Hello my lovelys. Well, Rio is one of the most famous cities in Brazil for good reason. I had a wonderful time and managed to see quite a bit during my visit. Saturday morning I met Bethany and Sonia at the bus stop at 8AM and we got to the airport by 9ish. The check-in line was slow but we had plenty of time and our flight was about half an hour late anyway. We got to the gate about 10 minutes before our official boarding time but there was not another soul there. After about 5-8 minutes a bleach-blond Californian looking guy sat down and started reading, but it wasn’t until nearly the time that our flight was supposed to leave that the majority of the flight arrived. Unbeknown to us, our flight went first all the way down to São Paulo then back up to Rio de Janeiro. We arrived around 4:30ish, instead of 1:00PM but it turned out to be freezing and rainy when we arrived anyway so it wouldn’t have been a great sight-seeing day. We took a bus from the airport to Shopping Botafogo which is a mall near our hostel. We overheard the Californian looking guy from our flight talking to some Europeans on the bus and learned that he was indeed from California and that his name is Chris. We asked if he was a student and how he knew Rio, etc. and he told us that he had dropped out of high school and spent 5 years traveling the world. He is a part-time microbiology student now and just visited a friend studying public health in the favelas of Salvador. He lived 11 months in South Africa and the experience completely changed him. He said that he stopped living for himself and decided to go back to school. I was, naturally, intrigued. I asked him about his impression of Africa and what he hoped to do now. He has traveled all over the sub-Saharan region and his conclusion is simply that “Africa is fucked.” They say that for every year of war, you must work 10 years for healing and war and destruction has shadowed Africa generation after generation. Originally Chris wanted to get educated and go back to help, but after visiting Brazil he is leaning towards working here b/c he feels that in Brazil he could make more of a difference and actually live a comfortable life. Fair enough.

Chris was headed to Botafogo also, so he was able to point out the stop to us. He came to Rio without any plans or preparations so we let him look at our tourism book so that he could look up the address of the hostel that he liked and said goodbye. In the mall we looked around for some food, warmer clothes, and a backpack for Bethany. (Thanks again for that overnight bag Mrs. Cobb. Bethany was able to use it on the way to Rio, then we used it for overflow on the way back.) By about 7:30ish we walked to our hostel which was only 1.5 blocks from the mall, but we missed it at first because its down a dead-end road between 2 restaurants. (I promise, it isn’t as sketchy as it sounds.) We checked in and settled into a 9 person room on the second floor. The downstairs was pretty nice but the mattresses and pillows were... in less than ideal condition. The beds were stacked 3 high in bunks and only the top beds were available. Sonia and I decided to share a bunk so that we could keep warmer and because she was afraid of falling off the bunk. Some European girls that had just left donated their sleeping bags to the hostel, so we grabbed those and made the best of the situation. We were too cold and tired to go downstairs to socialize so we just got ready for bed and I finished reading the last 10 pages of The Great Divorce. We had just begun talking when an Argentinean guy staying in our room walked in and asked Bethany if she would go out with him to celebrate his last night in Rio. Bethany was laying in bed with her purple scarf wrapped around her head and it was painfully obvious that she had no intention of going anywhere. He then proceeded to profess his love for her and insist that she must go out. It went something like this:

Argentinean: I… I love you.

(giggles)

Argentinean: Where are you going after this?

Bethany: We are going back to Salvador.

Argentinean: When are you leaving Salvador? Where will you go then?

Bethany: I’m leaving for home in the US in December.

Argentinean: You must come to Argentina. I want to see you. You must come.

(laughter)

Argentinean: You and I will be stars of the love.

(hysterical laughter)

Argentinean: That sentence… no good grammar? That does not translate?

Bethany: No… no.

(more laugher)

Argentinean: You will not go out with me tonight?

Bethany: I am in bed with my scarf on. (shows scarf) I can’t be anymore ready to not go out than this.

Argentinean: Ok, ok… I understand. Good-bye.

(starts to leave… but wait… here it comes…)

Argentinean: You are my idol.

