*something seems wrong with the photo upload. Maybe I’ve broken the bank. Be patient!*
Woke up around 9AM and hit the road after breakfast. Went on the bus/metro with Audrey & Florent. They are fun people. There are from France and seem to want to do the same things we’re doing while in Rio, which is to explore and not just sit on a beach. But they are here for an entire month! Lucky!
Saw the Saara Market…city blocks of merchants booths…selling t-shirts, shoes, electronics. Not much tourist stuff. Didn’t find any new shades or a hat either.
Went into a church where Mass was taking place at noon on a Wednesday! Is that normal? Got sprayed full of holy water with a scepter and managed to not burst into flames. Mom would be proud. We then headed to a Theatro only to find it was closed. This was upsetting as we hoped to sample some authentic cuisine.
I must say that downtown was fairly typical outside of the market area. Skyscrapers full of office buildings…there was shredded paper being tossed out of the windows at all times. We assumed it was in celebration of Reveillon or someone losing their job! Turns out that it’s a protest of workers who are scheduled to work during New Year’s Eve (Reveillon)! I had a good laugh about that.
We managed to eat a small buffet which was great. It cost $10R each (which, since returning back to Canada, I have realized that the exchange was quite in our favour being at 0.62 instead of 0.82 as I had thought the entire trip!) and we sampled some good eats.
Toured the waterfront while it poured rain and then returned home where we encountered a delay on the metro.
Arrived home to find Chris who is pretty excited to be here. He is also sporting quite the fetching soulpatch on his chin. Philipp was ridiculing it but I thought it was quite fetching. So that night, I shaved my own soulpatch to go along with my moustache. Someone at Reveillon said I looked like Don Juan!
Discussed how to arrange rental expenses. Went to find a bank machine. The first Citibank machine in the shopping mall did not charge me for $300R. However, a different machine charged me $10R! Strange. Picked up groceries and saw that vodka (export, Smirnoff) was $80R but the local variety was $8R! Quite the difference. Beer was also cheaper at the grocery store than at the gas station. Speaking about gas stations…they are from another world. At this particular Shell gas station, there are no less than 50 guys working there. Heck, in Canada, you’re lucky to find one!
Came back home and then went swimming in the rain. We were quite the sight. Six pale-skinned foreigners walking down the street in our bathing suits! We got plenty of comments (especially from the Shell gas station guys). We got to the beach and had it all to ourselves. There were giant spotlights along the beach so we could always see. The waves are quite large sometimes..if you don’t go with the flow, it smacks you pretty hard. My shorts came down a few times and my beer was soaked with salt water. That’s the last time I bring a beer into the sea!
We walked back and someone asked me for directions! I thought that was quite hilarious and tried to explain I only spoke English. I did find out later that I can say “No fala Portuguese” which means “You don’t speak Portuguese.” I’m kidding, it means ‘I don’t speak Portuguese.’ I’m not looking for an incident like in Hamburg again!
Erica’s brother (Alexandre) and cousin (Diego) showed up and we headed out to find a place to eat. We had a great meal at some restaurant which was quite happy to refill our chopp (draft beer) at a moments notice. Diego taught me some excellent Portuguese phrases to impress the ladies; voce gustaza (very hot!). We had some chicken, bean dip, rice, some sort of greens. There was also some excellent chili sauce. I found out that its bad luck to eat any type of bird on December 31 as birds walk backwards in life and that would mean bad luck for the New Year.
After supper, it was still early in Rio hours (only midnight) so we went to a bar down the street and shared a bucket of beer.
Some observations at this point: Because there are no freezing temperatures, everything is ‘open’. Open windows, sinks in the back patio, restaurants having patios year round. However, there seems to be a lot of rain so everything is resilient to the rain. Sidewalks are made of cobblestone, building fronts are the same. It’s funny, now that I look back on this entry, I realize that it’s doesn’t rain all that much at all!
Also, because the temperature is so hot, there are no bugs, hence no windows have screens. I thought that was very different from Canada!