Rio – End of a great trip

So I am writing this back in Chicago. I had a great trip to Brazil and the side trip to Buenos Aires. It is hard to put into words how great of a trip it was. Pictures do most of the talking, so here goes. These are my final pics from Rio – enjoy!

Corcovado

beach view from hotel

Corcovado

In Rio De Janeiro

Just a quick post to say I am in Rio De Janeiro now for 4 days. Had a quick flight. About to hit the pool and beach, so see ya!

Hotel Pool

The Beach

Mountains in the Background

Sao Paulo – Week 2 Day 3

Wednesday came and went. It was a very fun day. Although we had six hours of class, the best thing about the day was what we did at night. We attended a big futbol game between Sao Paulo’s Corinthians and the Rio Vasco team.

It was a late game that didn’t start until about 9:50pm local time. We ended up leaving at about 7:30 so we could take in the pre-game festivities. There were quite a bit of them. It was tailgating taken to the extreme. From beer on the street to sausage on a stick and cheese on a stick, we had the pick of everything we could have wanted pre-game.

Pre-game fun with the crowd

Some of decided to buy some cheap souveniers. I bought a hat and a flag. Both were less than US$15.

Kyle and Me (with Michael in the back) sporting our new hats

We watched the game and really got into how the crowd gets into these games. It is amazing. I have to say, the footall and baseball games would be much more fun if they were as crazy as this was.

Banner covering an entire corner of the stadium

The game ended in a 0-0 tie, however due to some weird playoff rules, Corinthians win and go on to the finals of the Brasil do Cupo (Brazilian Cup)

Futbol Game

Futbol Game

Sao Paulo – Week 2 Day 2

Today was a class and school work day. As we approach the end of our class, we have a couple of papers and a presentation to prepare for on Friday. We took a class in Finance and another one in Marketing. These classes are interesting in getting the perspective on these business processes in Brazil.

For dinner, we went to a simple diner around the corner from our hotel. A couple people ended up ordering pizzas – one with cheese and one ended up coming with tuna on top. That tuna was a surprise. I had a hamburger with cheese and bacon. One thing about the bacon here, it is very thick. It is not the thinly sliced pieces of bacon that we have in the United States.

After the dinner, we headed back towards our hotel. A couplf of us tried to get some corn. Corn has become the dessert on the street. You can get sweet popcorn, regular popcorn or just corn on the cob that is shaved off into a dish. They pour a ton of salt on this kernel corn and then put a big spoonful of butter on top. It is very good.

Following this, we just went back to the hotel for a relaxing night. We played some euchre and just relaxed. It was a nice night. I was still recovering from my attempt to catch a cold. I took some more of my Tylenol and passed out and slept a good 8 hours.

A nice day.

Sao Paulo – Week 2 Day 1

So today we were back to school and class. Today was also the first day that I really didn’t feel well. At first I thought it was allergies acting up. However, I seemed to get worse and worse as the day went on. I think I was trying to catch a cold. Luckily I had some cold and allergy medication buried in my luggage.

During the day, we went on a tour of Natura. Natura is simply the Avon of South America. They have production facilities throughout Brazil. Their big push today is to be sustainable in products and resources that they use to make their products.

Here are some pictures of Natura. View more by clicking here.

Natura

Natura

Workers stretching before their shift

After the tour, we headed back to the hotel. I was continuing to feel worse and worse. After dinner, I took some Tylenol Cold Nighttime medicine and went to sleep.

Back in Sao Paulo

Sunday was a travel and rest day. I returned to Sao Paulo, Brazil from my quick trip over to Buenos Aires. I did not do too much but fly for 3 hours, sleep, then recover.

I did find a few other pics of Sao Paulo during the day and night-time that I had taken but not posted, so here are a few of them. Enjoy.

Cloudy Day

Cloudy Day

Night in Sao Paulo

Buenos Aires – Day Two (Day of Rain)

Well, I guess all good things had to come to an end. After 6 great days of weather, I finally had a day of rain. This made it difficult to actually get out and run around and see the sights. Even with this rain, I was able to see some things around the city. Most disappointing though was I was unable to get out to Palermo and see the Japanese Garden, Zoo and Botanical Gardens. I guess I will just have to get back to BA in the future!

What I did spend a lot of time doing was walking around the Cementario de la Recoleta. This cemetary is famous for all of the political leaders and military leaders that are buried here. Of course, the most famous is Evita Peron.

