Spirit Of Friendship, Affordable Shopping And Our Last Night In Sao Paulo

We had a sleep in after the big night out. The Brazilians arrived at our hotel about 12:30. We went on foot to a nearby shopping centre after cashing some travellers cheques at a nearby Citi Bank.

Cashing the cheques was an ordeal in itself. I think the teller must have worked in the KGB in a previous life. As I was interrogated before encashment. The expression "don't leave home without then" should be changed to "American Travellers Cheques, do Leave without them" as they were becoming a real pain in the ass trying to encash them. Now with "REAL" in hand we ventured to the shopping centre. First stop was was the optical shop as I had broken my glasses the night before and they needed repairing.

As it turned out the first shop as we entered the centre was indeed an Optical Shop. We dropped off the glasses and were instructed to come back in 1 1/2 hours. My eyes panned around the store looking at the expensive frames and wondered how much they would charge me for the repair. After all this was Sao Paulo where everything was triple the price of anywhere else.

Venturing through the centre we perused many different shops all of which as we had become accustomed to "Hideously Expensive". When suddenly out of the corner of my eye I spotted a Menswear store that did not require one to take out a second mortgage to purchase a shirt or two. I was like a little oasis of affordability in a desert of expense. Excitement filled the air and we became obsessed with purchasing just like these crazy people you see on TV on the first day of a David Jones sale. One pair of pants and two shirts later we existed the store satisfied with our purchase. We were now on a hunt to capture more bargains which meant another trip to yet another shopping centre but first it was back to the optical store to pick up my glasses. They were ready to collect and surprisingly no charge.

A Taxi was ordered to take us to the new shopping centre and soon we were inside the air conditioned comfort. Finally on our last day we were in a centre with affordable prices. Two pairs of pants, one belt and a shirt later we were on our way back to the hotel to take our dear friends to dinner. They had been so kind and generous over the last few days. We greatly appreciated their hand of friendship.

Dinner was consumed at a singularly unimpressive restaurant and we chatted with our friends about our hopes and dreams for the future. We parted company with the Brazilians and headed back to our hotel to pack for our early morning flight to Bogota Colombia.

Me and Michael talked much about how much our Brazilian friends meant to us and we would miss them dearly but took solace in the knowledge that the spirit of friendship spans the oceans.