No, really, this is Brazil, not Germany or Austria. Honnest!

We were staying in the Rex Hotel, which is close to this one, in typical German architecture, as most of the town and the surrounding area.

The townhall building in Blumenau, with a Brazilian flag.

Two days later we were in the city of Blumenau, after a 12 hours journey by bus. This is a city created by German immigrants to Brazil in the 19th century, and where half of the population is blond with blue eyes. They have a famous Oktoberfest and great food. It's a small city in the state of Santa Catarina, surrounded by beautiful forests, very clean and organised. It's also the place to which part of J.'s family emmigrated decades ago, when the Empire collapsed in 1974.

That afternoon, the rain came back again, and we had to get a taxi, where J. took this picture. The day after, after the urban jungle of Sao Paulo, we would head to the state of Santa Catarina, to Blumenau, a city colonized by Germans, and the magnificent Florianopolis, which is the closest thing to Paradise I have seen yet. More pictures tomorrow!

Now thats a picture for K., who seemed to like our traditional Portuguese pavement (the "Calçada Portuguesa"). Here it is, in Sao Paulo, in the South of the world, thousands of miles away from Lisbon. It is the same thing, and for generations, Brazilians relied on Portuguese immigrants to make their streets beautiful.

This is probably the building with the weirdest shape in the Avenida Paulista... Stunning.

In the downtown, some places look like Arab "bazaars", with open markets selling everything in the streets.

Avenida Paulista, Sao Paulo's main avenue, where most of the finantial institutions are located, side by side with magnificent apartment blocks.

Sao Paulo is full of nice hotels, like this one. The tourist industry is very well organised in Brasil, and prices are very affordable to a West European or North American. A double room in a fours stars hotel like this one could cost as little as 25 to 30 dollars.

I liked this building in the downtown area. It could be anywhere in Lisbon, if only it had a third of its size...

Among so much beauty and sophistication, we can also be confronted with visions of poverty. That huge tower that can be seen here had over 30 floors, but seemed to be in ruins, such was the poor state of its façade.

A view from one of the galleries at the Pinacoteca.

Windows at the Pinacoteca museum.

Opposite the train station is the Pinacoteca, this late 19th century building, surrounded by magnificent tropical trees, which houses Sao Paulo's main museum. It has an impressive collection of paintings and statues that would rival with the best museums in Europe.

Inside the train station. Brazilians seem to prefer a very well organised network of comfortable buses to travel the huge distances between the states and the big cities. In a country with the size of Europe, the railways does not go everywhere, although the trains seemed perfectly acceptable to me.

The main train station at Sao Paulo.

Post office building façade, Sao Paulo downtown.

A hotel in the downtown, with the name of a very Portuguese town, Queluz.

Beautiful architecture from the previous century can be found everywhere in Sao Paulo, among the skyscrapers. This is one of the post office buildings in the downtown.

Violence is a problem in the big urban areas in Brazil. While we were crossing this bridge, two helicopeters flew in circles above our heads. Not far from there, there had been a robbery, and police were chasing a car. The two helicopters were broadcasting the whole thing live for a program ("Brasil Urgente", a popular show about criminality) at Bandeirantes TV. A woman passing by was shot and later died. We only realized what had happened when we saw the news that night. J. was almost in panic and did not allow me to take my Casio camera with me again, fearing we would be robbed or kidnapped or something. Most pictures were taken with my discrete Aiptek slimcam after this. When we remember this we seem like silly tourists. However, Brazilians are the first to warn you to be careful in the big towns.

This is Sao Paulo's main theater, a building from the beginning of the century.

Later in that day, which began cloudy and with rain, the sun came out and we went to the center. And there we saw this huge tower, where apparently over six thousand people live. It seemed like a scene from the film Blade Runner. A lot of Sao Paulo's sky scrapers (with notable exceptions, like the buildings conceived by Oscar Niemeyer) can be quite ugly and most need urgent restoration.

We had arrived in Sao Paulo after a 12 hours flight. This is a view from the Marian Hotel, where me and J. were staying, in the downtown. The city is a huge and fascinating metropolis, specially if you can speak or understand Portuguese, but even if you don't, anyone would feel at home in such a place, surrounded by such wonderful people. Wherever we looked at, we would find signs from our colonial past in the buildings, the streets, the landscape. My family and J.'s have lived in the old colonies of East and West Africa, India, and in J.'s case, also Brazil. What a waste that we had waited 30 years to finally see what remained of the Empire, and Brasil - which gained independence from Portugal almost 200 years ago - is a fusion of all these influences. A country with a breathtaking beauty, a vibrant culture (its literature, media, arts, music...). And just like North America remains the Promised Land to most of humanity, Brazil will always be the Promised Land for any Portuguese speaker, wheter he is from Portugal, East Timor, Mozambique, Goa...

Yes, I´m here, in the other side of the world! Its almost everything as I´ve imagined it. A giant city, unlike any other thing I´ve seen before, and they all speak my language - although the written Portuguese here is slightly different, and the accent much sweeter than ours in Europe. This megalopolis has great skyscrapers from the beginning of the century - like the Martinelli building, on the right. The 200 million Brazilians are a curious mixture of European (not only Portuguese, but Italian, German and whatever you can imagine) and African and Amerindians. This is reflected in one of the most cosmopolitan cultures in the world. Unfortunately, as in most South America, poverty, violence and criminality, is a major problem. I´m here on hollidays right now, but also checking some media magazines where I might write as a correspondent in Europe. Tomorrow, I´ll be heading to the beach, 10 hours away from here. More news soon ;)

Speaking of skyscrapers... I'm thinking of Sao Paulo, that huge city in Brazil, where I'll be staying the next few weeks. I'm quite excited with the idea of leaving Europe again, and discover another Portuguese speaking country - for the first time. In my mind, I see this magnificent city with over 10 million people, amazing architecture and one of the cosmopolitan melting pots of our modern world. I hope I'll like it. I'll share pictures with my comrade photobloggers as soon as possible, but I'll be checking what you're doing in your blogs often ;)

Sheraton Hotel. These two towers are some of the few skyscrapers we have - with less than 30 floors, people in America or Hong Kong would possibly laugh and say they are too small to be called skyscrapers.. Tall buildings are not encouraged in Portugal, and even prohibited in most cities.

Amoreiras Towers, Lisbon. A busy commercial area, with one of Lisbon's most stylish shopping centers.

Driving around town II. United States of America Avenue, near where I live.

Driving around the town... I love these huge eucalyptus trees we find everywhere in Portugal. We brought them from Australia over a century ago, and they have literally invaded the country, where we now find huge forests everywhere. They burn easily in the summer fires, apparently destroy the soil, but no other tree here seems to me so beautiful. And at any time of the year, they release this wonderful fragrance...