São Paulo

So, things took a turn for the absolutely foreign rather than the sort-of foreign of North America.  The country we had the most reticence about when planning this jaunt was Brazil, chiefly because we knew next-to-nothing about it and speak none of the local lingo.

São Paulo was the most intimidating destination, because, well, I listened to a lot of Seputura as a teen and they always sounded angry about all sorts of social ills.  Mainly it’s the size, though.  São Paulo is 1500 square kilometers, holding 20 million people.  It’s the largest city in the Americas and a lot of those 20 million aren’t doing too well.

But it’s less jarring than the frankly shocking numbers of homeless we saw in the large developed American cities, as at least here these people migrated en masse from drought-hit regions of the north onto a city with little means of supporting them, hence the massive slum Favelas.

That all said, everyone we’ve met here has been extremely friendly and helpful, despite our language barrier.   Things are very, very cheap,  owing in no small part to the tumbling value of the Brazilian Real (dropped 25% since we booked our hotels and flights here 12 months ago).  As an example: A fillet steak and a beer in the hotel cost £7 and 80p respectively.

Slightly more expensive than McDonalds

The Brazilian churrascaria steakhouse concept (where men wielding skewers of meat and knives feed  you until you beg them to stop) has been in the UK for a couple of years now, but prior to that we’d only seen one in Beverly Hills, while we were there on our honeymoon in 2007.  The restaurant was called Fogo de Chão and it was glorious.

So we went to the source this time -as the chain originated in São Paulo- and visited their restaurant as it was 10 minutes walk from our hotel.   The service was impeccable and the food fantastic.  I will’ve eaten so much beef before we leave these shores that the local cows will wonder if they wronged me in another life.

A thing I noticed was, despite the ridiculous congestion, the drivers were actually really courteous and civilised (in a way that the Americans were uniformly not, regardless of where I went) to one another. So people were let out at junctions, were allowed to merge etc.  It was a bit of a contradiction to the Naples-style Thunderdome that I expected.

 
Vincent and Pablo in the house

We also managed to stick in some obligatory culture, with a trip to Museum of Art of São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (who must be the patron saint of steak or something), where we found a few more Monets, Picassos and Van Goghs.  They really did belt them out, that lot?

We stayed in a relatively posh area and were only here for two nights, so my opinion is of limited objectivity, but what we saw of São Paulo left a positive impression and was an optimistic start to the South American leg.

Kurzfassung auf Deutsch: I habe so viel rindfleisch gegessen. Brasilianischen Kühe denken jetzt, dass sie mir in einem anderen Leben beleidigt haben.

One week in Texas

So the big American (and occasionally Canadian) adventure finishes in Texas. As we’re now in Brazil, I’m getting all this done in one post.  Sorry, Texas.

Houston

First stop was the most populated city in the state: Houston.  We took another walking tour and our guide there explained that it really doesn’t drag in too many tourists, for lack of any obvious sights and attractions.   What they do have is an unusual system of tunnels spread all over the city, linking the major buildings and providing welcome respite from the demented heat and humidity outside.  HVAC fans would be interested to note that the tunnels originated as a means of sharing what was then prohibitively expensive air conditioning between two buildings.  Then someone else did it and then they stared linking the tunnels together.  Now there’s food courts and shops and allsorts down there.

 

In the JPMorgan Chase building, they have a series of portraits called “Texas Immortals”, with depictions of local men of note like Jim Bowie, Sam Houston and Davy Crockett. Thing is, if you look closely you will notice that the features of the various men are very similar to each other, even the guys who were Native American and Mexican.  This is because the artist commissioned to produce the pieces went a bit off reservation and made them all self-portraits, even though he had original photographs and paintings to work from.  He staggered the delivery so that no one noticed until well after they had been received and paid for.   Some people are just in it for the lolz.

   
Pictured : Epic Trollage

We visited the Houston Museum of Fine Art, which was worth a visit, especially as Shell were paying for the day so there was no entry fee.  Dunno what they’re up to.  My personal favourite exhibit was this thing where you made shadows on the wall and they were turned into monsters.  I could’ve happily done that all day but there were 8 year olds waiting in line. They were rubbish at it.

Fear me

 
Chan succeeded in making a chicken.

