The Girl from Ipanema

After escaping the clutches of my job, I had the opportunity to head down to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil along with 9 other companions to celebrate my friend Donna's 50th birthday. This is a trip that had been in the works for over year and I was psyched to actually see it happen, especially since I hadn't left the country for 10 years! It was long overdue. Talk about timing too! See my post on Searching for Working. I was a little nervous because it seemed like an awfully large crew and I figured there was bound to be drama of which I wanted no part...just put me on a beach and put a caipirinha in my hand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caipirinha) and call it a day.

All 10 of us and our luggage managed to make it down there in one piece and the first thing we did was haul everything to our now dear friend Marta's house in downtown Rio right off the Copacabana beach. Despite the fact that this amazing beach was right in front of us, we were instructed by Donna and Michael our veteran Rio visitors to head straight to Ponte 9 of Ipanema Beach. So, away we went in 3 cabs up to Ipanema to catch some rays and try to acclimate to our new place and time after 14 weary hours of travel. I have to say, it was a perfect first day with sun shining, surf up, and an excited group chillin' and having and good time. The only rain on our parade was a pickpocket who stole Ronnie's iPhone within the 1/2 hour. I was impressed with how well he took it and didn't let it ruin his vacation. I would not have been so accepting I'm sure.

Later we struggled to stay awake long enough to go to a place called Porcao for dinner...which was comprised of a big salad bar and tons of guys running around with slabs of meat on skewers happy to carve hunks off onto our plates. There were actually little coasters with a pig on it, green on one side and red on the other, used to indicate if you wanted more meat or not. They didn't really pay any attention though. Even if you waved your arms frantically signaling "no more, please!" they still tried to stuff you full of more...just like a pig I guess!

I happily climbed into bed that night after having been up for about a day and a half, although I had wished it wasn't so humid. My friend Eve and I shared a room and were dying by morning...when we figured out we had an air conditioner in our room. By then it was of little use since we had to pack our things and head off to our next destination across the Rio-Niterói Bridge in Itacoatiara where our rental houses were awaiting us.