Sao Paulo

View of the sprawling metropolis from the Edificio Italia
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We arrived late Sunday afternoon and quickly set off for the Morumbi Stadium to see Sao Paolo play Gremio in the Brazilian Football Premier League. We arrived at the ground and managed to quickly find a tout selling tickets. We paid 20R$ a ticket and then had a nervous 10 minute walk to our entrance to see if we'd been conned or not. Luckily our tickets were genuine and we got in!! It turned out that Sao Paolo had won the title last weekend so we were anticipating a lively atmosphere at the 100,000 seater stadium. Maybe the rain or the ticket prices put some people off as sadly the stadium was only half full. It was still a great atmosphere even if the game didn't really get going. We saw a 1-0 win to Sao Paolo, and the goal was a penalty.

Painting - Sao Paolo style
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We returned back to our hotel and it became apparent that our hotel was bang in the middle of the gay quarter. Men holding hands and lady boys were partying in every bar on our street. Quite amusing as we wound the single lads up that they should make sure they don't make any mistakes of judgement!!

Next day we wandered the concrete jungle that houses 24 million people. It's not great as you can imagine and we weren't sad to have to leave it the next day.