There was also the obligatory creepy Damien Hurst installation:

The shelves are filled with medical apparati.  *shudder* 

So it was a pleasant town, and the locals seem to like it (4 million and climbing), it’s just not a place for tourists.  The city didn’t seem to have a strong identity to speak of (the guide we had struggled to recommend anything specific to the town food-wise, for example), which was unusual in comparison to the rest of the state and with the other cities in the U.S we’d visited in general.  This is likely a result of the city’s relative youth. It does have a large Indian community though, so we managed to grab a curry from the auspiciously-named London Sizzler.  It was alright.

The tandoor was broken so I had to make do with paratha rather than naan. I almost called the embassy about this outrage.

San Antonio

San Antonio is definitely more of a tourist draw.  Home of the Alamo, the place where Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett et al chose to fight to the last man for a place with no strategic value whatsoever -and being specifically advised to leave as the town had been evacuated- in the Texan war with Mexico. Takes all kinds.  The Alamo fort isn’t there anymore, but you can still see the chapel and long barracks for the troops. 

 
Home of American pointless badassery

San Antonio is on the San Antonio river, surprisingly enough, upon which the Spanish Missions (of which the Alamo was one) were situated. These days there is a pleasant enough river walk through town, with numerous restaurants and tat shops to peruse.

We popped in to Texas A&M’s Art museum for a look at some Mexican folk art.  Bear with me.   These are made by Veronica Castillo, the go-to lady for this stuff. Historically these Tree-of-Life sculptures were made by Mexican families to document the lives of their relatives, but took a more Christian-theme subsequent to the country’s papist conversion.

   
 

On that note, the most interesting things to visit in San Antonio are the Spanish Missions. They were fort-communities run and administered by Franciscan Monks from Spain with the aim of converting the locals to Catholicism and making new Spanish subjects.  The Essentially the natives were given the choice of giving up their lives of relative leisure and probable starvation/murder by bandits for a life of toil and religious dedication but with guaranteed shelter and sustenance. The only original and untouched example is the Mission Conception:

 

And the largest of which is the Mission San Jose:

 
 

I think we have –if nothing else- received a comprehensive history of the establishment of the USA on this trip.

Austin

We were only in the state capital for a night, but we went out to the ‘Bat Bridge’ or whatever it’s called, as this is the home of 1.5 million bats that all go about their batty ways at sundown.   We took some dubious quality photos by flash and picked up a couple of them:

 
They smell terrible, by the way.

The following morning we took a nosey around the Capitol (sigh) building before heading over to Dallas.

 
 

Dallas

Right, I’m almost done.  We drove into Dallas in the early evening, just early enough to grab a taxi across town to catch the last day of the Texas State Fair.

  

It was a bit mental, truth be told. The format was broadly similar to the fair in Wisconsin but with an emphasis on fried things rather than dairy. Food on sticks is apparently universal however.

Here’s Chan modelling two fried Milk-And-Cookies on sticks. Yeah.

Big Tex is the towering mascot and occasionally belts out some Texan clichés and corporate sponsorship messages.  I believe he is the newest manifestation of Gozer the Destructor.  One year he caught fire and was left a smouldering skeleton, which kept some kids up at night for a while.

“None of you are safe”

The following day we went to the JFK museum at Dealey Plaza, fittingly enough situated on the sixth floor of the book depository building.  The museum is pretty objective in its description of the run-up and aftermath of the JFK assassination, with detailed insights into his presidency and the political atmosphere at the time that I wasn’t too clued into, beyond that detailed in the Oliver Stone film we all saw.

They’ve set up a webcam in the likeliest position of the shooter if you want to look over at JFK.org.  Upstairs, an American chap was wondering aloud as to why he didn’t shoot while the car was coming up Houston.  I surmised that governor Connally had a big fucking head and that Oswald had to wait for broadside instead.  I still favour the hypothesis that the Secret Service shot JFK by mistake while returning fire.

The last place we visited in Dallas was the botanical gardens, because we’re non-stop party animals. It being that time of year, pumpkins were a bit of a theme. It’s a pretty place.

 

 

And we’re done in the Anglosphere for the time being.

I’m writing this in Rio, so I have a week of Brazil to catch-up on.  It will be worth it when you see the otter video.