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Published: August 6th 2007
My 1 1/2 short days in Rio has been fun. Yesterday I saw Copacabana Beach and the Live Earth concert. There are people everywhere! Most of the crowd is for the upcoming PanAmerican games in the city.
I have been staying at an apartment just a few blocks from the beach that belongs to a friend of Mark´s mom. (Mark is my host/friend here.) It´s a simple apartment, but is more than sufficient for this trip - and it´s free! Interestingly enough, the elevators are different here. There is a door you pull open once the elevator has arrived, in addition to the normal sliding door that elevators in the states have. There was also a hot water heater contraption that Mark couldn´t get to work/turn on until after we´d both had ice cold showers.. eep!
Live Earth was fun. It was PACKED. They definately addressed the security issue that almost cancelled the show too. There were raised platforms all over the place for the police to watch over the crowd from. People were dancing... and definately showing their affection. It suprised me how much PDA´s are the norm. (Public Displays of Affection.) There is always someone walking by
with something to sell also, so Skol´s (the local beer) were available as needed. It really was just Brazilians, although a very drunk American, probably late 20´s, heard our English and came over. We had a good laugh at his expense. He was just having a blast.
Earlier in the day I got to try coconut juice/water straight from the coconut - it´s really good! It´s served cold, and they hack into the top of it with a machete to serve.
Lunch for today and yesterday was at a type of place called a ´kilo´where you pay for food by weight. I LOVE Brazilian fare! I even tried Barbeque Chicken Hearts - and I liked them! I was disappointed that the second time I went back, they were out. And like any good meal, you drink Guarana with it. It´s the popular soft drink in here. Think of it as how CocaCola is in the states, only this isn´t really a cola in the cola-tasting sense.
Today (Sunday) we saw the Christo. The statue of the Christ that overlooks the city. The view is amazing, and it´s mindblowing to try to comprehend what it took to get
the statue up to the top - it´s incredibly steep, and a long way up that mountain! It´s actually one of the new 7 wonders of the world.
Before heading back down from Corcovado (the statue´s mountain), I got some Banana Juice (one of my favorites!) and a Coxinha. (chicken ball)... not sure how to explain it, trust me when I say it´s great! We actually met a great taxi guy, he gave us a fantastic rate and even swung by a good photo-op place. It was neat too coming back down from the Christo when we had to make an unexpected stop. There was a MONKEY in the road! (It had another buddy in a nearby tree.) Aparantly it´s not so uncommon to see them.
Afterwards it was off to Ipanema Beach to work on our tans. I got a Brazilian flag/scarf/towel thing, but we ended up renting chairs. The exchange rate is making this trip that much better! $4.50 American got us 2 chairs and an umbrella! I had another coconut and also a corn on the cob. It´s a popular beach treat here, served with the corn husks cleaned and cut to act as a
wrapper/holder.
Later on we headed to a ´Hippie Market´. It´s just an outdoor market. I picked up a few gifts and some things for myself. One of the things I got was a purse made with CD´s as end pieces to it. Imagine a tiny duffel bag. Most of the CD´s were like free AOL things, and then I saw the purple one that I bought. One end was an english/portuguese dictionary, and the other one - ITALIAN! It was neat to see my loves all in one conversation piece! There was art everywhere at the market, but it´s just not practical to try to get home.
After the market, it was time to head back to prepare to head to the airport. I swung by an internet cafe. The rate is around $1.25 per hour. Not bad. When it was time to leave, we were anxious if our taxi driver had remembered our arrangements to pick us up as agreed on earlier in the day - and sure enough, there he was! He was a true angel sent to take care of us. Just a genuine nice guy.
As I type this, I have just recently
arrived in Brasilia, the capital. I have just over a day here, and then it´s off to Belo Horizonte and surrounding towns until I return to Rio, and then Atlanta, on Saturday.
My trip is going fantastically, the only downside is that I have developed a rather ´croopy´cough. We think it might be from the pollution in Rio. We will see as the rest of my trip involves much cleaner cities!
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Haley Moore
non-member comment
You made it!
Glad to see that the trip is going great so far. Can't wait to read your next entry. I can tell you are already missed at work and its just Monday. Oh my date was fun, but I will not be going back out with him. No sparks when flying for me. Anyways, be safe!!!!!!