Na Na Na Na Na Na
On our second day in Brazil, December 30th, we had a day full of tourism throughout areas of Sao Paulo. We started the day with breakfast at our hotel. The breakfast was unique as it was filled with fresh fruits, fresh squeezed fruit juices, sandwich meat, coffee, and cereal. After breakfast we all meet downstairs for a quick meeting on what today was going to be filled with. Today, we were to visit Batman Alley in the Vila Madelena District, then we were to grab lunch, after lunch we took a quick break at the hotel then headed to Paulista Avenue. After Paulista Avenue, we had a couple hours to spend at the hotel then split as a group to grab dinner and enjoy the nightlife in Sao Paulo.
Our first stop of the day was at Batman Alley, where our group observed beautiful murals throughout a long, winding alleyway. The topics of the art included sports, pop-culture, and Brazilian artistic interpretations of famous art pieces. We found it interesting that the Batman Alley area was known as a “hipster” area, and took note of the high-end shops surrounding the district. We then meandered through the surrounding areas to take in more street art and local shops.
During lunch, our tour guides Georgia and Talita took us to a hipster burger place within Vila Madelena in Sao Paulo. They had so many different choices of burgers and even provided different kinds of veggie burgers. Everyone was super satisfied with the burgers and fries. The meat was really juicy and cheesy. All the waiters there were really welcoming. Along with burgers we were able to try the traditional Brazilian soda called Guarana. We loved the vibe there which made the meal more enjoyable. During this break, Talita and Georgia provided us with a Portuguese language lesson. We learned common phrases for thank you, hang loose, delicious, how are you, and many many more. We were able to attempt to use these languages throughout the lunch and even into our next trip on Paulista Avenue.
Paulista Avenue, is an avenue close to our hotel, that is shut down every Sunday for vendors to set up shop and sell unique souvenirs. We were able to spend time here shopping for souvenirs, enjoying live music, and trying fresh fruit juices. We learned that Paulista Avenue shuts down every Sunday for this event and was a shock to us because last time we were on Paulista it was filled with cars. Paulista Avenue has a huge New Year’s Celebration and they were also preparing for that at the time. The street was being set up with a huge stage and restaurant stands were being put up everywhere. After enjoying Paulista Avenue, we headed back to the hotel for a little rest and relaxation and then got ready for dinner.
We were able to eat dinner wherever we would wanted and many groups ended up eating different Italian foods and some even had tacos. After dinner, we headed downtown to learn more about the Samba and nightlife culture in Sao Paulo. Samba is a popular dance we learned about in Brazil and will hopefully be learning later this week from Georgia, one of our tour guides.
