Cristo Redentor.

We FINALLY went to the Christ Statue! Amanda, Claire, and I woke up around 6:30 this morning and left our apartment about an hour later to catch the 8:30 train up Corcovado. We happened to be in luck because there was an 8am train that we were able to take. No wait.

The ride up was maybe...fifteen mintues. It reminded me of the drive to Conversa in Costa Rica SO much. Straight through the forests, up to the top of a mountain. I was almost expecting to see Gata waiting for us and those fantastic hammocks blowing in the wind. Instead we saw clouds. Lots and lots of clouds. And no Christ Statue. Awesome.



We were legitimately in the middle of a cloud which really made it difficult to see the statue. We were all kind of milling around waiting for a break in the clouds so we could snap a good picture. Then we waited about five minutes for another break and took another picture. And so on.

Thankfully, we decided to stay and maybe wait out the clouds, which never fully lifted, but did lift enough for us to get some good pictures. We were able to see the statue quite well, but had no view of Rio de Janeiro. We were kind of disappointed, but very happy that we were able to get good statue pictures. We've kind of tossed around the idea of hiking up Corcovado sometime, so hopefully that would prove to be an awesome time to see the views of the city.

"One Heartbeat. <3 and prayers for Rio de Janeiro."

I had myself a little photo shoot up there on Corcovado Mountain. TOMS flag, Flat Stanley, my freshly made "One Heartbeat" sign. Thank goodness Claire is such a good sport and puts up with these shenanigans.

We wanted to get a picture of all three of us, so we asked these two random guys to take it for us. We don't know how to say "Will you please take our picture?" in Portuguese, but it's a fairly easy thing to communicate with hand motions. These men were NOT understanding what we were asking them. Luckily some lady next to us spoke English and understood, so she took it. And then the two guys hopped in to get a picture with us. Sure buddy, come on in.

We were kind of just hanging around looking at the view and these same guys came up AGAIN. Amanda was off taking pictures, so it was just the two of us. They asked where we were from and where we were staying in Rio. Then at the end of the conversation they go "Keees? Keees?" Claire and I had absolutely no idea what they were getting at. Keys? Quiche? Then we realized they meant kiss. Seriously, a language barrier can really impede conversation sometimes.



No pit stains for the big guy.

7th New Wonder of the World? Seen it.



"...and Carnaval Is Their Party."

"The beach is their playground, samba is their music, and Carnaval is their party."

Wow, oh wow. Saturday night Mónica and Katja picked us up around 6:30pm and took us downtown to watch the samba parade. It was like nothing I had ever experienced. Ever. There were six samba schools that performed, beginning with the school that finished in sixth place and ending with the champions. Each school performed for about an hour or so and just samba-ed down the street. The floats were huge, the costumes were intricate, and the dances were intense. The words I'm trying to find to describe the parade don't do the night justice, and neither do the pictures that we all took. But here's a glimpse of the once in a lifetime night we all had.



Claire, the make-up artist, made us look dashing for the night ahead.

Panoramic view from our seats.



A Vacation From Our Vacation.

After the bloco in Ipanema, Vania drove Amanda, Claire, and I to her house in Niteroi. It was a gorgeous house with a pool and sunshine and seven poodles to keep us company. Vania and John introduced us to some Portuguese music and we picked up some Portuguese phrases, we had caipirinhas in the pool and just escaped from the hustle and bustle in Rio.

Rough life down here in Rio.

Their backyard. That pool was our saving grace.

On Wednesday, (after a long, hard day sipping caipirinhas in the pool) John and Vania took us to an Italian restaurant near their house. Our waiter was really awesome and we were actually able to understand most of what he was saying!! It's getting so much easier to understand Portuguese, but it's still difficult to respond back to people. We're working on that though, one step at a time.

Our waiter at the Italian resturant we went to.

On the way back to Botafogo, we stopped at an ice cream shop that had 65 different flavors of ice cream. And you could pick as many as your wanted because you paid by weight. Let me reiterate-- SIXTY FIVE flavors! I couldn't decide if I wanted to go the fruity route and get a combination of grape, strawberry, and passion fruit (uva, morango, e maracuja, for you Portuguese speaking folk) or the chocolate-y route. I ended up deciding on the chocolate. Chocolate, toasted coconut, and cookies and cream with chocolate sprinkles. No regrets there.

Outside of the ice cream shop from heaven.

Flat Stanley got some ice cream too, I might add.

Besides stopping at the fabulous ice cream shop, John and Vania gave us the scenic tour of Niteroi and downtown Rio. This spaceship looking creation is a contemporary art museum which is some place that I would like to go back to, if the chance arises.

John and Vania were so hospitable and wonderful to us. It was quite possibly the best three days I've spent in Rio de Janeiro yet, there's a huge possibility that we'll be spending another weekend there soon.

The three of us with John and Vania in front of the Guanabara Bay.

Escadrias da Lapa.

