In Sao Paulo, carnival appeared to be non-existant. Partly, I suppose because carnival had technically already ended...but in Rio there were still lots of blocos happening at this time. Anyways, I had to satisfy myself with non-carnival events.
After visiting Liberdade (Japan town), checking out an interesting exhibition on urban slums. The exhibition examined the phenomena of urban slums in 7 six cities around the world: Sao Paulo, Rome, Mumbai, Medellín, Nairobi, Moscow and Baghdad. It's part of a conference, where city officials, experts and citizens from these various cities are to come together and discuss common challenges, solutions that have been attempted. Here was one of my favourite quotes:
"Most people who come to cities and make it their home, come with very little but manage to make the most of their time there. Favelas, urban villages or temporary shelters too – often collapsed in the catch-all word ‘slums’ – are actually an expression of their own efforts at making the city functional for them and for everyone else living there."
(http://www.saopaulocalling.org/more/mumbai-user-generated-city)
If you'd like to learn more check out this interesting manifesto of the project...and then browse around the website: http://www.saopaulocalling.org/about/manifesto
Afterwards I went out to meet up with one of Flavia's buddies: Julio. Julio had an extra bike kicking around and was also planning on heading to the 'bicicletada' AKA Critical Mass!
There were some 200 people who came together. We took over the roads and rode for a few hours covering some 28 km. Thanks Julio Beraldo for the map below of our route:
After cycling, I met up with my friend Maiara and Mariana. We went out to a club called Kitsch club. Another night of good company, and good music.
