Sightseeing- 2 weeks later

10/14/2012

I have been in Sao Paulo approximately two weeks, as of Sunday, October 14th. However, I have yet to do anything really touristy and I still feel like I’m having the time of my life. Typically, when in a new city, I make an effort to “see the sights” but over the past couple of weeks I really didn’t have that itch to explore because of two reasons: (i) the people of Sao Paulo and (ii) the food.   

The people of Sao Paulo have been very warm and welcoming. It seems like every other day someone is inviting my colleagues and me to a local bar, restaurant, soccer game, social event of some kind, their own home, or even a community service event (e.g. donating blood). And then there is the food. Sao Paulo has so many great restaurants that, with the exception of Le Manjue, one of the few organic restaurants in town, we have not visited any restaurant twice. We have also started working our way down a list of almost 30 restaurants that a local “foodie” gave us (more on that at a later time). So between people hosting us and visiting new restaurants, sightseeing has taken a back seat.

Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo

On Sunday we literally forced ourselves to get in a taxi and find something touristy to do or see.  The first and only stop was the Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo (aka MASP). MASP is considered one of the landmark of the city and boasts one of the finest collection of European art in Latin America. I do not consider myself an art enthusiast by any stretch of the imagination, but I do appreciate art and architecture. There was a decent amount of pieces from some of the more famous artists like Renior, Van gogh, Monet, Degas, Delacroix and many others. On this day, I appreciated some of the sculptures more than the paintings. Two stood out the most, but I only managed to write down one:  The Kiss by Auguste Rodin.  Below are a couple of pictures from our first day of sightseeing and I promise to do a better job over the next several weeks.

Uma and me underneath MASP getting ready to go in and me a little taller than usual.

Architecture and art seen on our sightseeing venture