In Sao Paulo

Elections were happening in Brazil the morning we left the Hotel Serrano and Gramado. Gramado had been alive all week with people waving white or red flags for candidates on street corners and cars driving through town with megaphones blaring. This morning, our bus stopped at a polling place and left a number of people there to vote. Voting is mandatory in Brazil; one must either have a very good excuse filed with authorities for missing a vote, or lose a number of rights and privileges.

Finally on our way, our bus wound back down the mountains to Porto Allegre and the airport. Boarding a real TAM flight this time, we were back to Sao Paulo within an hour and a half. Even in coach seats, both TAM and Varig retain complimentary meal service. On arrival in Brazil, I flew to Porto Allegre from Guadulhos, the international airport I had flown into from Warsaw and Paris. We flew back to the smaller Sao Paulo airport that only handles domestic flights. Surrounded by the city, we were a quick and cheap cab ride through the rain to Alex and Iveli’s condo.

We quickly settled in, then walked down the street to vote. Their polling station was at a Jewish school, the signs and in each room written in both Portuguese and Hebrew. Sao Paulo is a city of immigrants; in addition to Europeans immigrants and refugees from World War II, there was also a large asian community, with Sao Paulo maintaining the largest Japanese population of any city outside of Japan. Votes cast, we walked to a nearby grocery, where I admired the fruits and vegetables that would be considered exotic in my Safeway.

Sao Paulo is the largest city in all of latin America, and is the third largest city in the world. There is some thought that it will become the largest city on the planet within an other twenty years or so. Going up in a skyscraper in the middle of the city, all one can see is buildings in every direction, to the edge of the skyline. Sao Paulo contains many different districts and neighborhoods, many reflecting the unique culture of those particular inhabitants. It is a city of both astounding wealth and devastating poverty. It has beautiful parks, though perhaps not as many as the population deserves. It has a fine subway system, well maintained streets, and sane driving compared to Cairo. Sao Paulo is rediscovering it’s city market, with the building being beautifully renovated, a restaurant level being added, merchants offering the best meats, produce, spices and cheese, and long forgotten stained-glass windows being uncovered and once again shown off.

That night—and again, things are already running together—we dined at a gourmet pizza restaurant, one of three Italian restaurants in one fine block all run by the Mancini family. Here there is valet parking, doting service, a generous buffet (including meats, cheeses and breads beyond our typical salad bar) and a grand piano to complete the ambience.
Fine wine, great pizza, and good company.

My friends Alex and Iveli are both doctors, had missed several days of work for the conference in Gramado, and were preparing to be off again in a couple of weeks to take their daughter Giulia to a swim meet in Rio de Janeiro (tough life, huh?). So, there were days Alex or Iveli would escort me around, others that Luis, Alex’s brother would be my tour guide, and one or two that I was on my own. Breakfast at their place each morning consisted of cereal, juice, fruits (mango and papaya) and my favorite, Romeo and Juliet (guava jam and a kind of cream cheese on toast). For dinner one evening, Alex did fondue, using a delicious combination of cheeses and breads.

The first day was with Luis, who took me to the Biannual Art Show. The Biannual is modern art at its finest and weirdest, and is a perfect fit with Sao Paulo’s modern architecture. One the first floor alone were quilted, three-dimensional cities; an undulating stack of pencil-shaped logs with large, inexplicable and seemingly unsupported holes in the middle of the stack; and my favorite, a Volkswagen Beetle (old style) suspended by a few hundred bungee cords, swinging and twirling with the artist’s gentle prodding. Much of the art—gathered from around the world--made you think, and after an hour or so our heads were swimming.

The rest of the day was spent touring the university Luis had attended (he is now a plastic surgeon), stopping by his condo for coffee and to meet his new dog (Shar-pei from Tibet), lunch (lighter Italian, salad and pasta buffet), and some time at his office where I was treated to an aqua-massage (much like the ones offered in our malls in the U.S.).

