Our Cup of Coffey: Brazil

This city.

It'll always have such a special place in my heart. A congested, smelly place, yet one associated with love, family, and friends, that's for sure. It is completely different being in Brazil as an adult this time around instead of a child or teen. I see, understand, and notice things about the culture and country much more than I ever did before. Did you know São Paulo is the 12th largest city in the world?? It's massive. This picture doesn't do justice. When on a plane, if you look out one side of the plane it looks like this and you think, "Wow! That's so much city!". And then you look out the other side and it looks just the same and you can hardly believe the amount of city you see. The place is enormous! McKay says São Paulo is Sim City on steroids.

We spent a day doing typical tourist things. We visited the giant train station, walked around down town, braved 25th of March street, and went to the Cathedral down town just in time for Mass! 25th of March street (Vinte Cinco de Março) is the shopping street of all shopping streets. It's incredibly packed and half the sellers don't have licences. Things get crazy. I remember coming to this place as a kid and my mom wouldn't let go of our hands no matter what, it's incredibly crowded! I don't know how she managed to make it out alive with all 4 children and all our belongings. haha. Here's an aerial shot I found on the internet of what a typical day on Vinte Cinco looks like. Hold tight to your wallet!

Here's the cathedral we visited.

Here are some pictures of the other fun things we saw and did around São Paulo!
This is a painted manhole we walked past several times. Actually, there's a lot of painted things and graffiti in São Paulo. In fact, it's so common that it's not even called vandalism or graffiti. It's called "art". Yep. There is no better place than São Paulo to embrace art and creativity. The city is literally covered in spray painted murals, pictures, and events. It's actually really neat to drive past all the walls covered in art and paintings. Also, if anyone knows anything about those giant islands just off the west coast of South America, let me know. I'm super curious to learn more, they must be brand new or something cause I certainly didn't know about them! (ha ha ha)

Here we are with Guilherme after eating at "Ouchie Backie". Otherwise known as Outback steakhouse, but with a Brazilian accent it comes out as "ouchie backie". hahahaha. It's Gui's favorite restaurant, and we ended up going twice while there in Brazil. Some of my favorite conversations happened at those ouchie backie tables :)

These next two pictures are from a water show in the city center. It was ...interesting, to say the least! My cousin Kenia took us, and it was so fun to see São Paulo's "central park".

Now here's a traditional Brazilian dinner! Bread, meat, rice and beans in some form or another, and some fruit. So delicious!

Ice cream is big in Brazil, shocker. Within a day we were already ordering popsicle from the popsicle man! These guys are all over the place, especially at the beach! Vanessa ordered at least 20 popsicles that day. The second picture is a picture of my dad sitting on a "special" subway seat. The sign says it is reserved for obese people! hahaha Good thing my dad doesn't fill out the entire chair...

Mosquitoes. EVERYWHERE. And I have no self-control so I ended up with scars from the four dozen (at least) bites I got within three weeks.

Genealogy time! McKay had started researching a bit on my side of the family a few month before our trip to Brazil. Because of him, we've come into contact with some of our distant relatives in Brazil. My mother is the only member of the LDS church in her family, or so she thought! Turns out, that my grandma's cousin's family also found the church and was baptized. They were baptized only a few years after my mom! How amazing is that? So now we have a lot more information about the Brazilian side of the family because the Rett's (our distant relatives) have spent some time on their family history. We had planned a get together with them, but sadly, it fell through. So next time we are in Brazil we are definitely meeting with them!

Vovó (my grandma) loves her crossword puzzles. She does them all day long.

But, she does also know how to party.

Guess who was asked to play the piano during church? Yep, we were! Every time we're in Brazil, we play the piano at church. It's a sweet experience.

We got to go to the Soccer Museum in one of the soccer stadiums in São Paulo. It was fun! They had interactive games, lots of soccer facts, and memorabilia from past World Cup Years. It was pretty cool.

On a somewhat related note, Fernando is a cardiologist, and while in Brazil McKay got the chance to go to the hospital with Fernando for a day and get a EKG done. He also got to tour the hospital which was a cool experience. After finding out about McKay’s hopes of working as a phlebotomist at a hospital in Oregon, Fernando offered to let McKay work for him in Brazil before he goes to PA school. We laughed thinking he was making a joke, but he was actually serious! hahaha. I don’t think we could handle being in Brazil for so long!
Lastly, this is the place in São Paulo where all my favorite memories are, my grandma's home. She's lived in that house for over 60 years! I remember playing hide and seek all up and down the street with the neighborhood kids, playing in that caged window (and getting scolded for it), catching lizards in the front ...yard? I guess it's more of a driveway, scraping up my knees on that bumpy pavement, swinging on the chain that's supposed to act as a fence, running around in the back with my grandma's dog, Bolinha, flipping and tumbling on the driveway, and so much more. I sure do love this quaint little place.