Rio - Wednesday and Thursday

I have a bit of self-induced downtime so I'll try and throw as much as I can about Wednesday and today here now. When I woke up on Monday morning, the first thing I did was book a tour of Rio that was advertised on the hostel walls. I didn't want to do it Monday and miss out on any potential friends, and doing it on the same day as the Brazil game just would've been a clown move, so I arranged it for Wednesday. The night before, I was trying to get this British guy Jamie to do it with me, and he was soooo close to coming, but then I think I went out and forgot to remind him again and it just didn't happen. So thus began my first truly solo part of my solo trip. Not counting the bus ride from Sao Paulo to Rio. Or the plane trip here. UGH YOU GET WHAT I MEAN!

The trip was scheduled for 9, but at 8:30 the girl from reception banged on my door and said the tour guide was here. Of course I was awake, but I thought I'd roll out of bed at 8:50, throw on some clothes and grab a roll on the way out the door. I was also listening to the song All the Way by the band Timeflies for about the seven hundred brazillionth time in a row (see what I did there?) because I'm pretty sure I have some sort of addictive personality disorder and just can't stop. I bolted out of bed and got ready. By 8:40 I was in the 14 seat bus, chatting with 2 British guys about their stay here. Next the bus picked up a group of about 6 Malaysian men (all older, super funny dudes who are best friends from law school), a couple from New York, two Korean boys and an Australian dude. 

We were off. Don't forget that it rained the day before, and Lord knows it rained cats and dogs today, but somehow the gods of Brazil must've known of my plans and let me have the most beautiful, clear, warm day this world has ever known. Our first stop was the Cristo. You know, the giant 38 meter tall statue that looms ominously above the city and is now the symbol of Brazil. 

The best part of this tour thing was that we got direct access to the Cristo. No waiting in lines or any sort of mess. We were bussed directly up to the top - which is sort of boring and allowed me no exercise (it feels good to have a trend continuing here though) but it was so easy. Zoom zoom up we went. Along the way, I became buddies with the Australian dude. He's also 24 and taking a four month break to travel the world and he's starting with the World Cup. I love these people. So brave and cool and down for anything. Well we clicked and became each other's photo buddies throughout the whole thing. 

The Cristo is awesome. Just massive and frighteningly real. He's staring at you Rio! HE KNOWS WHAT YOU DID! I got some okay pix and even better selfies and got to take in the view of the city, which is breathtaking. 

To take from an Instagram comment I got: "Brazil only lost by thisssss much"

Me and the Big J

Can you hear the angels singing?

So maybe I'm a huge derp but I had no idea how big Rio is. Six million people live in the city. Six! That's like New York lite! It's extremely impressive and just beautiful in every direction imaginable. Conic mountains pop out of the buildings all over the place and there's a massive lake right in the middle of the city with a beautiful bike path and places to sit and eat and generally stare at everything around you. The Malaysian dudes are staying in an airbnb house right on the lake and showed me pictures of their view. I might've cried. 

That there's Copacabana Beach. And I guess me too. 

Later on we went to the Lapa Steps, which are this long staircase in Lapa (derr) that have been completely transformed by multicolored tiles. And not just simple colored tiles, but the kind of tiles that you buy in souvineer shops all over the world. I saw tiles from Paris, New Mexico, even Texas Tech?! You name it, they tiled it. The artist did this in the 60s or 70s (can you tell how great the tour was?!) and last year he committed suicide on the steps by catching himself on fire. So...there's that....

The steps and all the surrounding walls are just covered in this patchwork tile thing

Van Gogh tile - for you Caroline bb

A band playing midway up the steps

New Mexico! Los Lobos!

Thanks new Australian buddy for catching my VPL

We also went through Santa Teresa, a cute little historical neighborhood and found this charming little wall. This is the epitome of #toosoon. 

Uhhhh...wishful thinking I suppose. I don't want messi to cry! He's my little hobbit man!!

I do love me some Neymar oh yes I do. 

Next up was the cathedral. Super simple and different than anything I've ever seen before. It looks mas o menus like a space ship on the outside and like a big open room with beautiful super tall stained glass windows on the inside. The designer did it with the idea that it doesn't matter what you look like on the outside, it's what's on the inside. Dawww. 

