Sao Paulo

Basically Sao Paulo is a big city.  There really isn’t anything too spectacular to distinguish it from other large cities around the world, except that is it the fourth largest, with a population of about 19 million.  Because it isn’t really on the tourist radar, English is harder to come by than other foreign cities; my high school Spanish to the rescue – well, sort of.  It took me a few trys to make sure the movie we were going to see had only Portuguese subtitles (not dubbed), but I managed to get it right.  Given that I haven’t had any Spanish in almost seven years, and Spanish is still a different (though quite similar) language than Portuguese, I think I did fairly well for myself (and Matt). 

While sitting in a churrascaria (Brazilian restaurant, basically a meat buffet – though Wikipedia describes it a little better) Matt wants to order a beer, though is completely unable to communicate that to the waiter, without the typical point and grunt method provided by a menu.  I step in and end up getting him exactly what he wants.  I then ask Matt what he would do without me; “go to McDonald’s” was his only response.