What's a Paulista?

What's a Paulista you ask?  It's someone who was born in Sao Paulo.  So as I mentioned before, Rio was our vacation destination and Sao Paulo was for working (at least for BK- I was on vacation the whole time).  If I had to come up with one word to describe Sao Paulo it would be: TRAFFIC.  There is constant traffic, all the time, all over the city!

Sao Paulo literally goes on forever- skyscrapers and building as far as you can see.  It's a city of 18 million (estimates from Paulistas were all over the board) and is the financial capital of South America.

As I mentioned, BK was there for business, but before he started working we had the chance to have another English-speaking city tour and have a great dinner at Skye Bar with a colleague of BK's (named one of the best in the world by Yahoo Travel!).  Luckily, Sao Paulo is the gastronomic center of South America as well, so we had some great food too.

My days were pretty non-eventful when BK was working, but I did get out and wander around various parts of the city.  Of course, because of the traffic I couldn't really get anywhere until after 10.  I saw a great exhibit of Brazilian photographers at the MASP and had lots of sushi.  Another random fact: Sao Paulo has the largest Japanese population outside of Japan.  Who knew?

We had a great time over the last weekend.  The same colleague of BK's was kind enough to show us around on Saturday and let us spend time with his family.  We went to Ibirapuera Park, a huge green space in the middle of Sao Paulo (think Central Park) and had one of our favorite meals.  Bar do Juarez was great- we grilled meat and fish at the table and the waiters bring chopp to each table.

CHOPP- it deserves its own space.  Chopp (pronounces Shop, sort of) is draft beer in Brazil.  It is super cold and served in small glasses so it stays cold.  The grid below is how they keep track of how many chopps you've had.  Seriously, if you turn your head for a second, all the sudden you have a new chopp!

Lastly, we found the best bar game ever!  It's really simple, a dice game, but of course you can gamble on it too.  The goal is to get all of the numbers down through either one die or both dice.  You go out if you roll a combination you already have, but you automatically win if you get all nine numbers down (surprisingly hard).  We did a lot of first to five wins and things like that.  I have a strategy, but I'm not sharing!

My advice: head to Brazil if you ever get the chance.  It's a great place to experience!