Appreciation for São Paulo

As I return from my second visit to São Paulo, I find myself missing it.

Upon first glance, São Paulo is a big dirty city. While some areas are definitely richer and cleaner than Rio, others are disgusting. There are streets covered with piles of trash and the river running through the city looks like someone dumped a thousand tons of toxic waste into it. There are various things being burned on the sides of the roads, and plumes of smoke rise to the sky from them. In this part of the city there are two huge skyscrapers covered all the way to the top with really ugly black graffiti. Paulistas call them "shake shake" and Guilherme tells me that once they used to be the nicest buildings in all of São Paulo. Now they look like they are about to collapse. Many people visiting the city see only this side of it, and thus never wish to visit again.

But there is another side to São Paulo. Twenty million people live in this city. Twenty million! Nossa senhora! As such, it has amazing cultural diversity. Liberdade (a Japanese neighborhood inside of São Paulo) is the largest Japanese community outside of Japan in the world. The Italians have their own neighborhood as well, and I thank God for that because Rio has horrible italian food! In fact, São Paulo outdoes Rio in every kind of food (except for juices, Rio does that best). Madalena belongs to the artists, and every culture has their own section of the city to call home.

Paulistas are also amazing people. They are more like Americans in that they are more organized and efficient, and they value a strong work ethic. Yet they also treat people with amazing warmth and Brazilian hospitality. When I visited Nathalie and Maricarmen last weekend, after only 3 days of knowing Yana and I they took us into their home, fed us home cooked meals, and gave us beds to sleep in. When I met their friends they told me that when I came back to São Paulo they would introduce me to their family and have them cook me a meal.

Also, Paulistas belong to themselves. What I mean is that a part of Rio de Janeiro belongs to tourists and that is not so in São Paulo. When you go to a club in São Paulo, there is a chance that you are the only gringa in the club. This does not happen in Rio.

And so, São Paulo, you have a place in my heart.