Evita Peron

There was a tremendous amount of architecture within the cemetary. I do not know how to really describe everything that I saw. Here are a couple pictures, but I recommend you click here and check out the gallery of all of the pics.

Cementerio de la Recoleta

Cementerio de la Recoleta

In between the storms, I was able to get a couple other things visited. I paid a trip back to Plaza de Congreso in order to see Rodin’s Thinker.

Rodin's Thinker

I also took a closer look at the Obelisco since I limited my movement due to the weather.

Obelisco

One last thing that I saw was this cool bus that was completely covered in graffiti. Cool sight.

Graffiti Bus

Well, that was Buenos Aires in 1.5 days. It definitely makes me want to come back and stay for a week or so. There is so much to see and do. I look forward to my next real vacation down here. Tomorrow it is back to Sao Paulo – bright and early!

Buenos Aires – Day One

So today was the day we went on our weekend trips. We started VERY early this morning. It was about 4:30a.m. when we started working ourselves out of bed. We had to leave for the airport at about 5:30 so we could make early flights. A large group left Thursday night with the rest leaving some time on Friday.

I decided a month or so ago that I was going to Buenos Aires this weekend.I did this because I am staying after the classes are done and heading to Rio. Rio is where everyone else in the group headed for this weekend.

Welcome to Argentina

I arrived in Buenos Aires after a three hour flight on TAM airlines. If you ever get the chance, fly TAM. I have to say it was one of the most interesting flights I have flown on – in a good way. Before the flight, they provided us with lip balm, ear plugs and eye covers so that we could sleep. Then everyone on the plane got a hot towel. We were served drinks and dinner as well. It is amazing what we have lost in the United States with the airlines trying to scrap every dime.

I have to make a quick recommendation for travelers. I used Lonely Planet’s Buenos Aires Encounter book to plan my trip. It is a smaller book that provides the main things to see in each of Buenos Aires’ neighborhoods. It has been great and I have seen so much already on my first day of the trip.

One thing I found out after setting out on my journey of the neighborhoods was how easy and quick it was to walk around the city. I know I am missing a large part of the city and only seeing the tourist areas, but I have been amazed at the amount of distance I covered today in such a short time.

My first stop was the Plaza de Congresso. Here I saw the Palacio de Congresso. It was modeled on the US Congress building as you can see by the pictures.

Palacio de Congresso

I then proceeded to cross the Ave de 9 of Julio. This street has at least 16 lanes across. At the mid-point of the street is a huge Obelisco.

Obelisco on the Ave 9 of Julio

After this, I headed toward the Plaza de Mayo.

Plaze de Mayo

The Plaza is famous for its protests. In fact, there were protesters hanging out in the plaza today.

Protesters

But another famous thing about this Plaza was the Casa Rosada. This is the Presidential home of Buenos Aires that is just like the White House.

Casa Rosada

I then headed down Defensa which is known as a student trendy area. This is also known for its little markets selling second hand and retro items. These were really cool to look back into the past. One thing that was interesting was they were re-working the road. In fact, they are manually placing every brick into the ground for the road. A time consuming but awesome way of keeping the city the way it is.

Street Work

Next I walked up Defensa which turned into Reconquista north of the Plaza de Mayo. This road is very trendy and upscale. A lot of high end shopping and banking is done here. The street is very up to date in comparison to the South side of Plaza de Mayo.

Reconquista

My final stop for pictures was at Plaza San Martin in the neighborhood of Retiro. In this Plaza there is a 76m tower called the Monumental Torre (Torre de los Ingleses). It was a donation but the city’s British community in 1916. Apparently it was then a bombing target during the Falklands War in 1982 against Britain.

Monumental Torre

Like I just mentioned, there was the Falklands War against Britain. Also here, there is a monument to those who died in this war. It was guarded by two guards standing there. It was very interesting.

Falklands War Memorial

After all of this sight seeing, I ended up walking for quite a while looking at the various shopping malls around the different neighborhoods that were on my way back to my hotel. It was great to see the kinds of items they were selling. Most of these little malls were just selling retro and vintage clothing – second hand clothes. Mixed in were the regular retail establishments that we could expect to see.

I ended my journey shortly after sunset here. The weather was great as it warmed up in the day. I also ran across my first protest. This was about two blocks from my hotel. It was students out in the street blocking half of the road. It seemed that the police did not care too much and were redirecting traffic around them. Several things I have read indicated that many protests just start up and happen at random times.

