ok, that's it, i'm definitely sick! this sucks.

catedral da sé

today we took the metro to praça da sé to see the cathedral and the square. i read this area was more rough and not to go here at night. i can feel it. homeless were washing themselves in the public fountain. but it was early enough in the day and empty enough that i felt safe enough to take my camera out for a couple pictures and then quickly put it away. we did walk around the square a little bit but we have a lot to see today so it was on to our next destination: praça da republica. inside the sé metro station was a display on zé do caixão: á (coffin joe). praça da republica was even worse then sé. at first i took one picture but then i put my camera away for good. i have been seeing banyan trees but have not taken a picture. there were some interesting ones i was going to take a picture of, but i just did not feel safe. there were several homeless or just poor men who were watching us. then a beggar kid came up to dani and he gave him the coconut he was drinking from. i felt like that just in case that kid is working with others, we better get out of here immediately. we started walking away, i didn't care if it was the wrong way, i just felt the instinct to get out. i needed to see street signs to know for sure which way were were going and it turned out that we were headed the right way.

sepultura official brazilian fan club

we walked to the galerias that are full of rock shops. i read that there are two of them next to each other. one of them is very famous and known as galeria do rock. i was able to find the address online but i was never able to find out its real name. when we got there, all it said outside was "grandes galerias", something like that. you could see some of the shops from the outside and i knew that was the place. at first it was just tattoos/piercings kind of thing so we headed upstairs to find the rock shops. the first store we went into was playing a live soulfly video and we could see several sepultura posters. we liked it immediately. twiddle thumbs asked the worker if he spoke english and being a metalhead, he spoke it well enough. (a lot of metal around the world is in english so if you're fan of metal, you end up learning english, in my humble opinion.) we were on the hunt for sepultura related items so we got a live dvd not for sale in america. the worker is also in a band (of course) and he was so nice and helpful that we bought his band's cd too (claustrofobia, who have opened for sepultura). i wasn't sure if the sepultura fan club was in this building or the other rock galeria so we asked him were the fan club is and he said it's 2 floors up. next stop: sepultura official brasilian fan club. it was closed and that's ok because it's not like it's some store you can walk into. we took some pictures in front of it. it wasn't crowded but we drew attention because we were posing and busting out the camera. after this, two guys were following us around, probably ready to jump us. dani had his eye on them and didn't tell us until later in the hostel. once we started discussing it, i recalled one of the guys and he did seem a bit odd. it's funny how at first we were so cautious in brazil and over these past few days, realized it was just a lot of hype over são paulo and it's the other cities that you must be cautious in. so by today, we had dropped our guard too much, especially in the excitement of music shopping and the sepultura fan club.

produce store at mercado municipal

we got a late start today and if we want to have enough time to check out the mercado municipal, then we better get going. so we grabbed a cab because that would be the fastest way to get there, even though it's not too far. it's big but not as big as i thought it would be. what's inside are many vendors selling a variety of meats, cheeses, fruits, etc. but once you start walking around, it all kinda feels the same. meat shop, meat shop, fruit shop, fruit shop. repeat. we whizzed past the meat and cheese shops, obviously. we spent our time looking at the fruit and vegetable shops, but i didn't really notice vegetables. it seemed to be all fruit. there were a couple other types of shops, but not many. we saw some candy, chocolate, and wine. we had to try some fruit from brazil but ended up buying a lot of fruit grown in brazil, but not necessarily from brazil. yesterday at the market i saw the caju fruit, which is where cashew nuts come from, and it smelled disgusting so i didn't get it. yet, i want to see what it's like so we bought it...and never ate it! we just kept picking one each of the various fruits that were grown in brazil and weren't sure what the total would be. once the guy said the cost, i was ready to walk out of there because i totally thought he was taking advantage of us but we paid for it because i believe that eating local fruit is part of the experience and i don't think i saw all of these at the regular super market. it's our last night in the city, it's ok to splurge.

we then went upstairs to where there are some shops selling food that's ready to eat. we got there and dani was stuffed. we could see the last parts of a sandwich and some beer. he said this was his second sandwich--they were just too delicious. if you could have seen the size of these suckers. damn boys can eat! he had to come here and eat the mortadella sandwiches because he saw anthony bourdain do it on tv and it looked so good. there wasn't really anything else open or that we could eat so we ordered some too, but without the meat and cheese. instead, we asked them to load it up with veggies and i put some mustard on it. damn, that was pretty good!

cavalera wear

after that, we took a taxi to the higienopolis shopping mall to find the cavalera store. again with the spluring, taxis! but we're riding them in short spurts and splitting it so it's not too bad. we want to go to this store because 10 years ago or so, igor cavalera, the drummer for sepultura, created his own clothing brand called cavalera wear. i heard it's trendy expensive shit but i do have some stuff thanks to a friend. i swear it's the best socks i've ever had and since they're starting to wear out, (i've already had to throw out my favorite pair), i need to stock up! the mall itself is very expensive. there is a section where you can see each floor and it looked nice so i took a picture. twiddle thumbs decided to video tape it. before she could even hit record, a security guard told her no. that's how nice of a mall it is. so you can only imagine the prices. but i was still hopeful...until i saw the price tags on just the t-shirts at the cavalera store. damn igor, you hard up for money or what?! i would never pay that much for a t-shirt. there were no socks for sale. i walked out with nothing. looking the prices of the two malls we have been to, even the other one didn't seem as nice, i'm really wondering how rich the rich brasilians are. how often can the average brasilian shop at these places, etc. some of these prices are really outrageous. i'm talking about average things like clothes and toiletries. i'm not even going to mention the prices for electronics.

after all that city stuff, we went back to the hostel and rested until it was time for dinner with our friend's family. we had made friends with one of the people living at the hostel so we took some pictures with him and promised to stay in touch. then our friend's brother arrived to take us to their house for dinner. we brought the fruit we bought at the mercado for dessert. we spent a long time there, didn't come back until after midnight. all i can say is: nice place, nice people. there was artwork all over the living room. things were very clean and kept up. everyone was so friendly and generous. they were playing brazilian music and everytime we said we liked a song, they would give us the cd. really, too much. a wonderful way to spend our last evening in são paulo.