class. One of the boys he used to teach is now teaching the class. It was heaps of fun, I got lots of video! The classes were held at someones house and afterwards everyone was invited for some pasta and drinks. We were there talking and eating till after midnight!
So today we went shopping in an area of Sao Paulo that has a lot of factory direct clothing, underwear etc. Leandro was so sweet driving us there and shopping with us, it took a while to get there because the traffic was really bad! There were so many shops and so many things were very cheap, but a lot of it was asian imports so I didn't buy much but it was very interesting to see it all! We tried some sweet fried coconut for $1 and some other sweet coconut slice type thing for $1. It was really delicious, dad you would love it! I think you would too grandpa - i remember you really like coconut ice sweets! It is a pity I can't bring back any of this yummy food, I think I will really miss it when I get back to Oz! But I might be able to bring back things like lollies, and tea/coffee etc.
Tonight we went to visit some of Andre's bboy friends that live in the favela. It was really interesting to see this side of town, They build their own houses and steal electricity and water by cutting into the mains supply. There are heaps of cats and dogs everywhere and when we entered one area Andre had to flash his lights and then turn them off to let the drug dealers know that it was ok that he was there. Their houses were quite rundown, but you can see that some people still had pride in their houses, painting them bright colours. The children I met at the second hosue were so sweet! Andre bought along some books to show his friends and the kids were so excited to look through them! They were so sweet and friendly. I took a few pictures of the area but we will go back during the day so Andre can get some photos with his friends.
We were going to go to a place to dance 'forro' but by the time we got home we were so tired we crashed! Maybe another day!
