Today is the main reason we came to Brasil...for Kevin and Fe's wedding!! We woke up at about 10:30am. I had a hangover from the night before(or this morning to be more accurate). We were supposed to meet up with Carol for a tour of the market, but didn't have her number. And we missed the breakfast buffet again in the hotel. We decided to do a tour that we found in the Lonely Planet book and was probably similar to the one we somewhat got yesterday. We agreed that we would try using public transportation, so far it seemed safe enough to use, but we weren't sure what exactly to take. I was trying to follow the map in Loney Planet, but I wasn't even sure which direction the map was facing compared to where the hotel was. We walked a few blocks away from the hotel before realizing we didn't know where we were going and decided it was best to ask the hotel. So I asked the receptionist how we get to the train. It turned out it wasn't as close as the map made it seem and we'd have to take the bus to the metro. The buses ran right in front of the hotel anyway, so we headed to the closest stop about 2 blocks away and waited. We were looking for the bus that had a picture of an arrow pointing up and down, which symbolized the metro. After a few minutes we found a bus with this symbol and jumped on. It cost under $R2 each. We weren't sure where we were stopping for the train and hoped it looked obvious, otherwise we were on a long bus ride. After about 20 mins of occasional stops, we stopped under a building and saw the symbol for the train and got off, along with most other people. It think it was the last stop anyway.

From here we walked through a small shopping mall to get the the train. After finding a metro map, we pretty much knew where we were going, bought 2 tickets, went through the turnstiles and hopped on our train which was on some green line. Then we switched to another train on a blue line and got off to the first destination.

I'll have to update this later with the names of the places we saw, as I can't remember at the moment. Here is basically where our walking tour took us. We started at some park that was closed and boarded up. Some vendors were setup outside the park. We walked over to the tallest building in Sao Paulo and probably Brasil. We took the elevator to the top, where we heard from Sean that they served a buffet. The elevator was run by a young lady. I guess they don't trust people using the elevators or see it as some status thing. We had to take 2 elevators to get to the top. As we got off the last elevator, a hostess for the buffet was there to great us. I was going to say to her that we only spoke english, but for some reason I announced we were Americans. My exact words were, "Eu so Americano tourista". I'm not sure why I said that and I probably sounded like some arrogant american. The hostess did speak english and explained the buffet was $R40 each, but there was also a bar a floor up that cost $R15 each to sit at and enjoy the view. We ended up doing neither, but got a glimpse of part of the cities skyline.

After leaving the tallest building in Sao Paulo, we started looking for someplace cheap to eat. We stopped at a little cafeteria. I ordered something similar to a meat filled empanada that cost under $R2.. From there we ended up on a small bridge over a park where they setup a huge screen that was showing the futbol game between Argentina and Germany. There was a huge crowd of people watching in the park and off the bridge.

From there we went to a square where some kid and I think his father and little brother were singing songs. There was a circle of people watching. They were trying to sell the kids CD's and some people were walking up to get autographs from him.

After that we ended up at a museum that had different exhibits across about 4 floors. We entered through the wrong entrance at first and ended in some secure area in I think a bank. Went back down and found the correct entrance. The first floor had some sexually explicit paintings and photographs of people in some poorer areas of Brasil. The second floor had some paintings of the moon and sun. And the 4th floor had a typewriter museum.

The wedding was at 8pm, so we started heading back to the hotel at around 4pm. This time we purchased a metro ticket with a transfer we could use on the bus. It still cost more for the transfer, but less than buying them seperatly. I think It was about $R3.20. Everything went smootlhy from the train to the bus. There was a line to get on the bus, but we got on with no problem and reached the hotel about 20 mins later. I have to say again that Sao Paulo reminded me more of NYC duing this walking tour. We even found in the Lonely Planet book where some people refer to it as the NYC of Brasil or South America.