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Published: March 4th 2006
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View from our Hotel
View South from Hotel, onto Pedra da Gavea, the mountain for hang-gliding Hello to all back on home turf! I am writing this from the lounge of our hotel, the “Intercontinental Rio” in the district of Sao Conrado in Rio de Janeiro. Out my window, I can see the beach with waves rolling in, and lots of locals running and swimming in the warm water. I just finished tanning by the poolside at the hotel, where we were entertained by a group of men playing “Pagode” music. For lunch I had a skewer of fish and I drank a couple ice cold Guarana Antarticas. We were interrupted briefly by the arrival of a helicopter on the landing pad - a rather routine occurrence here, it seems.
Today is a lazy day thus far. It is the first day of the conference. I think I will pay the registration fee, in order to make it official that I was here…you know…for medical reasons. In that way, I can be reimbursed for the trip, and write it off as well.
On our day of arrival we finally made it through customs and the airport (the trip seemed to take forever, as we were delayed on almost every flight, and we even flew through
View from our Hotel 2
View East from hotel, onto the beach, note lifeguard station 13 Sao Paulo before making it to Rio. In Sao Paulo they came on board the plane and made a fine pretense of “checking all the bags” but really it seemed to be quite a smoke and mirrors show which simply added time to the whole venture. The drive to the hotel filled me with so much joy I thought I was going to burst. Even the smell of the Brazilian air as I got off of the plane brought back so many memories. Our taxi driver took us along the coast, through the “Centro” of the city, and past the beaches of Copacabana, Ipanema, Leblon, and finally into Sao Conrado. It was great to get his opinions on the city, and what we should attempt to see while here.
After getting to the hotel, and finding out that they didn’t have a record of Arash’s registration, or the fact that there were a few days in between the days that he had booked that they were supposed to bridge for us, things were uneventful. Stress!
That afternoon, we went down to the beach right across from our hotel. All the guidebooks told me that this beach was dirty, because
Copacabana
Looking North, along the famous Copacabana Beach. Note the "Pao de Acucar" or Sugarloaf Mt in the background. it drained sewage from Rocinha, the city’s biggest Favela, which is built in the hills “Morros” right behind our hotel. The hotel staff, however, reassured us that this problem has been corrected, and the locals confirmed this fact, so into the water we went.
We basically took turns going into the water, some staying back to watch our “stuff” and some to bodysurf. Our group consists of myself, Arash, Mo (a nurse who works with Arash in the OR - married, no children) and Sam (another nurse in the OR, married, 2 children). It is an interesting mix. I am the only white guy among the brown cluster. I joked with them that I was the white plant on this Al Qaeda operation. I hope I was wrong. So far, however, I have not noted any bomb-making supplies in any of the suitcases, so I think I’m safe.
After the beach, we went back to the hotel for a nap, and then down to the center of the city, to a place called Rio “Scenarium” for supper and evening entertainment. The Scenarium is an Antiques store by day and a Dinner place at night. They have live music,
Beach Show and Shine
It's whitey and the Brazilians in a pose-down. That's how these dudes were tanning...just standing there facing the sun...for hours! in Chorinho/Pagode style. Some Bossa Nova Soloists on occasion. Lots of local flavour, and the music was excellent. Following Scenarium, off to another local music/food joint called 00. More Americanized, strong Gay contingent, it seemed. Just not our cup of tea.
The next day, we went straight to Copacabana beach. I am without the capacity to describe the beauty of that 5-km stretch of beach. We lay in the sun and fought off vendors all day, trying to avoid eating scary things, and drinking lots of water from Coco Verde (Coconuts). Later in the day, we went to the Hotel Sofitel, to enquire about some tickets that I had ordered earlier. Leading up to Carnaval, which formally ended the day before we arrived, there are a lot “Bailes” which are the Brazilian equivalent of big Socials back home. This one is a rarity, and was held after Carnaval. It was done in the style of a Venetian Masquerade, so we needed to get masks to enter (as we somehow forgot to pack our tuxedoes). This was a real wild card, and I didn’t know if we were going to do it or not, but the guys were game, so
Volei, Futebol rules
Beach Volleyball, Futebol rules (no hands, headers, and kicking only) we decided to brave it. It was a big leap, and it was quite crazy in the end, but we were very glad that we did it!
To start off, we entered the hotel on…wait for it…a red carpet. Then up to the finely-decorated ballroom. Live music, amazing service, and all the Passionfruit, lemonade, mango juice, etc, that we could stomach on top of amazing food. We were surprised to see all kinds of “Press” there, taking pictures of all of the people. Apparently we were in among the rich and famous last night. We plan on buying lots of local magazines to see who we were there with last night, cuz we couldn’t figure it out. In any case, it was a riot, and we stayed through until the midnight supper of ham, feijoada, and other yummy food.
Today was tanning, the start of the conference, and tonight we are off to the Sambadrome, a stadium set up to host the formal “Parades” of the Samba Schools. The competition is over, and the winners, I believe, were Vila Isabel this year (Janine…that’s the group with the Simon Bolivar Float, I think…I’ll find out soon enough, I guess).
International Men of Mystery
Arash, on left, and Sam, on right, at the Bal Masque event at the Sofitel Tomorrow is a soccer game at Maracana stadium, the largest stadium in the world. Formerly, it had the capacity to hold 200,000 people. It has been upgraded and modernized to the FIFA standard, so now only seats 65,000.
That's it for now, I'll try to post again tomorrow. Hopefully this works, and I can figure it out.
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Sue
non-member comment
It looks amazing
Scott, thanks so much for all the info,it's awesome. I've been wondering what sam has been upto, the pics are great. Thanks again, have fun