São Paulo 23.12.18- 25.12.18

December 23 we left Chicago to fly south to Brasil.

But first, L and I ran and got breakfast. 

Then we went Ohare to begin our travel adventure. 


Obligatory plane selfie.

Obligatory photo of steer in Dallas airport.

Just as we were about to start boarding our flight to São Paulo, a mechanical issue was discovered with our plane. An hour later we were boarding a replacement plane and sat at the gate 2 hours while food and everything was transferred from the sick plane to our healthy ride.

During the wait before takeoff, I watched 96% of Crazy Rich Asians.

10 hours of flight time later, we were on the other side of the world.

I was overcome with emotion- I’ve missed my in laws and friends a lot. The last time I visited Brasil was 4 years ago- far too long when family and good people are involved.

We landed on Christmas Eve and went to the hotel to drop our stuff and freshen up after 20 hours of traveling.

We went to the Super Hipper to buy Christmas lunch. We also had a lunch of 2 coxinhas a soda and a dessert- brigadeiro- for a total of $6. Total for 2 lunches!

After shopping, we went to see Mae and Pai. It was amazing to see them in person after so long. We Skype, and email but it’s not the same as giving someone a hug or squeezing their hand. 

I brought a loaf of Rugbrød for my Mae. I baked it the morning of our flight and it only received small attention from TSA who wanted to confirm it was a 4lb chunk of bread. 

Mae loved it! And I was especially happy to unload it from my bag. The nurse also loved it so much that I found a recipe in Portuguese for her and she’s made a few loaves now.

We spent a while at their house and then went back to the hotel for the night. Unfortunately everything was closed (yay catholic country, yay) so dinner was a challenge. Luckily room service was open so we were able to eat dinner. 

The street art is so fantastic here.


We woke up on Christmas morning and went to one of my favorite places in the world- parque Ibiraquera for a run. 

It felt great to run after a long travel day.

The park is a 1.5ish mile loop with various trails cutting across it.

It was great to experience the park being so empty- it can get super busy.

After the park we went back to Mae and Pai’s to cook Christmas dinner. 

The murals under the metro are fire.



We got started cooking as soon as we arrived. I insisted on cooking Christmas dinner the moment we knew we would travel to Brasil. It would be an honor for me to cook for my family. 

We cooked a Chester. It is a huge chicken that ive never heard of before. It was 8lbs! I stuffed chunks of butter and garlic cloves under the skin and put oranges on it. I stuffed the inside with oranges, limes, thyme and rosemary.

We also made a salad.

After a few hours the Chester was perfect.

We also made mashed potatoes, stuffing, mac n cheese and beans.

My in laws had never had “sweet beans” aka bbq beans before- beans aren’t ever sweet in Brasil. They loved them!  We also made traditional American stuffing which they liked. They also loved the cranberry sauce- again- something that does not exist in Brasil.

For dessert, I made a chocolate pudding pie.

With chantilly cream!

After spending time with everyone, we went back to the hotel. This was the first time we encountered traffic. Everyone must have been leaving their families to head home. 

Luckily some bars were open Christmas night- we ended up at boceto São Bento. I had my first caipirinha of the trip there- jatupicaba fruit with lime.

We also had dinner. Delicious sausages with bread and farofa

And more caipirinhas.

And fried things filled with pumpkin and dried meat.

This place was packed!

It was nice to be sitting in open air without freezing.


It was a perfect end to our first 36 hours in São Paulo.

São Silvestre 15k 2018 {race recap}

Time: 1:39?

Place:? 

I’ve wanted to run Sao Silvestre 15k for a while- it achieved bucket list status for me years ago after watching many YouTube videos of the race. It’s one of the oldest, most historic races in South America- this was the 94th Edition! Once we knew we would be in São Paulo for New Years Eve, we signed up to secure our spots before it sold out. 

On Thursday before the race (Monday) we went to the expo to pick up our kits. 

It was extremely well organized- we knew we would pick up our bib for the green section-  there were lines and people to direct us where to go. 

We collected our bibs and shirts and then walked through the expo. 

There were many vendors selling all sorts of running gear- socks with crazy prints, shoes, shirts, fanny packs, and nutrition. 

There was a booth to customize your race shirt. Many people wear the race shirts on race day. We have no idea why people wear the race shirts for the actual  races in Brasil. Maybe they aren’t superstitious like us Americans? (I prefer to wear non race shirts for races, and race shirts for training.) There are also usually  people wearing their athletic club shirts for races too. 

We got some free coffee and took some pics and then went back to the hotel. 

The race shirt is pretty nice. 

Obligatory pic with bibs. 

Fruit bars, cappuccino mix, and gels in our kits.  

Not a bad selection of stuff. 

