Brasil!: São Paulo with Kharyna and Marianna

The view from my window at Kharyna's place.

I went back to São Paulo as a stopping point between the Amazon and Florianópolis to see more of the sprawling city. This time I had the good fortune of staying with Kharyna, right smack in the center of things. As you've already seen from my window view, I'm a pretty lucky girl.

My lovely host, Kharyna :)

This girl is amazing. We had a wonderful connection. I came into her home and she gave me a key and told me where everything was and made me feel at home, then went back to work... who does that?! So much trust right away, like we had known each other for years, very special. She hardly had any time during the week as she went to work all day and then school till 11pm at night. Thank you for your generosity Kharyna, you're amazing.

Dinner right across the street, at Panela de Cecilia

The food here was buffet and very affordable.

Guaraná Antarctica... the most popular Brazilian soda.

After drinking this beer I was told that it's name translates to devastator, or a girl who knows how to be naughty. And the black lettering Bem Loura means Very Blonde... ha! I hear sex sells, and from what I've seen, people here seem to really like blondes.

Kharynas house is right across the street from the subway station, which I used regularly. Here's a pic of the waiting area for the yellow line, very nice and airconditioned too! The trains come here literally once every 2 minutes. It's so easy to use. I'm very impressed São Paulo!

MASP (Museu de Arte de São Paulo)

My second day here I was wandering around famous Avenida Paulista, which has a lot of press but is mostly a business street... and found the MASP. This building for the art museum was so interesting, its completely elevated, and designed by a female Brazilian architect. Very cool. They featured an exibit of Foreign Printmakers, of which my favorite was Edgar Chahine. Thought of you a lot here, Jesse :)

I love how the life here is full of song and dance. One night I came home to hear drums playing tantalizingly close to my home. Needless to say, I followed the sound and found this group of people just gathered outside a bar, enjoying life together. It seems like everyone here knows all the songs. Everyone joins in singing, dancing, participating. It makes my soul soar!

Kibe... A popular arabic snack.

I'm constantly looking to eat interesting foods. Kibe's quality can range far and wide,

this particular one was more authentic and deliscious.

Me, Kharyna, and her dear friend Marianna.

These ladies made me feel so welcome here. Even though they both had jobs during the week, they spent tons of time with me on the weekend showing me all around and making sure I saw everything they loved about their city. PS. If I haven't mentioned this enough before, couchsurfing.org is amazing. I have friends all over the world, I just haven't met them all yet... ;)

I told them how much I loved to dance, and they took me to a super fun dance club, where I learned how to Forró. This dance is super fun and sexy. It's awesome here how so many men love to dance and do it well. That is one thing I adore about Latin cultures.

The dance floor.

I found this video on YouTube, it's a great display of the dance Forró!

This is what I did all night for 2 nights in a row, so fun!

Live band accompaniment: Rastapé!

Don't speak portuguese... no problem!

The bathrooms at the club use the universal language. I love it!

On Sunday the ladies took me bike riding on Aveninda Paulisa, which is the best way I can recommend seeing the city. There are stations where banks will loan you a bike for free for an hour, and parts of the streets are buildt for bikes and set aside every Sunday for riders. This is the bike loan station.