Rio de Janeiro, Day 1

Wow. 

What a trip that was to the marvelous city, the cidade maravilhosa- Rio de Janeiro.

I would like to start my blog off with the most recent trip I took, to Rio, while it is still fresh on my mind. I plan to break this group of posts up in to daily summaries that cover the week I spent in Rio. Thanks to Father Paul, who put me in contact with a friend of his named Ida, this trip was possible. I reached out to Ida and she welcomed me with open arms to visit her city and family.

I picked a great time to visit Rio, during Carnaval! Brazil takes off from work and school during the national holidays leading up the start of Lent (the 40-day period leading up to Easter Sunday). No where are the celebrations as grand as what took place in Rio, and many tourists travel there at this time just to experience it. I have not yet been to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but what I saw in Rio was impressive! I will write about my experience seeing the samba schools perform in a later post, because they deserve their own post. I was so fortunate to have been able to travel to Rio during this special time of year.

 2/28/14

I arrived in Rio shortly before 5am after taking the "night bus." <-- [Harry Potter reference for the fans, ha.] The public transportation is good and efficient. I rode an ônibus to Rio.


Ida picked me up from the rodoviária (bus station), and we went to her apartment. My host for the week lives in Barra da Tijuca, a nice area that is close to the beach. One thing I noticed very soon after arriving was the different accent Ida spoke in. Cariocas, the name for the people who live in Rio (what they call themselves), have a strong accent that is different from the type of Portuguese I hear back in Itajubá. Her apartment had nice amenities: a workout room, a pool, and even a massage room. She also had air conditioning! ["Hercules-Hercules!"] This feature is something we take for granted in the southern United States because every building has A/C. Here in Brazil, and other places I have visited, that is not always the case. After resting a bit, I accompanied her to HortiFruit- a nearby grocery store. Ida lives beside a canal, and so our means of transportation to the store was by a boat that picked us up at a dock in front of her apartment. That was cool.

After lunch, Igor (Ida's son) and I went to the beach. We traversed the canal on another boat and walked to the beach front. The beach was really nice with white sand and no shells.

People were sunbathing, playing volleyball, juggling soccer balls, surfing, stand-up paddling, playing frescobol (a racquetball type game, aka beach tennis), and wading in the water.

We walked down a ways and I took in the sights and that salty breeze coming in off the ocean. I splashed around some and enjoyed the cool water before we made the return trip.