Oh, Rio. What a lovely start to the trip! We didn’t sleep terribly well because someone was awake and making noise all night. For the first few hours the window kept flying open and misting me with cold and rain, but the guys fixed it when they came in. Sonia and I are both early risers, so we got up by 7:30 and got dressed. We woke up Bethany for breakfast which was included in the cost for the night. They had white bread, ham, cheese, watermelon, sweet pastries, and cereal. We ate, packed extra ham and cheese sandwiches in Bethany’s bag for later, and headed off to a hippie fair in Ipenema. It was another cold and rainy day, but the fair is a Sunday only event and it seemed worth seeing. We used the subway near our house and the buses for nearly all our travels and were able to get around easily that way. The fair was in a park a few blocks from the coast at the south most end of the city. We spent about 3 hours there and left with all sorts of treasures, including a painting each. The purchase of the painting alone made the trip worth it to me and I think the girls agree.

We went to the beach to eat our packed sandwiches. The wind was so strong that it made the waves crash stunningly. We could see a favela in the distance and islands through the spray of the waves. It reminded me of my trip to Switzerland with Grandma and Christy when we were standing in the alps looking at the Matterhorn. In both experiences I was numb with cold, looking out at something so beautiful and immense that science seemed a petty, silly thing and the unexplainable so alluring.

We went back to the hostel to drop off our goodies and ask how to get to the Museum of Modern Brazilian Art. We took the subway to Glória and walked to Parque do Flamengo from there, but the streets were all pretty deserted because it was Sunday. The museum turned out to be a flop because they were in the process of setting up a new exhibition and there wasn’t much to see. In general I think I agree that museums in Latin America are a bad idea. If you want museums, go to Europe.

We went back to Batafogo and found a church near our hostel to go to mass. It was a beautiful pink little cathedral and with the cold and nightfall, it reminded me of evening masses at St. Basil’s Chapel during the hurricane semester. Bethany didn’t feel well and I think we were all stiff and achy from the cold and wet. We got some fruit drinks and head back to the hostel. By 9PM we were all asleep.

It was a bit of a rough night for me. I felt nauseous and went from freezing to feverish. When I got up the next morning my stomach felt like mush and I could actually hear something sloshing around when I rolled over on my bed. I won’t describe any further but it will suffice to say that I had two spells of diarrhea and I threw up once during the day. I swore off the white bread, ham, and cheese sandwiches for the rest of the trip and committed myself to eating better. For breakfast I had granola and we bought fresh fruit off a street vendor. First we went to Santa Teresa, a historic little city on a hill that you can visit by train. It was named after a convent that was founded there and a few nuns were on the train with us. I would have enjoyed the visit more if I had felt better, but it was as soon as I got off the train that I vomited and holding it down occupied most of my attention. Next we went to Pão de Açúcar, or Sugar Loaf. Supposedly the mountain was named such by the Portuguese during the height of the sugarcane ear in Brazil in the 16^th century. Liquid sugar was placed to set in conical clay molds that resemble the shape of the mountain. Here are some fun facts from the brochure:

Sugar Loaf Hill geological constitution: primitive reticular gneiss

Sugar Loaf Hill Age: 600,000,000 years old

Urca Hill Height: 220 meters

Sugar Loaf Hill Height: 396 meters

Distance between Red Beach and Urca Hill: 600 meters

Velocity of Red Beach-Urca Hill Trip: up to 6 meters/sec

Distance between Urca Hill and Sugar Loaf Hill: 750 meters

Velocity of Urca Hill to Sugar Loaf Hill Trip: up to 10 meters/sec

Total amount of cable: 17,000 meters

Basically you take a cable from the ground to Urca, then Urca to Sugar Loaf. Both Urca and Sugar Loaf have nature paths that you can walk through with gorgeous vegetation and a breathtaking view of the Rio. The day was a bit foggy and I still wasn’t feeling my best so the experience wasn’t all that it could have been, but even so, it was worth the visit. I got a Sprite to settle my stomach and we walked around until about 3ish. The girls ate lunch up on Sugar Loaf and I had some pretzels. We decided to stop by the mall to get Sonia a sweater and to maybe see a movie at theater close by. We were speedy shoppers and everyone came out with something warm to wear: Sonia with a red knit sweater and Bethany and I with spandex pants. We went back to the hostel and napped/showered before going to see Transylvania. The movie was excellent and definitely a cultural experience. It was filmed primarily in French, but included English, German, and Transylvanian as well. It told the story of a woman who travels across Transylvania trying to find her lover and the father of her unborn child. When she finds him, he wants nothing to do with her and his rejection drives her mad. She runs away from her friend trying to help her, tries to find companionship living with a girl of the street, and eventually is found by a gold-hunter she befriended in her search for her lover. He takes care of her though her pregnancy, despite her resistance, and goes through his own soul-searching when she finally does give birth to her child. We went to a bookstore after the film and sat and talked about it and relationships for a good while. By this point I’m feeling much better and I was able to eat a solid dinner before bed.

