Post 11: The Department of Energy and Mercado Municipal

Today we visited the Department of Energy and Mining of the State of Sao Paulo. The building is located in center city, so we traveled about 35 minutes by bus to get there. When we arrived we were given a presentation on the state's current energy consumption as well as Sao Paulo's plans for the future. We had the opportunity to meet the secretary of energy and mining, João Carlos, as well. He was very welcoming and excited to tell us about everything that Sao Paulo is doing in the field of renewable energy. Also, his daughter used to be a professor at Northeastern, which was very cool! 

He discussed a lot about how the state is almost completely powered by hydroelectricity. Sao Paulo also uses a lot of biomass and ethanol. For the future, they plan on improving their sustainable energy production by attempting to use every part of the sugarcane plant, including the stem. They want to have more cars run on bio diesel as opposed to regular diesel.

After the presentation, we took a picture with the secretary and department and thanked everyone for having us. 

Since we were in center-city Sao Paulo, we took advantage of everything else in the neighborhood. The area is the oldest part of the city, so there were a lot of historic buildings to check out, but there was also a lot of culture and liveliness. 

(São Paulo Municipal Theatre)

(Altino Arantes Building)

(Center of the city, church stands where the city was founded)

We walked through a very highly populated area of the neighborhood next. There were vendors lining the streets, people jaywalking everywhere, and motorcycles weaving around cars that were packing the roads. People would shout out at you as you walked by, trying anything to get your attention to sell you things. There were toys and clothes and art pieces and bubbles and lots of colors and noises. The only thing I could compare this to would be pictures and videos I've seen of the streets in India. It was incredible, and unlike anything I had ever seen before. I wish I could have taken some pictures, but this area is also a hotbed for pickpockets. We had to stay close to our group as we walked through, and keep our bags close to us, with our phones away.

Once we made it through this area, we eventually made it to Mercado Municipal de São Paulo, a huge public market that has been active since the 1930s. This was by far one of my favorite places we've visited.

To paint a picture of what it was like to be there, I'll start with what it looked like. The building was massive, and the architecture was incredible. It looked like a train station that also happened to have stained glass windows. There were hundreds of stands set up inside -- selling anything from fruit to fish, coffee to wine. For my Philly friends and family back home, it was like Reading Terminal Market except 10 times the size and with two floors.

It was so loud in there. The sounds of everyone talking and shuffling around and cooking food echoed throughout the terminal. The vendors would come up to you persuading you to order food from their restaurants or to try some of the fruit from their stand in loud Portuguese.

And the smells... it was amazing. As you walked through the market, you could smell everything from fruit to chocolate, to chicken and fried dough. I was instantly hungry.

Speaking of being hungry, the food there was some of the best I've ever had in my life. The fruit stands were incredible. The vendors would walk up to you with some exotic fruit you've never seen before, a knife already in their hand cutting a piece off for you. I tried a few I had never seen before,  like dragon fruit and another one similar to dragon fruit from the Amazons which I can't remember the name of. I tried dates and strawberries together, which was an amazing combination.

We also were told that we had to try a Mortadella Sandwich while we were there because it is incredible and you can't find it anywhere else. So, a group of us headed over to a stand to try it. It was as good as Renato said it would be. It was a lot of meat, but it was 100% worth it. 

After this, we had to get desert. They had a stand with a bunch of chocolates and cakes. And fondue! They had chocolate covered strawberries on skewers, and bowls of bananas drenched in chocolate. And when i say drenched, I really mean drenched. A died and went to heaven. 

Before we left the market, we took some group photos just for fun, and then headed back to Campus Casa for a lecture and time to work on our group projects.