Everyone, meet the Rock

Rock, this is everyone.  Well not everyone, but maybe one or two people.  I finally took some time and uploaded some pictures from Sao Paulo.  First off, the rock.  Here it is in all it's geologic glory.

The Mysterious Rock

Before leaving Sao Paulo, I had the pleasure of having dinner with the family of one of my co-workers at the bank.  It was a very nice evening.  His wife put out a great spread.  We had so much food and it all was so good.  I got to taste some wine from south Brazil and it was really, really good.  Their house was gorgeous.   One of the things that he had and which most houses have was an outside BBQ area.  It was a bricked in oven like and had all sorts of built in racks for skewers and grills.   The craftsmanship was amazing.  The bricks, and mortar were so perfectly laid out.  I was really impressed at how it was constructed, including a tile roof.  

On the way to the airport, the highway was packed with cars.  It took two hours to get  from the hotel to the airport which was about 20-25 miles.  The driver did not speak English so it was a quiet trip.  At one point though, when we were creeping along, he turned around, looked at me and said "Eh,,eet is Sao Paulo,,ugh".     I snapped a few pictures of the street vendors.  Actually they are Freeway vendors.  There are a lot of them and they all have something different to sell.  Almost all of them have the cell phone chargers hanging around their necks.  The most unique thing I saw was the guy pictured below, who was carrying a portable BBQ and was cooking food as he strolled among the cars.  His BBQ pit was actually a 5 gallon can that he had cut the sides out of. He had the fire burning inside it and the food was being cooked on the top of the can.   That is another interesting thing about the people here, or I should say there cause I am not there, I am here,, if you know what I mean.   Ok, where was I?   The people,, they never miss a trick at selling stuff.  At each bus stop, there would be someone selling candy bars, cigarettes, and gum form the back of their bike or a cart. 

BBQ Salesman

I had a good time in Sao Paulo.  The people were wonderful.  It was very strange to be in a place where communication was so difficult.  The Sao Paulino's were so generous and understanding.  I hope to go back someday, but , I hopefully will have time to learn some basic Portuguese. 
For one last picture, and a little excercise for you.  Their candy's have interesting names.  Below is a picture of a chocolate covered marshmallow treat. First off, they are so good.  The chocolate is very tasty.    Here in the US, our marketing people would come up with some name like "Chocolate Spiffy's" or  "Choco-Gems".  In Sao Paulo, these were named about as descriptively
as you can imagine.  So, imagine away and guess what they called these treats. 

Chocolate Spi