Iveli met me that evening and took me to their club. Over one hundred years old, this club sits on prime real estate in central Sao Paulo and is a grandiose version of a U.S. country club, albeit without the golf course. Tennis courts, tracks, swimming pools, gymnasiums, classrooms, game rooms, meeting rooms, a bowling alley, restaurant, café, underground parking structure—it has to be large, as 60,000 people hold membership. We walked across the street to visit Iveli’s parents—long-ago Italian immigrants to Brazil—and later back to the club to meet Giulia after her ballet lessons and swim practice. We had a delightful visit with Iveli’s folks, who I had met a decade earlier. Her father is a retired lawyer and aspiring artist, and is quite a character. Her mother speaks little English but creates some wonderful desserts.

Other days were filled with museums: the MASP (Museum of Art Sao Paulo), filled with Monets, Manets, Renoirs, Delacroixs, Van Goghs and more; the Museu Paulista (Ipiranga Museum), built as a monument to the Proclamation of Independence; and the Pinacoteca, across from the refurbished railway station (it’s Victorian architecture looking all the world identical to the one in Melbourne, Australia), this one filled with Brazilian works, both modern and not. Alex and I enjoyed a latte outside the museum café, coffee being integral to everyday Brazilian life.

Then the parks: the one featuring live, wild monkeys was closed the day we went, but we visited several other nice, smaller parks, all resplendent with native trees and flowers, ponds, lakes, walkways and soccer fields. The largest park in the city is where the Biannual art exhibit was held. Rivaling Central Park in New York City, it is adorned with lakes, fountains, grassy expanses and outstanding monuments. In between the parks were stops for coconut milk, served fresh out of a machete-sliced coconut, various foods (have you had a cheese bread yet? You must try it!), and coffee.

Other explorations included downtown Sao Paulo; a trip to the top of the tallest building in the city; lunch at the marketplace (pastels, fried pastries filled with meats or cheeses); and Avenida Paulista, a central street hosting stores, shopping malls and the fanciest McDonalds I saw on the whole trip; and their version of Rodeo Drive, featuring a Tiffany’s, Versace and more.

An evening party saw members from both Alex and Iveli’s family in for the evening. It was great to see Alex’s father again, his other siblings, as well as Iveli’s parents, siblings and spouses. We had picked up 4-foot long sub sandwiches—with a Brazilian flair—at a gourmet grocery earlier, wonderful desserts were brought in, and Alex plied his family with the Vana Tallinn that I had brought him from Estonia (essentially Baltic cough syrup).

The week ended back in Guarulhos, where Alex has a clinic, where his father retains his home, where his brother Marco runs a business, and where my flight would depart from. We went over in the afternoon to beat rush hour traffic, and ran into Marco, his wife and another brother, Marcello, at the house in Gualulhos. While Alex was at work, I explored Gualulhos a bit, and enjoyed being back at the house where my mother, brother and I had stayed during our visit ten years earlier. Designed by a famous architect, it was much as I remembered, but quieter and sadder since both Alex’s mother and my own had passed away in the previous year. A fond memory from our visit ten years ago was coming down for breakfast and seeing the two of them chatting away at the kitchen table, making hand motions at each other, neither understanding the other’s language.

Alex picked me up and took me to see his clinic, then over to a shopping mall for supper. We ended with ham and cheese crepes, the same meal I enjoyed with Iveli and Giulia when I had arrived in Gramado. We finished up with desert crepes made with Romeo and Juliet, explored the mall a bit, then headed to the airport.

Brazil was a great place to finish up the international portion of my trip. Brazil is a delightful country, filled with wonderful sights, food and people, made all the better by gracious hosts. Alex and Iveli are wonderful friends, and I feel fortunate to have known Alex for nearly 30 years. Alex and Iveli have kindly urged me to return to see both Bahia and the Amazon. In a few years, for sure, I’ll have to take them up on the offer.