Rio

On July 4, I had the least patriotic 4th of July of my life. I woke up, packed my stuff, got some money from the ATM, went to the subway station, bought a ticket at the bus station, and went to Rio. I didn't see any Americans or think about it all that much because it was just another day here.

The trip from SP to Rio is 6 hours or so. I fell asleep in the bus for an hour or so, but mostly just looked at everything outside the window. I read some of Les Mis, but like I said a few posts ago, I don't love to read in moving vehicles. The countryside was nice though. And especially when we got close to Rio. It was sweet! Dutra is the name of the road that leads in, and it winds through some pretty sweet hills. It was beautiful. We arrived in Rio when it was dark. I got to my place around 7 or so.

At the school I did the course at, there is a lady who owns a hostel. I have stayed in a lot of hostels, but never in the shared room. It has always been my own room, except for once earlier on this trip when the owner had to sleep in the top bunk because he couldn't go home, for whatever reason. But I wasn't looking forward to it here. I booked it because it was cheap and really close to the school I attended, and in a nice neighborhood. Most of the people I meet in hostels are dirty, loud, and annoying. I don't mean to sound like a hater, but a lot of them have terrible accents in English, they swear all the time, they drink all the time, they smoke pot all the time, etc. Most don't make any effort to learn the local language. I just don't like 'em!

But now I am one of them, unfortunately. And I wasn't looking forward to it. But when I arrived at this hostel, I was the only one there! It was so nice. My own room, but cheaper than paying for my own room. It was that way for probably half of the time so far. The last week will be packed, but I have ways of avoiding the people that bug me, and it works out fine. :)

I arrived, found that there were the first three Jason Bourne novels there, and just hung out. I had already read the first Bourne novel, but these last two were how I spent my nights for the first two weeks, along with Les Miserables. I don't go out at night, because you can't tell where you are going. Rio is different from SP. SP has nice neighborhoods and not so nice neighborhoods. Rio has it all mixed together. So you could be on a nice street and all of a sudden be walking into a bad area. And not just bad, but really bad! So I have just been reading at night, and that has made it probably the most productive summer I have ever had.

Other than these dumb birds that flap their wings right next to the window, and mosquitos, it was a nice night. There are more mosquitos here in Rio in the 70 degree weather than there were on the Amazon in 90 degrees. Annoying.

I woke up, went to church, and met a professional football player from the Congo. We were in class together and he pulled out a New Testament in French, and I said: tu parles français? And we talked for a little. And it turns out that he plays for Botafogo here in Rio. Botafogo is the neighborhood where I live and the name of one of Rio's teams. He has been here for two years and is on loan to Botafogo. What a sweet deal, eh? It was great talking to him.

In that same class, the teacher quoted a song by a Brazilian group from the 80s called Legião Urbana. I thought it was pretty funny, because she is like 50 and I just wouldn't have expected it in class. But I guess 25 years ago or so was her prime. I have the song on my iPod, which made it easy to recognize. Church was nice and it is very close to where I live. It has been pretty sweet, everywhere I have lived down here has been within walking distance from the church.

On the way to church, I looked up a street and saw the Cristo Redentor. That was a pretty sweet way of seeing it for the first time. After church, I walked over the beach here in Botafogo because I knew that the Pão de Açucar was visible from there. I saw it and I loved it. You know, it's the curved hill in the picture at the top of this page, the one where James Bond was going to on the cable car and Jaws chased him. I came back later in the day, and walked on the beach, and read right across the bay from Pão de Açucar. And I have been saying all summer, oh I'm not much of a beach person. I have been every weekend. :) But not in the sense of going and laying out on the beach. Just walking by, sitting and reading, and so forth. I was at the Botafogo beach and walked near the Flamengo beach. I saw some dudes fishing, and that was great because one guy caught an eel. In order to kill it, he grabbed the fishing line, swung it up over his head, and slammed the eel on the ground three times. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. And then he just threw it in the water! It was pretty funny.

That was it for the trip from SP to Rio. I will be writing more later about Rio.