Sao Paulo, Brazil--Day 10

Since today is Monday my choices of what to do with myself were limited. I couldn’t go to any of the historical museums listed in my guidebooks, or even the infamous snake house with over 400 snakes, because they are all closed on Mondays. So instead I woke up and hit the gym in the hotel for a bit (my new plan to try and exercise everyday) and did the elliptical machine until I thought my lungs were going to explode--which was at oh, 12 minutes. Since I had gone a mile, I justified my getting off of the machine (a mile is pretty good, right?) and then did some weights for a bit. I then went back to my room and got ready for the day.

First things first, I did a Fed-Ex run to send off my photos via cd to Mr. Cohen then walked around for a bit trying to find a place to eat lunch. I ended up somewhere, but I wasn’t sure where so I decided to take a taxi to the “Parque do Ibirapuera” which is “Sao Paulo’s answer to New York’s Central Park” according to my Lonely Planet guidebook. So the taxi dropped me off and for the next four hours I read my new books and changed locations several times trying to fight off bees that thought I was interesting (or at least they thought that my Gatorade was interesting). Finally I found some peace under a tree and was able to read for a bit and then watch some people playing soccer and bicycling and then go back to my book. It was a great way to spend the afternoon. My guide book that I was reading from of course made me want to hop on a plane to Rio de Janiero and soak up some sun on the Ipanema beach, but since I am leaving tomorrow it seemed not like a good idea. Spending this afternoon at the park proved to be equally as nice.

Around 5 o’clock I got a taxi back to my hotel and then went on a short walk around, picking up some postcards and stopping to eat dinner (even though it was only six or so by this time) and I sat eating my unfashionably early dinner writing postcards. Once I finished I headed back to the hotel in hopes of getting a good view of the sunset from the roof (with no luck- the roof was closed) and had to settle with the view from my room, which isn’t bad considering that I’m on the 29th floor.

My plane leaves early tomorrow and my taxi is picking me up at 5:30am so its an early night for me.




(c) 2004 Sarah Galbraith. All Rights Reserved.