"Oi, tudo bem?"

Day 1- My first day alone in São Paulo didn't go quite as planned. For starters, Aaron woke me up in a state of panic and shook me vigorously to wake me up, which caused me to panic and I fell off the second bunk onto the floor. It was not pleasant and it left me with a nice carpet burn on my knee. It was a lovely parting gift, I suppose. Thanks Aaron.

I arrived in São Paulo around 9:30 am and took an Uber to the place that I would be staying at. I've never met the guy that I'm staying with but he is allowing me to stay with him for 5 days, which is pretty cool. São Paulo is a huge, massive city. I believe it's the 12th largest city in the world as far as population goes. Needless to say, it took almost an hour and a half to get to the place I am staying at. When I pulled up to the apartment, I had no idea if it was the right place and I had no idea how to get in because it was gated with a security guy watching over the place. He doesn't speak English and I don't speak Portuguese, so how in the world would I convince him to let me in? I stood outside the gate for a good 10-15 minutes trying to get a hold of Bruno (the guy I'm staying with). I hear a voice and had no idea where it was coming from or who it was talking to. I looked around and realized the security guy was talking to me through the intercom. Obviously, I had no idea what he was saying, so I spoke English and then I tried to speak broken Spanish back to him. Neither worked and I was not let in. Luckily for me, the city has its own wifi that you can connect to if you just create an account. So I created a fake account and got a hold of Bruno. He called the security guy and the security guy spoke to me but the only word I understood was, "entrar", which I knew meant "enter". So I walked in and he waved me over. He kept talking to me in Portuguese like he thought I knew what he was saying. He handed me a key and said, "setenta e dois". I knew that meant 72, so I assumed that that was the room number I would be staying in. He used a lot of hand gestures and I kind of figured out what he meant. It was a difficult process. So I took the elevator up 7 floors, got out, put the key in the lock, turned the key, and BOOM! No, I didn't get in. The damn key broke! Just my luck. So now, I have to go back downstairs and explain to this non-english speaking security guy that the key broke. What a pain in the butt that was. I spent almost an hour trying to figure out what to do and how to fix it. He called over another guy to assist me, but that did no good because he spoke zero English as well. Luckily for me, a man comes through the gate and he's wearing a Cal Berkeley sweater. I'm thinking, "Is this for real? This guy has to speak English." He did! So he translates for me in English and explains to me that I need to go get a replacement key from the key store that's a few blocks away and Zo (the other guy) will walk me there and speak for me. I say thank you to "Mr. Berkeley" and start walking with this dude to the key shop. Long story short, they make a new key in like 2 minutes, I pay the man, we walk back to the apartment, and I FINALLY get in the room. I was so exhausted that I put my stuff down and passed out on the couch for a few hours. When I woke up, I was starving and had no wifi, so I figured I would go get food somewhere that had wifi and let Bruno know that I am alive and that I made it into the apartment, because I'm sure he was a bit worried that he hadn't heard from me. I stopped at this place called Bronx Burgers, which had a New York baseball theme to it, believe it or not, and yes they spoke english! After lunch I went back to the crib and just waited for Bruno to arrive. Bruno arrived later than I thought but we chatted for a bit and then he got me all settled in. An hour later or so we headed to dinner with his girlfriend (or at least I thought it was his girlfriend), Jessica. They both work at Google together and they met through work. I know what you're thinking, what a crappy place to work, right?! 🙄 We go to this fancy restaurant called Le Manjue. Now, I only had R$90 reals on me and figured that would be plenty of money for dinner. Well...I was wrong. It ended up being R$100 reals a person, or about $30 American. I ordered some type of lamb pasta and it was pretty good, but I just wasn't expecting to spend that much money on dinner. That's when I realized something... They both make wayyyy more money than I do. That's pretty much how my entire day went today.

Day 2- Today I was all alone. No Aaron, no hostel roommates, no Bruno, or Lucas. I started my journey by walking to and through Ibirapuera park, which is the largest park in South America. I then continued walking through Paraíso and Liberade district until I got to the city center. In the city center I visited the São Paulo cathedral, Ground Zero, and the cultural center. Afterwards, I made my way west towards the Republica district where I visited the municipal theater, gallery of rock mall, and two skyscrapers: Copan and Edificio Italia. After a few hours of just scoping the scenery, I made my way back to Bruno's place. I decided to walk through two more districts, Vila Mariana and Vila Clementino before heading back. All in all, I walked a total 17 miles today and almost 35,000 steps! I pretty much had my own walking tour of the city of São Paulo. Let's just say my feet are going to hate me tomorrow. When I got back to the apartment, I immediately showered because I was drenched in sweat and then jumped on the bed for a much needed power nap.

When I woke up, Bruno was no where to be found. I messaged him and asked if he was joining me for dinner, but unfortunately he was stuck at work. I guess Google has him working those long hours. So I was alone for dinner and decided to try my luck speaking Portuguese at a Tex-mex restaurant called Sí Señōr. Let's just say, the little Portuguese that I knew got me through dinner with relative ease. Surprisingly, the food was actually quite good, but like everything in Sao Paulo it was super expensive. Almost $20 American dollars for a quesadilla! Let's just say my tummy left happy but my wallet left upset.

