Relaxing in the Park by Whitney Morsching #18

After a long night of dancing at the club, we needed a day of restful activities! We started off the day with a bus ride to Cantareira Park, which is atop a mountain and overlooks almost all of Sao Paulo. We were going to hike up the mountain to see the views, but, with all the rain we had last night, there was a mudslide in the park. So we weren’t able to do the hike, which was a little disappointing. But I’m sure most of the girls were ok with giving our legs a little rest!

Then it was off to lunch, where we ate at, of all places… SUBWAY! All of us have been craving some sort of American food, but we still didn’t get to satisfy our ranch cravings (they didn’t have any!). It was nice to have a little reminder of home, even if we had to point out what we wanted through the glass instead of just rambling off our order.

After lunch we went to Ibirapuera Park, which I would describe as Sao Paulo’s version of Central Park in New York City. The park was beautiful, and so was the weather! There was a huge open grass area where there were tons of people playing soccer, Frisbee, reading, or just going for a walk. We sat there soaking up the Brazilian sun and just relaxing for awhile, which felt amazing! A few people started wandering around and exploring the rest of the park. Murley and Schriver even decided to get a little running in! Kaili and Jackie found a few (very good looking) guys playing volleyball and asked to join in. Soon enough, we had the whole team over there wanting to play. So we grabbed the guys and went over to an outdoor volleyball court and joined in with some more guys that were already playing there. We had an intense 4’s tournament going on after a little bit, with quite a few spectators! All of whom would cheer for our girls whenever they got a kill against the guys :) We had a ton of fun playing with some really good players and made some fun new Brazilian friends. Oh, and everyone got a good laugh when I tripped over the ropes holding the net up... thanks guys!

Dinner tonight was amazing! We went to an extremely upscale mall to a pizzeria buffet. It was just like the steakhouse we went to our first night in that the waiters would bring you all the different kinds of pizzas. Once again, we thoroughly enjoyed the hint of American food, but it definitely had Brazilian flavor. The best pizza in my opinion was the chocolate dessert pizza with coconut and white chocolate on it… amazing! Needless to say we all came back to the hotel nice and full!

Hope all is well back home… we miss you!