It’s a long weekend here in Brazil since Oct 12th (Friday) is Children’s day. We were told that most Paulistas (thats what Sao Paulo locals call themselves) prefer to take trips to nearby beach towns on long weekends. We contemplated doing the same, but since I had just arrived, we decided to stay put in Sao Paulo. Turned out to be a great call. It was raining intermittently all across the region, and most beach towns including Rio, and Paraty, where we may have headed, were not spared. Our Brazilian friends, being the amazing hosts they are, made sure we had a fantastic time right here in the city! Here is how our weekend unfolded:
Friday
Onuwa’s assigned entrepreneur, Daniel, invited us over to an authentic home cooked Brazilian lunch. The main dish was a codfish based preparation called “Bacalhau com batata ao forno” 1, but the rest of the items, along with a tofu dish made specifically for me, were vegetarian. After spending some time admiring his swanky condo (the man’s got taste), we dove into this tasty meal, and didn’t stop till we reached a state I refer to as “cow mode”…a state of food induced happiness where one isn’t inclined to make much conversation, and lazily stares into general nothingness. A shot of espresso helped. When we got back to the hotel, we proceeded to the next logical step, sleep.
That evening, we met up with Uma’s colleague from ClearSale, Rachel (pronounced Ha-kel), and her boyfriend, Marcelo. We went to one of the many pubs in the Vila Mariana neighborhood. I had a couple Caipirinha’s, and a shot of Cachaca, which naturally put me in an excellent mood to keep the night going. We then headed to the Kitsch club 2, where a good time was had by all. Thanks Rachel & Marcelo!
Saturday
We decided to slow it down on Saturday. We had a quick lunch at a local padaria (bakery), and did some grocery shopping in the afternoon. In the evening, we headed to the Vila Olimpia shopping (they don’t use the term “mall” here) to have dinner with Anderson, Uma’s colleague from ClearSale, and his wife, Tais. More of the same…extremely friendly and fun loving Brazilian folks! Might this be a trend?
Sunday
Another colleague of Uma at ClearSale, Marcos, armed us with an excellent list of restaurants to go to. This one, “Pe No Parque” 3, is an organic restaurant, which we enjoyed very much. I plan on revisiting, esp. after an afternoon jog.
Finally did something touristy, and visited MASP (Museum of Arts, Sao Paulo). It was pretty good.
We walked along Paulista Ave, which has a slew of high-rise and mid-rise buildings, with a mix of architectural styles. We snapped away at a few modern and post-modern style buildings we liked.
Also saw some cool murals painted along Paulista Ave.
Stopped for a quick coffee before heading back to the hotel. One interesting observation we made was that Paulistas (maybe all Brazilians) like to bathe all their food with Olive oil. It definitely worked on the Pizza this previous Thursday:)
Later that night, we made use of the little kitchenette in the hotel suite, and cooked some Indian comfort food. Obviously, we subjected Onuwa to our humble preparations…he only had good things to say afterwards:)
by Payal
24 Oct 2012 at 08:06
Nice stirring the kadai action!
by Ravi
25 Oct 2012 at 16:26
It was more acting and less doing by me of course;)
by Anu
26 Oct 2012 at 08:14
that sounds like the perfect first weekend in Brazill!