Finally on Tuesday we had a pretty day. We met a girl from Sweden at breakfast (Christina) and she asked if she could go with us to see the Christ monument. The hostel offered a tour for R$35 each but another girl we talked to, a Hawaiian named Amy who had been twice, told us that we could climb there ourselves if we had all day and didn’t mind a good hike. We decided to give it a go and got some snacks for the trail. We got on the wrong bus to get to the Jardim Botânico where the trail starts, so we had to walk a good 30-40 mins just to get there. Sonia asked a police officer at the gate where to start the hike and he told us that it would not be possible for us to climb. First of all there are lots of false paths that we could get lost on. Secondly, we were all girls. We all tried to look as cute as possible and asked him if he could take a teensy-weensy little break and escort us up himself. He insisted that it would take to long, but offered to walk us around the park. After talking with him and working her charm, Sonia convinced him and the younger park guard with him to try and take us up the path if we agreed to take the gondola back down so that they wouldn’t have to wait for us. The path was pretty step at points and although we were shaded by the trees, we all broke out in a nice sweat. After what he estimated to be 10% of the path we came to a huge fallen tree from the rains that blocked the path. He made us turn back because he thought that if that tree had fallen, there were bound to be others as well. We didn’t get to climb the Christ, but he did show us several waterfalls and hiking around those woods was a worthy activity in itself.

We went back to the hostel and agreed to do the tour with them. It wasn’t actually a “tour” but you do get a taxi ride up to the statue, an hour to look around, and a ride back. The view from up at the Christ was quite possible one of the most beautiful views that I’ve ever seen. It was a perfect day to go, but I only wish we had gone closer to sunset. There is something about the clouds here right at sunset that can inspire strange things in a person.

We spent the last few hours of daylight at Copacabana beach, where Sonia and I went for a run barefoot along the shore. Christina and Bethany had hoped to layout or swim but it was too cold for that (remember, it’s winter here). There is no denying that the beach is lovely and its fame is well merited, but the next morning (Wednesday) we went to Ipanema beach which I found to be even lovelier. We spent the whole day there, first climbing on the rocks and taking pictures, then laying on and drawing in the sand. Sonia and I bought peanut butter, crackers, and a turkey pita at a grocery store near by and we stayed at the beach until sunset. I would rival the view from that beach with the view on the Christ or from the Swiss Alps- it was that gorgeous.

The flight last night was surprisingly on time, although we did have a scare when we looked at the monitor and saw that our flight was going to Natal (a city far north of Salvador). It turns out that the flight stopped in Salvador first, then continued to Natal. We got in at 1:30ish and got a reasonable taxi fare to Garcia.

This morning Bethany and I had the first part of orientation for the start of classes on MONDAY. It wasn’t terribly informative, nor was I terribly attentive. We had a walking tour of the different buildings owned by the university but I got completely turned around by our path (we walked through markets, took a bus, etc.) that I doubt that the experience will do me much good. Tomorrow we have the second half of orientation where we actually get to select classes. I’m apprehensive for classes to start because I’m still not confident in my language skills, but I’ll feel better once I know which courses I will have.

After lunch I caught up with Conchita and wrote the majority of this long entry. About an hour ago I went to the market to pick up some food and when I passed by Campo Grande I saw a huge march of protestors. From what I gather they are uniting for better treatment of the Northeast region and for better pay of employees at UFBA, one of the universities where I will be taking classes. The strike may cause one or more of my classes to start late, but I’ll know more about that tomorrow. Good?! Okay. Props on faithful reading. Até logo meus amores…