The outside 

The inside - all panoramic and stuff

Finally, the bus took us to Sugar Loaf. Id heard that this was the best view of Rio, and I mean clearly it's a beaut...but I thought the Cristo had just as lovely a view. I'm a sucker for views so I can't compare these two! That's like asking me to compare tostitos cheese dip and pistachio ice cream...two things I love dearly but very differently. I liked it up here though, and it was also cool that we had to take two cable car gondola things to get up. One of the British boys was so afraid of heights that he stood in the middle of the cable car and basically hyperventilated. Poor guy, I've never seen such real, raw fear before. Sadly of course we all made fun of him. 

Glorious. Simply glorious. 

The Australian dude and I wandered to every corner of the place searching for The View and The Picture and we got asked by about 25 people if we wanted a picture together. How precious. The guide, Leon, found us at one point too and we started questioning if he was REALLY jay-z's cousin like he told us earlier. 

Rio goes over there too! It never ends!

The tour ended around 4 and we scrambled to get home in time for the Netherlands Argentina game. I was hoping I'd get home and run into the South Africans to watch the game with them, but by the time I got to the hostel they had already left for Fan Fest. I sat downstairs chatting with the hostel bartender when an Australian girl popped out of nowhere and asked if I wanted to see the game with her and American friend, who actually lives in DC! This wasn't even a question, and minutes later we were moseying down the street to a Gringo bar called Shenanigans. This place felt like home except for Americans the accent was all British. So it was kinda heavenly. We got drinks and got situated in a good spot and started chatting up our neighbors. I met one American guy who's living in Rio and working for the Olympics in 2016. Pretty sweet. Although he was a super derp. 

Two drinks later, I wandered to the bar to get another caprihina when these two British guys told me they liked my headband. I rocked it all day on the tour and then because my hair now had a huge dent in it, I had to leave it in. These guys were kinda hilarious and I ended up talking to them and a few of their buddies for the whole game. I didn't even really realize the game ended when suddenly we were all on the street, discussing in a large group where to get dinner. I took to this one particular guy who's name actually escapes me right now, but we buddied up and took on the night together. This was definitely my - for lack of a better word - drunkest night in Rio, as I discovered that a huge group of British dudes just loves to drink! A lot! At one point we ended up in a bar full of Germans and we fist pumped all night long. I brought my mini American flag and I got about 14 Argentinians to chant USA USA USA with me. And finally, after what, 4, nights in Rio, I met some cariocas (native Rio peeps). ALSO!! I ran into my Australian tour buddy and we spent probably 15 minutes just yelling back and forth "How!! How!! WHAT ARE THE ODDS THAT WE WOULD SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN!!" And hugging. We decided that if we saw each other unplanned again after this time that it was a sign and we should exchange numbers. Welp, you guessed it, never saw him again! 

My British buddy just loves America!

The aforementioned British gentlemen were kind enough to walk me back to Copacabana at 5 am and we all swore that the next day we'd go hang gliding together! Then I realized I didn't get anyone's names or numbers. Sort of screwed the pooch on that one but I think that's how traveling goes. 

Woke up on Thursday to discover it was pouring. Again. Well Ferk. What to do in the rain? My South African compadres invited me to an island for 3 days to chill on the beach and drink and hang out, but I respectfully declined, thinking I'd want to explore the city and not just get drunk all day every day. Well now I was thinking this was a mistake on my part! Sorry Tina Fey! I'll never say no again! This British guy, Jamie, and I decided that we'd go to the Botanical Gardens (finally) because gardens are pretty in the rain, and at that point in time, the rain was light. We really really wanted to bike there (rio has a bike share system similar to DC's) but after looking at the weather report, we decided against it. Cabbing it it was. We hopped in one and popped over to the gardens, which are massive and extremely cheap to get into. $3 reals! Such a bargain!

Just ever so happy to ruin my $15 fake TOMS!!

This is not what Rio de Janeiro is supposed to be like. Alex ANGRY!

The gardens were very pretty. Gorgeous, if you will. There were monkeys and pretty birds and cool statues. And Jamie was extremely stimulating company. But once the pouring rain started again and my fake TOMS were soaked through, I decided it just wasn't worth it anymore. We bought $5 Reals ponchos (very Big Bird-esque, also Reals is the Brazilian currency. Have I mentioned that yet? It's pronounced Hay-ice) and headed to a temaki place .25 miles away. And here we sat for about 4 hours, chatting and eating a butt ton of food while we waited for the rain to pass (it never did!)