Day 3- After yesterday's looooong day of walking, I decided that today was going to be a rest day for my poor feet. I have put a ton of miles on them this trip and the skin on the bottom of my feet are starting to tear. So I slept in and watched Netflix for majority of the day. I did do one productive thing and that was that I went to the grocery store to buy food because the food in São Paulo is so expensive. Everything is inflated and so it's expensive to eat and well, I like to eat. So I decided to save some money and buy groceries instead of eating at restaurants every single day and night. Once I got back, I popped on the couch and continued watching Netflix until my friend Lucas arrived. Lucas is an old friend of mine who I went to high school with. He was a foreign exchange student from Brazil and lived with another good friend of mine, Alexis. The whole reason as to why I am in São Paulo is to see Lucas. We haven't seen each other for about a year and a half, when he lived back in the states. Lucas arrived around 8:00pm that night and once he arrived we headed out to this thing called a SOFAR concert (songs from a room). It apparently originated in San Francisco and it is a private concert that takes place in a random location. They happen all over the world and if you haven't heard of it, check them out on YouTube. Bruno had heard about it before and put our names on the guest list. It was a cool gig but since Lucas and I haven't seen each other for a while, we were more worried about catching up with one another than listening to the music. When the concert was over, Lucas, Bruno, Jessica, myself, and two of Bruno's friends, all went to this brewhouse called Goose Island. It is a brewery based out of one my favorite cities, Chicago! The one thing that I noticed about São Paulo is that they love burgers. Weird, I know, but it's true. Burger joints run wild over here and it is the preferred "4th meal" for many Brazilians. End of day 3...

Day 4- Today Lucas and I ventured off on our own while Bruno slaved away at Google. We decided to go check out the football museum of Brazil's history (and by football, I mean soccer). It was a really cool museum and it made me so pumped for next years World Cup in Russia! It also inspired me to start playing soccer competitively again and I hope to play in an indoor or outdoor league when I get back to the states. After the museum, Lucas and I headed off to the district of Vila Madalena to see the famous Beco do Batman. No, we did not go to a batman museum. It is actually a long alley that is full of really cool graffiti art. It's the perfect spot to take pictures and post them to the gram. After walking through the alley, Lucas and I decided to grab some food. We ate at this place called Post 6 and Lucas made me try some traditional Brazilian dishes. I wish I remembered the name of the dishes we had, but I don't. It was good, different, but good. Then we decided to head back to Bruno's place so that we could get ready for the night.

Right around 9:00pm, we made our way to this really cool, laid-back bar called Pitico. We then met up with some of Bruno's coworkers at this place called Casa das Batidas do Padre, which in Portuguese means, The House behind the Church. We hung out there for a bit and I got to meet some of Bruno's friends and coworkers from Google. Luckily for me, they all speak both English and Portuguese which is nice because the only words that I know in Portuguese are: "Obrigado (thank you)", "Oi (hi), "Tudo Bem (how are you)", and "Tudo é Voce (good and you)." Which works in the beginning of the conversations, but that's usually where it ends for me. So it's nice that I can actually have a conversation with everyone.

Now, there was this one coworker of Bruno's who I think I might have fell in love with. Her name was Thais (not sure if that's how you spell it) and she was a Brazilian beauty. She gave me a good reason to come back to São Paulo but she also invited me to come to Carnival next year in Rio, which is very, very tempting. The gang and I all "attempted" to go to a Brazilian samba place called Sambo do Bule, but unfortunately, it never came to fruition and Lucas and I ended up heading back to Bruno's for the night.

Day 5- Lucas had to, unfortunately, leave Saturday morning and head back to his hometown of Campinas. So Bruno and I went to breakfast at a local Brazilian bakery. Afterwards, we ran some errands because I wanted to get my laundry done and Bruno had to find some house supplies. Once my laundry finished, we decided to go grab lunch and try a traditional Brazilian dish that is usually served only on Saturday's, called feijoada. It was definitely different than any meal I've had on this trip but like every dish I've had, I ate the entire thing. After lunch we rushed back to Bruno's place so that I could pack all my things because Bruno and his friends wanted to attend a blues and jazz festival in the park. So my last day in São Paulo was a nice relaxing day chilling in the park wth Bruno, Thais aka future wifey, Jessica, Lucy, and a few other friends who, unfortunately, I forgot their names (I hope they aren't reading this). The concert was really cool but one dude really stood out to me and his name was Joe Lewis Walker. Search him up on Spotify or YouTube, the dude was really good and he has a great voice.

It started raining right around 7:30pm or so and that's about the same time we decided to leave. I said my goodbyes to everyone and headed off to the airport to begin my long 14 hour journey back to California. I had a great time in São Paulo. There is so much to do in São Paulo but I think the best way to really enjoy the city is to know someone from São Paulo who speaks Portuguese. It makes everything that much easier and the locals really know where the hot spots in the city are. I want to thank Bruno and Lucas for their hospitality and for showing me around the city. You are more than welcome to come stay with me in California anytime boys. Keep in touch.

As for me, this officially ends my South American Traventure. Let me say that it was one of the best trips of my life. Traveling abroad for an extended period of time is truly something everyone should experience at least once in their life. I don't mean vacation somewhere for a long time but actually bringing just a backpack and travel to a bunch of different countries. It's an incredible experience and you learn so much about yourself and other cultures that it really makes you put things into perspective. I can't wait to begin the next chapter in my life. Some of you already know the news and others have no clue. I will inform everyone (who doesn't already know) of that news when the right time comes. As soon as I get to my computer, I will begin making a video of our epic/amazing trip so that hopefully you can get inspired to travel the world just like we did. Thanks for reading and following along on my journey. I hope you enjoyed my blogs and I will be sure to continue writing about my future trips. Don't forget to subscribe to my blogs so that you don't miss a post!

P.S- I told you I would keep you updated on how many miles and steps we did on our entire trip and it looks a little like this:

Aaron: 150 miles and 388,500 steps

Vincent: 172 miles and 444,000 steps

The third wonder of the world that I have visited, Christ the Redeemer.

#citylife #travel #SaoPaulo #Brazil