São Paulo Continued

During the daylight on the weekends, I saw a lot of cool things. On many weekends, I walked to Parque Ibirapuera. It is a beautiful park with some great things to see. The first weekend, I went to Liberdade, the Japanese neighborhood. I had been hearing about Liberdade since 2004 or 2005 and so it was one of the first things I saw. I was a little disappointed, because I expected it to be more like Chinatown in NYC. Well, it is in lots of ways. Some of the things I bought for my bookshelf, the only two things I guess, were things I saw in Liberdade. I felt ripped off! :) I saw lots of things there I had seen in Chinatown. But I expected Liberdade to be bustling a lot more. But it actually was more than I thought; I was just there too early in the day. Another time I saw more. The only place in the world where there are more Japanese people than Brazil is Japan. So there are Japanese people all over--in my ward, the law firm, around town, and so forth. It is really fascinating.

Near Liberdade, there are some beautiful cathedrals. I checked those out a few times, went to a few plazas, looked at some bookstores, and so forth on the weekends. It was always really nice. My favorite place was the Museu do Ipiranga. The actual museum is a beautiful building and, unfortunately, I never got to go in because it was on strike the whole month. It is run by the University of São Paulo and a lot of the school's employees have been on strike. But the museum's grounds are amazing. You feel like you are at the Palace of Versailles or something. Maybe not that much, but still very nice! Once I saw a parrot there too. That is the great thing about São Paulo and Rio. You see all these great birds all over, and you don't even have to go looking for them. But this museum is next to a big park where there is a big monument to Brazilian independence and a tomb where Pedro I, I think, is buried.

I had some great meals in São Paulo. When this American lawyer was in town, we went to this steakhouse. It was the rodizio style, like many of you have seen, where they bring the meat to you. This place was really nice and really expensive, and so you know I was eating as much as I could. It was great. We ate late and that caused me to not sleep so well. Especially because I was thirsty from all the meat, and had to wake up early in the morning. This guy from work gave me rides, and Tuesdays were his day to not drive during 7 to 10 am. Each day of the week, certain people can't drive during peak hours. If your license plate ends in 0 or 1, for example, you can't drive between 7 am and 10 am or 5 pm and 8 pm on Monday. It is because of the traffic. But the food was worth it.

I really enjoyed the internship. I learned a lot, met some great people, and feel like I have a better idea of my interests.

One weekend, Matt from my ward in NYC came for business. He is in the bishopric of my ward. It was great to see him because he is a cool guy, and it was fun to do some stuff with him. We went to the temple and ate a ton of pizza on Friday night, and then went all around the city on Saturday. I was really touched by his generosity. He bought me a few meals and I wasn't expecting it. I am always on a super budget here, so the meals fill me up but are never all that good. So for him to pay for some meals was so great and I was very thankful for that. I told him my mom would be so happy, but I forgot to tell her. I hope she reads it here. :) We went all over, saw the museum of art, some other stuff, and had a lot of fun.

Other than that, there really isn't much else to report from São Paulo. I left two weeks ago tomorrow, and came to Rio. I really liked São Paulo, but I am glad I went there before here because Rio really is quite amazing. But São Paulo was great and I am glad I had some good experiences there. Next time I will finally get caught up with this blog.