sao paulo

Thought I would spend some quality time with myself for a while, so jetted up to Sao Paulo. Its the biggest city in Brazil and the third biggest metropolis in the world. It´s a big boy.

It feels really dangerous, there are people just lazing around all day and at night, there are alot of shifty looking fellas just waiting to rob me (so I imagine). I spent my first day getting throughly lost a couple of blocks from my hostel.

I met these two Argentinians and we went to check out the art galleries together. The bulk of the exhibition was a retrospective of this Brazilian artist named Lydia something or other who made her name by combining art and mental therapy.

These masks she put on crazy people to make the concentrate on their sense of touch rather than sight.

This is the Argentinian chick that I met. In a bubble.

Water coming out of nipples!

Overall, I didn´t think much of Sao Paulo. It´s the type of place where you need to know where to go to truly enjoy it, otherwise its a bit intimidating in that funny way that all big, big cities are intimating.

But, one really cool thing was meeting the two Argentinians. It was really interesting just finding out how they live. In Argentina there is a small upper class, a larger lower class and a ´struggling´middle class, of which they are a part of. And the rich are getting richer, while the poor are hammered even harder. I hadn´t realised, but they have tough lives. They spoke eloquently of having to work two jobs just to survive, of having not enough money to take courses that would improve their career prospects, and of feeling like no matter how hard they work they will never imporve their lives. Higher education is free there, but alot of people can´t afford the text books and the transportation costs. The girl told me she had to save for five years, just to have enough for a holiday to Peru, which is the next country!