Vida brasileira: Rio

Once again, my life is moving very fast now. I think the best way to tell the story is through pictures. I didn't have my camera until Caleb Faulkner arrived on Friday, but I took enough pictures the next couple days to make up for it.

To begin our trip, we almost didn't begin our trip. The worst rain storm (multiple days) hit Rio in 45 years. Many of the favelas (slums built on hillsides) were washed out (in total 105 people died) and even the middle of town was flooded with many roads closed. Our flight was one of the first to arrive that night at Santos Dumont Airport and they even canceled the flight before ours. We decided to wait it out and they kept pushing the departure time back. This flight only had about 15 people on it, and it was the roughest one I have ever been on. It didn't bother me much, but I certainly did not read on this flight.

When we arrived in Rio, we took a taxi into Copacabana to our house. This was so much shorter than the last time I was here and took a taxi from Joao Jobim International. Our house was awesome and it had an air conditioner! My room was on the roof and I actually had to walk outside to get to the bathroom or into the house. I really liked this architecture and would like to include it in my house someday. I don't have many pictures of the house, but they do have a website and I will post it here in the future. Bottom line: this house was awesome.

The next two days kinda run together for me, but it rained quite a bit both days. I know that we went to a organization for neglected diseases and to doctors without borders one day, but I don't know what day. Another day, we went downtown and explored the black market. They literally have everything fake that you could ever want. I'm sure that some of the electronics were real, but I didn't trust any of them. I bought some fake Ray Bans and some presents for my family here and for my family and friends back home. Hope ya'll like the best of the Black Market Rio!

Both Wednesday and Thursday I got to spend some time in my room relaxing and reading in the air conditioning and this was greatly treasured. I finished my book the Snow Leopard and my assigned reading for Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed. It was really nice to lay around and just drink coffee and read my book in this awesome house. It kinda made me not want to go back to the states or go back to my host house.

On Friday morning I woke up at about 6 and tried to catch a bus on the Copacabana Beach Road (Av Atlantica) from about 6:30 to 8:15. Caleb's plane was supposed to arrive at 8:30, so I eventually gave in and got a taxi. I cost me about $30 USD and that was after haggling him down from $45 USD. When I got to the airport at about 9:00. Caleb's plane was already removed from the arrivals list. I found that he actually arrived a little before 8. Most people said that it would take about 1 hour to go through customs, so I thought I still beat him to the airport- I was wrong. I started to search frantically for him. I probably looked like a mom who had lost their child in the supermarket. I just kept thinking about what Judy would say to me if I lost her son in Brazil. I now know what it is like to be in a foreign country without understand anything except the some of the signs written in broken English, and I was trying to help Caleb not experience that feeling of despair (even though it is a very true cultural experience). Eventually after about 30 minutes of running, I literally ran into Caleb and gave him a huge hug. A taxi driver had been very nice to help him out (even though he just wanted to give Caleb a ride). We took a bus back to Copacabana (took about 2 hours but got to see most of the city) and only cost 8 R a piece. I almost spent as much picking Caleb up from the airport as he did on his whole plane flight! After this, I got my "baby" (camera) back and so the rest of my Rio experience we be in pictures.

This is my first pic with my reborn camera. In the background is a place we went the night before to watch MPB music (Music Popular Brazil) and a live orchestra.

The game that we bought tickets for at Maracana. Maracana was once the biggest stadium in the world and it will be the host of the Olympics and World Cup in Brazil. More to come later.

Some nude statue that we of course had to harass.

Again, Caleb had to celebrate it.

We bought the tickets at the Botafogo office in deep Botofogo territory. Of course I decided to wear my Flamengo jersey this day. They wouldn't even let me go in the club house and some guys looked like they wanted to kill me. We left quickly. They are very serious about this stuff.