Martina was totally right

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Rio is a gorgeous city... Im so happy I hopped the bus here. I didn't initially even want to go to the big cities, since Im not much for big buildings and crowds of people (you can see that anywhere. Well, not tucson, but almost anywhere). But when I called Martina for Brazil advice last month before I left, she said "Youre really gonna want to see Rio" and she was so right.

First off, youre near a beach nearly everywhere you go. The city juts out into the water in so many places there are miles and miles of gorgeous sandy beaches (with Holy- ':0 That's Big! waves), plus lakes in between. When you look up to one side, theres a Sugarloaf Mountain *Pao de Azucar* which looks nothing like a loaf of bread to me, but what do I know. 'on the otherside, is the huge cliff with the enormous Jesus on top... like ENORMOUS.

I spent one day just chillin and walking around copacabana, drinking Acai smoothies and eating Pao de Queso *Little breadballs with cheese inside that are the staple vegetarian food so far, although I had pizza once too*. Brazil is wayyy more developed than a lot of places I have been, which is kind of relaxing, to tell the truth (not to mention they are so cool about everything) but it doesnt give me incredibly bizarre and interesting things to say. The most unusual thing I have seen so far is the combination Blockbuster/Drugstore. Oh, and this gas station thing, where you digitally put in how many kilos of pressure you want in your tires, and put the hose up to them and it automatically fills it to that pressure! I want one!!

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