So I figured I start with the bonus items since I have less to say about them. Last weekend I went for a walk with the mom of one of my students and she took me to a kind of nature preserve by her home. We could not go inside, but we did see some cool birds and a really pretty bridge that reminded me of Anne of Green Gables. :)
A week or two ago I had the Bloomer's over for dinner. They are missionaries with ABWE and know Kelly and Sherri Fath. Martha, the mom, also went to Faith Academy in the Philippines for a year so it was fun to talk about what we have in common. Martha helps out in my classroom a little, and she is amazing! When I first arrived and needed to go to Federal Police (and many other places for document work) she helped set up my classroom so I was ready for the first day of school. Without her half of the walls would have been bare!! She was my own angel sent to me after many prayers.
Yesterday my friend and I went on a Free Walking Tour of Historic downtown...and it is in English! There were many people from Europe, there were also some from Asia, Australia/New Zealand, North America and South America. It was fun talking with people from around the world and hearing how they ended up in this city. Here is a group picture they took. I will do my best to explain the pictures based on what I remember and a few notes I jotted down on a pamphlet while walking.
Here are a couple facts I found interesting even though there are no pictures to go along with them.
On Friday afternoons there is over 600 km of traffic jams within the city.
There are 6 million cars in the city.
There are 12 million people living within the city and 18 million in the metro area.
You can play Where's Waldo and see if you can find me if you want. :)
2nd tallest building in the city
I think this is the 3rd tallest building.
Municipal Library
Municipal Theatre
There was a model outside the theater doing a photo-shoot.
I think this is the Anhangabau Valley, but it was a nice park across from the theatre. The man in the statue (picture below) was a famous opera compser (I think) and the other statues in the park are of people who helped him/worked for or under him.
I am standing here on the 1st bridge of the city overlooking the park. It is called Cha (tea) Bridge because of a large tea plantation that used to be nearby.
This building with the large flag out front (that is difficult to see due to lack of wind) is a government building where we were told the officials are "supposed" to be working. ;)
This building has one of the largest elevated gardens in the world. I believe it is the City Hall.
This church reminds me a lot of the oldest church in the Philippines because of its color and style. I believe it is the oldest church in Latin America.
San Francisco Square
Two old and famous churches
This is a Law School here that is very difficult to get into, but once you do college is free...and I am told you make a lot of money when you graduate from here. :)
This church is very famous called the Se Catherdral. It has 14 towers so that the viewer is looking upward when they see the church. I wrote down some interesting organ information for my mother. :) It has the largest pipe organ in Latin America with 12,000 pipes. They never use more than 10% of the organ because it could do structural damage to the building beginning with the stained glass windows.
This is the 1st bakery in the city where our tour stopped for a snack break.
Here's Emily and I with our treats
This is where the city started, and below is a statue that is there as well.
Here is another government building with Brazil's flag in the middle and the city and state flags on either side.
This electronic bill board shows how much taxes have been collected this year (cut in half for USD equivalency), but once again most of this money is pocketed according to the lovely tour guide whose head I seem to have captured in this photo!
This street leads to the largest open air market in South America. We were told to go here if you don't care if the products are knock-off and if you want to buy fake illegal products that are not taxed.
Here is another view. We were told that over 1 million people go here each day!
Bank
A famous intersection by the bank because something important happened on the 15th of November. I am not sure what, but we have the day off since its a holiday!
This is actually the tallest building in the city, but honestly it didn't look taller than the others, and it isn't beautiful. :) There are many air conditioning units and fans hanging out of the windows and the blinds inside many of the windows are crooked. The other buildings are more impressive, but I guess this one is a few meters taller.
The man who built this building was from Italy. You can see that on the top there are 5 additional stories. The government here only allowed him to build 25 floors and he wanted 30 so he built a 5 story mansion on top!
Another famous church. On the street next to the church was the pink building in the photo below. It reminded me of something from a doll house so I took a picture.
This is the Rock and Roll Gallery. Our guide was excited about this place I believe. It started out as a mall and then in the 70's a music store moved in. It did so well that the whole mall turned into the Rock and Roll Gallery and is filled with music stores.
The most famous intersection in the city.
We ended at this park and there was a really old tree which you can see behind us.
For dinner Emily and I stopped at a mall on the way home. Well, she said the guy was asking how I wanted my hamburger done and I was trying to say medium. Since we couldn't talk to him we were using hand motions. Emily put up two hands as if to say "rare" and "well", then I showed him that I wanted it in the middle. Well, he started doing something with my burger and then when he presented it to me he had cut it because he thought that was what we wanted. I guess we will need to work on our gestures (or our Portuguese!!!). It was funny. We were laughing really hard and the people at the restaurant were really confused.
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