Tomorrow’s conclusion to Buenos Aires: Rodin’s Thinker, Cemetario de la Recolata, some shopping and maybe journey into the Palermo neighborhood to the Japanese gardens at Jardin Japonese, zoo and botanical gardens. If I accomplish all of that, it will be a good trip.

There are lots of pictures from today. I recommend looking at them by clicking here.

Sao Paulo – Day Four

View pictures for this day

Today was sort of a short day for information and pictures. We had three main things going on during the day:

• Tour of Brasilata
• Class on Social issues in Brazil
• Dinner at a local eatery

Brasilata is a can manufacturer. They are headquarted in Sao Paulo with a couple other facilities in the country. Doesn’t really sound exciting, but it isn’t that bad. It was cool to have a discussion with a real company in Brazil and how they are doing business. They are really into having employees feel that they are part of the company.

Brasilata makes cans....lots of them

Following this, we had our lunch break which was followed by our class that dealt with society in Brazil. It was interesting to learn about the educational system and how it is free to those that can get in, however to get in you have to take a test to determine if you make it in or not.

For dinner, we went to a new neighborhood that we hadn’t been in before. This one had us confused since we were use to going a certain way on the Metro. So when we got on after the first transfer to a new line, we eneded up going in the wrong direction. This was noticed right away and so it only cost us one stop.

Once we got off the train, we weren’t excactly sure where we were at. We had an address to the restaurant we were going , but didn’t exactly know where it was. We ended up asking this lady right outside of the Metro station. She was very nice and polite and even spoke English. She pointed us in the direction and told us where to go. The instructions she gave us actually were not correct. What was amazing was that she ended up finding us down the street to correct herself and show us where the restaurant was. I have to say I was very impressed. I would have NEVER expected that from anyone, and know that would not happen in Chicago.

We all had a great dinner, although it seemed that Michael ended up eating the same thing he had for lunch.

It was a short night. We were all getting ready for our weekend trips. Everyone except for me was heading to Rio for the weekend. I am heading to Buenos Aires for the weekend instead.

View pictures from today

Sao Paulo – Day Three

This was my relaxing day – sort of. We started of with the basic breakfast – so I won’t go into that again. Class started at about 8:30 in the morning. We had a political, social and economic discussion on Brazil. Here we learned the many sides of Brazilian social life, politics and how the economics of Brazil are felt throughout the society.

Getting ready to head out for drinks and futbol

A group of us watched the Champions League finals futbol game between Barcelona and Manchester United at a local little bar/eatery near our hotel. We had tons of beer and some interesting food. I had some pizza that was made with corn, ham and eggs in it. It did not have any tomato sauce or any other ingredients that you would expect.

Pizza at the local store

Also, one person decided to order the national dish of Brazil: Feijoada. This is simply beans, rice and meat. In this case, we asked the boy that was our server which parts of the pig were in the dish. He said it was the ears, nose, feet and ass. It was quite humorous. It was cooked very deeply so that it really didn’t have a bad taste and was very tender.

pig parts - Feijoada

After the nine of us drank nine beers, we decided to go get some street corn. This is simply corn on the cob that is boiled on the street. The vendor then strips the kernels off the cob and provides it to you in a dish. He then adds salt and butter. It is very good and at only R$2, it was a good and quick purchase.

We then broke up into smaller groups and decided to head into a couple of different shopping malls. Some people were looking for sandals, getting massages, or like myself – searching for a small English – Portuguese dictionary. We ended up finding a huge bookstore and after searching through the entire store located the travel language section. It was odd to purchase a translation dictionary for English in Brazil. However, it was perfect. It will help me out tremendously over the next week and a half.

At this point, I ended up heading back to the hotel. I started to read over the dictionary just getting myself familiar with the book and trying to learn some words. I found myself falling asleep and getting a nice little power nap on the couch in the hotel room. After I woke up an hour or so later, I started to plan my weekend excursion.

I am heading to Buenos Aires this weekend. All others in the group are heading to Rio de Janeiro. I am heading to Rio at the end of the two weeks in Sao Paulo and so decided to do something different. I had purchased a Lonely Planet book on Buenos Aires prior to leaving Chicago. It has a lot to do and see. It also has a great day trip and three day trip itinerary that you can use as a guide to seeing the big sites. I looked through this and mapped out my journey for the 2 days I am there.

At about midnight, the others ended up returning to the hotel and we chatted for about an hour prior to heading to bed. It was another busy day but also a bit relaxing at the end. I will catch up on the craziness this weekend when I am trying to see everything in Buenos Aires that I can.