When Ellen was here last semester, she met a girl named Marcia who is about our age, Brazilian, and speaks fluent English. We became friends with her (on Facebook, of course, this is the 21st century) and then finally got to meet her in person yesterday. She came over to our villa and then we hopped on a bus to Lapa. In one trip we were able to see the Arcos da Lapa (the Arches of Lapa) and the Escadarias da Lapa (stairs of Lapa). I wanted to see the arches so badly and kind of freaked out a little when we saw them. I think they are gorgeous, I could have taken pictures of them all day.

Acros da Lapa.

We walked down a couple of back streets that were so lively and filled with so many people and little bars before coming to the stairs. Which are also gorgeous. I don't know what I was expecting, but these steps just appeared. We were just wandering along down the street and then all of a sudden, there they were!

Me hanging out on the stairs.

This man, Selaron, is from Chile and decided to design these stairs. People from all over the world sent him different tiles with all sorts of pictures on them and then he placed them together in a giant mosaic staircase. They were breath-taking. I could not even believe how amazing and intricate they were.



This was literally twenty feet off the ground. Amazing.

At the stairs in Lapaaa!

All of us with the man who designed the stairs!

Marcia and I acting Brazilian.

Reppin' our home state.

Oh yeah, Flat Stanley came too.



"I Don't Eat Ugly Food"

I cannot believe that I have been living in Rio de Janeiro, BRAZIL for a whole week already! It's already been full of ups and downs, but overall, it's been incredible. Before coming down here, I was bummed about all the things at Ashland that I would miss while I was here in Brazil, but after being here for awhile, I wouldn't trade this experience for anything.

Our Internet was down this weekend, which was a bummer, but forced us to get out and do things and become more immersed in the culture. Don't get me wrong, we don't spend all our time on the computers, but it is nice to be disconnected for awhile. Although it's a little disgusting to see how dependent we are on our phones.

Friday afternoon, we went to the mall in Botafogo with one of Brittany's teachers named Viviane. Apparently it's one of the smaller malls in Rio, but had eight stories and the top two were strictly food. My kind of mall! The view from the top was incredible! We could see the bay and the Sugarloaf-- it was amazing. I really cannot wait to go visit the Sugarloaf and see it up close.

Bad panoramic of the view from the top of the mall

After walking back from the mall, we went to Drink Cafe with Viviane and Mónica for their friend's birthday party. Two of Vivi's friends, Carol and another Mónica, were there and they were a riot! Carol is in the catering business and tries out her food on her friends before offering it as something she would cater. She's working on barbeques right now and invited us over to hangout and eat some of the food. You don't have to ask me twice! They had also ordered a cheese and vegetable platter type thing and Claire was the only brave soul who would try the food. One type of food was capers and cream cheese wrapped in eggplant. Mónica said she wouldn't eat it because it tastes like a wet dog and Vivi didn't want it because she doesn't eat ugly food. Good thing we were all in agreement, it looked pretty nasty. It was nice to go out with some locals and hang out with them and get accustomed to the culture here in Brazil. Even if they were adults and our mentor teachers.

On Saturday we woke up bright and early to go to Copacabana. We got there around 10am and Vivi met us around 11am. We stayed until about 3pm until we decided that we absolutely could not hang out there anymore. The heat and warmth was fantastic, but they aren't kidding when they say that the Brazilian sun is brutal. All four of us left with some sort of color, whether it be brown or red or a combination of both. To esape the sun we really tried to get in the water, but it is so cold! Seriously, after standing in it for a minute or two, my ankles get that sore feeling like I've been icing them for awhile.

Flat Stanely goes to Copacabana

The sun must have wiped us out because we came back to the apartment that afternoon and crashed. Showers and naps all around. We woke up that evening and just hung out in the living room chatting with each other about the weirdest things-- weddings and suicides were just two of the topics we touched upon.

Nomming on some watermelon at Copacabana

Sunday morning we kind of slept in a little bit before waking up and going to the Hippie Fair in Ipanema. We braved public transportation and took a taxi to Siqueria Campos Station where we hopped on the metro which took us straight into Ipanema. We're still trying to figure out the most efficient time and manner in which to travel-- I'm sure we'll figure it out sometime.

The Hippie Fair is a giant, glorified, not junky flea market. There were vendors EVERYWHERE selling anything that you could imagine. It was a great place to buy souvenirs, I've made quite a dent in my shopping and gift list. I think we're hoping to go back sometime while we're here because we didn't even make it all of the way through the fair.

Typical Carnaval headpieces

Later that night Claire and I went to the indoor/ outdoor market and went to Rota 66 for dinner. The waiter didn't speak English, which we're finding to be pretty typical here. We both ordered grilled chicken sandwiches with french fries-- true Americans. The food was delicious; we both blinked and our food was gone.

Each time we go out we feel more and more comfortable talking to people and conversing with people. And it always feels good when you taxi drops you off in the right location or the food place in front of you is the same food you thought that you had ordered. It's definitely A LOT tougher living in country that speaks Portuguese than I had expected, but we're surviving quite well.