Muy delicioso mmmmm

Jamie is a pretty interesting kid, and I say kid because he is 19. He is using his gap year to work all over the world - so far he's worked in like 7 Caribbean countries, Africa and Amsterdam. He uses a site called workaway.com and finds lots to do. This intrigued me a great deal and made me dread going back to the office. No offense coworkers but the thought of you all is making me sick. Except for Brittney of course. And Ty. 

At this point, almost everything about going back home was making me queasy inside. I've gotten used to this life of living in a suitcase and meeting new people every day and not having a routine. Going back to the lovely Arlington seems about as fun as being mugged on the streets of Rio after someone steals your credit card (all of which i was told  would DEFINITELY happen to me. And none of it did! I won Brazil!) 

After all this time, I'm sure Jamie was sick of me, although he did a good job of hiding it. He's a great kid, asked me tons of questions and at one point we got into a deep discussion about religion in which we both observed each other's sides and beliefs and had kind of a "pro con con pro" chat about it. We determined this is the best way for people to discuss things, and that we hate it when people are close minded and won't be open to hearing others ideas and opinions. That's probably my least favorite thing in the world, people who won't budge and won't listen to anyone else. So far on this trip, I hadn't encountered anyone who annoyed me in that respect. Stay tuned for Friday night though!

The rain and sushi tuckered us both out, so we ended up back at the hostel around 8. I showered, wrote a blog entry, and chatted for a long time with Emily and Shannon, before realizing it was 10 and maybe I should do something. BUT IT WAS STILL POURING. So, I went downstairs with Jo (who was back from the Netherlands loss in São Paulo) and we drank a few caprihinas at the bar with a bunch of people. 

These weren't just any people though. Two guys were new to the hostel - Cesar (a Brazilian from the south) and Curtis (an American from San Francisco), and then there was Bill, the guy from Hong Kong I mentioned before. 

This was quite the fascinating group, as Curtis is an engineer living in New Zealand just because he felt like moving there. Obviously I had many questions, mostly pertaining to Lord of the Rings.  He's also done a month long rock climbing NOLS trip and is gearing up to move to South America permanently. Bill has traveled the whole world, biking, running, kayaking, and decided to never get married so he would always be free to travel as he pleases. 

He also only travels alone, so this got the group into discussing why it's best to travel alone, at least when traveling like this. I enjoyed this conversation, as I had quite a few critics at home who kind of told me I was very dumb for taking this trip alone and that they would NEVER travel alone themselves. 1. Cool, thanks guys, thanks for giving me confidence, but 2. I never needed their approval or their confidence, because I knew I'd have a good time being alone. I think being thrown into a situation where I know absolutely no one is kind of where I shine. That sounds ridiculous, but I have come to the conclusion that it's true. Additionally, I've never been alone this entire trip. This is the beauty of staying in a hostel: everyone is in the exact same boat you are and are just trying to have fun with new foreign friends! It's really really awesome. Even when I took my tour of the city, I immediately befriended the whole bus and it was just comfortable and easy the whole time. I think this is what people are afraid of about traveling alone: that it will be hard to make friends. They're too shy. They wouldn't know what to do and they don't think it's safe. 

I'm not sure when it happened but I've never once been afraid of any of those things since being here. I never felt like I was trying really hard to be friends with people, never felt out of place or shy or like I would be alone. When you're alone, this shift just kind of takes over you and you really kind of believe you can do anything. I mean, I know this trip was only 2 ferking weeks and in the scheme of things that's no time at all, but I really believe now I can befriend just about anyone, do any activity without having to wonder who else is there, and be totally comfortable doing things alone. 

About safety: as long as you don't do anything dumb, like black out and go home with a sketchy dude, or walk into favelas alone at night, you will be fine. Hold your belongings close and put a lock on the zipper of your backpack if you feel uneasy about it. A coworker of mine lives in Anacostia and has never had an issue but another friend got pickpocketed on Capitol Hill. Shit happens everywhere. "OOOH Brazil is so dangerous blah blah blah" you all need to get your panties out of a bunch and calm down. I never once felt unsafe. I also didn't do anything stupid! 

Also don't forget! You're never alone when this guy is by your side! 

So back to Bill, he was a cool dude and has inspired me to definitely do more solo trips in the future. I was in such awe of him. 

We all talked until 3:45 am and decided we should probably hit the hay. And that is just what we did!