Free Boiled Sweets:)

So here I am, in another city but returning to an old friend... I´m in Sao Paulo with my old friend Brazil... I thought I wouldn´t have much to write about but how wrong was I... buses in Argentina are awesome... I kept a mini diary on my iPod Touch... I´ll copy and paste it below and then explain it... but it mainly consists of a list of things I got offered and I accepted during the trip:

Boiled sweet 

Whisky - Whisky face 

Coke  

Beer and hot meal (mystery canaloni) 

Champaign 

DAY 2 

Morning change coach-coffee and cakes 

The Fighter 

Biscuit from Flavio/Tiago 

Lunch (chicken and maybe polenta cake) and coke 

... So as you can see, I got offered some lovely treats... the bus was from Buenos Aires and the treats started with a lovely boiled sweet... my first thought was, ´This isn´t an airplane´ ... but then as I spyed the sugar coated boiled sweet I thought, ´When in Rome...´ ... and it didn´t stop there, Whisky was the next offer and it caused me to try out my whisky face, where I look into the distance pensively, as if the world´s troubles were on my shoulders... The Coke that is next in the list is of the ´-a-cola´ variety and nothing to do with the illegal white powder... Then beer and a hot meal of cannaloni with a filling I never quite placed... Then Champaign just before bed for some reason... I had two glasses... I could get used to this kind of bus travel:) 

... we changed buses in the morning and that is when the lovely people on the bus started coming into their own, letting me know what was going on and the fact that there was free coffee and biscuits avaliable in the depot, even despite no one really knowing English and me not knowing either Spanish or Portugese... lovely people:) ... Then I watched The Fighter in English (I love how they merely subtitle films) Flavio (my new Brazilian friend along with Tiago:) offered me a biscuit and then we had a hot chicken dinner on the bus... but the Brazilian border bought problems... the party was over, free stuff was finished... before the border half of Korea got on the bus (I´ve no problem with them just now suddenly the bus was full after having only a small comunity of lovelies before that!)... then once over the border the free stuff stopped... I had to buy my own chicken supper (the shame!)... and no whisky or Champaign to help me sleep (I´m used to it now... and where is my bloody boiled sweet?!)... but the bus journey wasn´t that bad but for back ache from sleeping on a reclining bus seat two nights in a row... I watched the film Salt featureing the lovely but a little intimidating Angleina Jolie... there was an issue with the subtitling in this film though... there were bits where they just spoke Russian and there were only Spanish subtitles where English ones would be... luckily I´m a fairly poor student of the Russian language so I was able to tease out a little information from these passages but unfortunatly not enough to make sense of the exchanges... at least I knew it was an action film so the only real things of note are when she miraculously saves the world from a coming nuclear war stimulated by Russian agents (come on Hollywood, you really shouldn´t still be relying on the Cold War for your film ideas... its been so long since David Hasselhoff single handedly tore down the Berlin war)... ... I guess they are just not allowed to give out the free goods over in Brazil... but my advice to travelers... always take the bus in Argentina... even if a flight is comparable price... you get much more for your bus-buck and you´ll finish in a bus station in the city near a metro station... when you fly you end up in the middle of no where... that´s just a handy tit-bit for you:)

So as for Sao Paulo... its hard to place it really... its a massive sprawling city... just massive... I´ve not explored it yet but I´ve had time to visit the Nationa Football Museum (I managed to miss two out of three penalties in a penalty shoot out stall they had!... what else would you expect from an Englishman... One was spectacularly Waddle-esque:) ... I´ve also spyed the local games... off to watch Palmeiras tonight and Corinthians tomorrow:) ... I like the bazarre things they sell on the street here... I´ve already passed a man selling only remote controls and shavers, and I´ve seen a man painting with just his feet... and then just now I saw a feather-duster sales man... its the land of the euntrapenur:) ... Also, I mentioned before the diversity of Brazil, but it is really true... its such a mixed country that literally anybody could be Brazilian... I can´t remember seeing such a diverse country... of course, I have no idea of how all the different groups get along... but there do seem like lots of mixed couples.

My flirtation with the football media in the UK continues... the e-mail to The Football Ramble which I included in my post "Lovely Montevideo and the eternal sigh of the damned:)" on the 31st March got read out on their show this week... you can download the show for free at:

http://www.thefootballramble.com/index.php/podcasts/episode/the-statue-is-mine

Similarly, I was back on that world football phone in last night asking about Uruguayan football (seriously.... I´m such a geek:) ... if you want to hear my voice, download the podcast at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/wf

When I get back to the hostel I´ll check what time in the podcasts my respective bits are and put it in the comments to this post so you don´t have to listen to the whole thing... but I assure you, both shows are interesting... honestly... no really... ok, maybe its just me...

... Well now there are only 2 weeks left in this trip... its gone both fast and slow... it seems days ago that I left but also home and all the things I was up to before I left seem like the deepest, distant past...

I´ll catch up with you when I return to Blighty... but enjoy these posts while they are here... they´ll dry up when I´m back... you´ll miss these little nuggets... when I´m back you´ll have to listen to this nonsense come straight out of my face!

Anyway, keep well my people:)

Matt:)