Let me just say that Rio de Janiero is THE most amazing place I have EVER been to.
We (Jess, Liz, and myself) left our apartment in Curitiba at 5 am on Friday morning. We landed in Rio at 9 am and somehow figured out how to get to our hostel using the bus (which took and hour and a half but was only 6 reis as opposed to 70 reis if we took a cab). Unfortunately it was raining - and when i say raining i mean there was a freak monsoon outside! So since there was nothing better to do, we played cards and drank at the bar which was in our hostel (BarCode at Che Legarto Hostel...the best hostel ever!) Mind you we landed at 9 am, made it to our hostel at 10:30 am...so, yup we started drinking at 11 am. Later that night we met the entire NY Rugby team which was really cool and we got to taste orange capirinhas (guess we drank so many that they ran out of limes!!)
Day two was a little better weather so we walked around Ipanema, Copacabana, Leblon, and Gavia. This city was amazing...it was fairly clean, had beautiful vegetation all over the sidewalks and cute little restaurants and cafes everwhere, as well as the beaches which were gorgeous. And this is what I thought of the place during horrible weather! We met some brazilians from Porto Alegre and went to Lapa with them, which is a really cute district with cobblestoned roads and old portuguese architecture. There were bars and restaurants lining the roads...all super cute. We went to a bar called Rio Scenarium. This place was insane! It was 3 floors and was filled with amazing decor: had old cars inside, a wall with about 20 bicycles hanging, manequins, etc. all over the place. There was a live samba band playing downstairs and a room with popular brazilian music (or "funky" music, as they say!) on the second floor. I also got to learn how to samba as well!!!
Day three we scheduled a tour of the city which was to include Sugarloaf and Christ at Corcovado...but it was raining :( We went on the tour anyway and got to see some cool places like the street where the parade is during Carnival, Maracana stadium, the cathedral, etc. Sugarloaf was really cool...we took 2 cable cars up the hills, 1 to Urca hill and a second one to Sugarloaf. It was cloudy so we could only see off of Urca hill, but the experience was still worth it!! After, we went to an all you can eat Churrascaria ...DELISH!! Since it was so cloudy we were informed that we would not be able to see Christ the Redeemer, so we rescheduled for the next morning and hoped for good weather! We went back to the hostel for a little nap and then Jess and I went to Maracana for a little footeyball!! We saw the Flamingos vs Fluminense. We rooted for Flamingo because thats who our cab driver told us was god and also 90% of the stadium was in black and red (their colors). This game only had about 20, 000 people in attendance and was a regular season game, no biggie. But it was crazier than superbowl!!! Ill post a video and some pictures for you to see becasue I can not even describe to you how insane it was! Our team won though...yay!! We took it easy our last night there. We met some people in our hostel room (2 dutch and one french guy) who are studying in Buenos Aires. We went to dinner with them (well, Liz did ...me and jess went to a corner bar and had some tapas because we were full from eating at the game).
Our last day there and it was beautiful!! I mean the sun was shining and everything....so FINALLY we got to see Christ!! The views from the top of Corcovado were BEAUTIFUL! I will post pictures and everyone will think they are amazing, but I must tell you that nothing compares to actually being there...the pictures just do not do these views justice! Oh and cool sidenote - They were filming a telenovela at the Cristo while we were there! Then after seeing Christ we stopped at a beach and Liz and Jess went hanggliding!! pretty crazy and what a way to leave rio!
This sadly brings me to the end of our amazing trip to Rio :( I recommend EVERYONE to go! Believe it or not this place is underrated ;) below are some pics and videos from this weekend...Enjoy and I will update you all soon...we are planning to go to Foz de Iguacu on Friday!!
Tchau
Art in Rio...
Only in Rio can you find Jesus inside KFC!
The cathedral in Rio...
Our delicious Churrasco in Gavia...
Matteus (who taught me how to samba!!), Me, Jess, and Liz at Rio Scenarium...
Looking down from the 3rd floor in Rio Scenarium...
Wall of bikes at Rio Scenarium...
Jess and I at Maracana...
Liz, Jess, and I on Urca hill with Sugarloaf behind us...
Monkeys at Sugarloaf!
On Corcavado overlooking Guanabara Bay and Sugarloaf...
Finally I see Him!!
View from Corcavado...
Cristo el Redentor...
Video of the Flamingo vs Fluminense futbol game...about to see Flamingo score the only goooooollllllll!
Video from on top of Corcovado:
2 comments:
looks like you had a great time in Rio! Too bad it rained. Did you make it to the beach?? Guess your 5 years @ FSU prepared you for those early am drink fests!! You'll have lots to write about. Are you starting to count down?? It's the 4th of June! How goes the "school" work??
so excited you are having fun! your trip to rio sounded awesome! miss you!
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