They were also handing out free wonder woman nail polish and sunscreen. 

I bought an orange shirt that had São Paulo landmarks on it. (Famous bridge, obelisk, and MASP)

Monday was race day!

We had a quick breakfast at the hotel and then took an Uber to as close as we could get to the race staging area. 

Surprisingly streets were empty a few blocks out. This race is over 35k people!

We got to the start about an hour before the gun went off and sat on the ground. And waited. 

And waited more. 

And took selfies. 

And waited more. More and more people kept coming into the area. They had on the other color bibs which meant a slower estimated time. It’s a thing here to try to be in the front?  we all had on chips so there was no need to fight for a spot near the start. 

More selfies and waiting. 

The start area was packed shoulder to shoulder with runners. People were still trying to squeeze in front - many of whom looked like they wouldn’t be running fast- especially in the heat.  Smh. 

I knew this race was kind of a shit show from the videos we’ve watched. But my expectations were for way less of a mess than it actually was. 

Views of Avenue Paulista. 

One last selfie!

So many people! How about those cotton socks?

Around 9 the gun went off and we started moving towards the start line. People were jogging in place like robots. People were trying to weave and get to the front (again, we had chips) Y THO!?

We weren’t too far back from the start but yet it seemed there were thousands of people in front of us. When we ran in a tunnel at the start, everyone started cheering and yelling. 

L and I decided to run together and to not try to weave around the people too aggressively  who felt the need to start in the front even thought they would be slower than most of the herd. We didn’t want to get separated. 

Most people in their gray race shirts. 

In the first 5k (of 15k) we must have passed 7,000 people. I have no idea how that many people got in front of us, since we weren’t too far back from the start. 

It was insane seeing so many people all packed together. The first few km are a very steep downhill- it was crazy seeing the sea of people in front of us. 

Whenever a camera was present people would cut across the street to get in front of it and wave or whatever. They would stop short to do this without any consideration to people around them. Smh. 

The course is pretty cool because it’s one huge 9.3 mile loop around São Paulo. 

We stopped at each aid station- like every 2-3km for water. I took ice and put it in my sports bra, drank some of the cold water and dumped the rest on my head. 

At one of the aid stations near the end, a guy ran into me and we exchanged some nice Portuguese curse words. I felt lik Lisa Simpson in that episode where she learns Italian. (I have never made an effort to learn bad Portuguese words but somehow they all came out at that guy- must have learned the words from when L and I watch Futebol and he yells at the TV) I definitely earned my  barraqueira card Monday. 

It was during this verbal altercation that L and I got separated. Thank god for cell phones so we could pick a place to meet up - we did lose like 8 minutes while trying to find a place to sync back up. L was all “meet at mile 8.5” and I was all let’s meet at avenue whatever - since our GPS watches were not calculating the same distance- I had started my watch about 50 yards before the start on accident. 

While waiting for L, I saw some of the costume runners- a guy dressed as Ayrton Senna in full race gear including helmet, Ironman and all sorts of other things. 

With several k left, we were able to meet up and climb Brigadero together. Yay uphill finish! 

About a km before the finish, some people were handing out beer. Of course we stopped to drink it. The beer was cold and was delicious on such a hot race day. 

The plastic cups of water were easy to drink out of. Just punch a hole in the aluminum foil. They were difficult to run on though- very slippery and crunchy. 

Running up Brigadero. 

Crunchy cups!

Selfie on Ave Paulista. So happy to be almost done with this race!

We grabbed hands and crossed the finish together. I’ve never been so happy to be done with a race in my life- ok that’s not true. Boston and IM Lou were #1 and 2 for the feeling of “get me the f*ck out of here” Sao Silvestre was a very close 3rd. 

We walked through an insane mass of people to get our medals and then walked to the next metro station so we could take the subway back to our hotel. 

I’m so happy to cross Sao Silvestre off my bucket list. I have no plans to ever run it again- it’s not a race for a PR due to the heat (this is a summer race), hills and the crazy nature of the race. It’s more of a fun run/party I guess. I hate crowds and the unorganized nature of how the participants were lining up in front when it was very apparent they would walk 50 meters into the race. 

I did like that the race is a huge loop around São Paulo. 

The hills weren’t as bad as I anticipated. (Despite the 1k elevation gain) Those first few miles were quite steep downhill. 

There were thousands of spectators which definitely made the race atmosphere electric and fun. I also love the medal and race shirt. I did have fun in this race despite everything. 

Maybe I’ll return for the 100th Edition in 6 years- when it will likely be an even bigger shit show. At least my expectations will be more in line then. But going to Brasil between Christmas and the New Year is something I would want to avoid in the future. More on that in another post. 

So happy to cross this race off my bucket list!