On Friday, we drove around with our guide and driver, Reinaldo. Our first stop was to see Cristo Redentor, or Christ the Redeemer. This is a 125-foot tall statue of Jesus Christ and is an iconic image on Rio de Janeiro all over the world. Even though we aren’t Christian, it was really cool for us to see the statue if only for its being so well known.
Next, we went to a Favela. Favelas are basically slums, but they truly are more than that. Over 6% of Brazil’s population lives in Favela’s, with roughly 1000 favelas established just in Rio! These hillside communities are cramped and controlled by drug lords, but most of the people living there are actually really sweet. We toured the Santa Marta favela with a local guide, Marco. This favela, like most of the others, was painted in bright colors and had beautiful graffiti art everywhere. Marco introduced us to a few of the people living in the community and showed us his own home and a home he rented. We also got to meet his sweet dog! Santa Marta, unlike the other favelas, has a cable car that we took part of the way up. When we got to the top, a sweet little girl offered to sell us a drawing that she’d made. Troy bought the picture, but a younger boy, perhaps her brother, got jealous and the girl had to console him (even though she was grinning the whole time). In addition, Michael Jackson filmed the Brazilian version of his song They Don’t Care About Us in Santa Marta! There was a statue of him there and a tile mural. The favela also has a gym! Marco’s house was interesting because it wasn’t as some might expect. It was relatively clean, had air conditioning, and even had a pool on the spacious roof! Marco has five kids (from five women), is already a grandfather, and is only 45 years old! Before we left the favela, Marco showed us the Samba school’s carnival practice room. Coincidentally, some of the boys in the band were there and played us a song on their drums! They were actually really good! I highly recommend Marco, so if you ever visit Rio, you should support him!
Also, before I forget, Marco told us that one of the girls in the favela now officially has a crush on him! She thinks he’s cute! There was also a kindergarten in the favela, though the older kids go to public schools. One more thing! While we were in the favela, we saw a few teenagers with machine guns. They are harmless to tourists and are only meant to protect their turf from other drug dealers, but it was still a very interesting experience to see them. Also, there was one that must’ve been 15 years old! That’s only two years older than me… I can’t even imagine living like that. We next took a cable car up to Sugarloaf Mountain (I call it Meatloaf, but that’s also what I call Bruno, so it might get confusing!). Though the rock has an odd shape, it is famous for its amazing views of the city and harbor. We ate lunch at a Brazilian restaurant. I got confused because getting food was a bit complicated because of communication but I ended up getting beef! I was so happy because Brazilian meat is AMAZING and DELICIOUS and yumyumyumyumyumyumyumyumyumyumyumyum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry. Asher managed to drop his entire plate of nuggets and fries, but otherwise, the meal went smoothly. That night, Aba’s friend came to visit us in our apartment. Before that, Merrill and I swam in the ocean and had a lot of fun at the beach. The next day, we went to a lookout point on another hill. There was also an out-of-use helicopter pad. After that, we drove to tiled stairs created by Escardia Selarón. Reinaldo told us that because the pregnant love of his life would not return to him, he committed suicide by emulation when he finished the stairs. It took him 23 years. All the stairs are intricately tiled and it made for an overall wonderful effect.
Next, we went to Rio’s cathedral; Catedral Metropolitana de São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro. I won’t say much about it because it was made of concrete and I thought it was ugly, though Aba, Troy, Asher, Merrill, and Rolando loved it, but I liked the stained glass windows.
We ate lunch at a fancy sandwich place that used to be a patisserie. The building itself was architecturally fabulous! We also bought a plastic horse outside. It walks around a pole and looks so ridiculous that we had to get it! I know, we won’t get souvenirs from our travels but we buy a plastic horse… Don’t judge! It was funny! We also stopped by Rio’s old cathedral, the cathedral before the concrete one. It looked very modest from the outside, but inside everything was covered in gold! It was a very stark contrast to its exterior. I think this was a very smart design plan; it causes the worshipers to gawk in awe.
On our way to the Contemporary Museum outside of Rio (it had one cool hammock exhibit, but the rest was ‘meh’) we stopped to look at graffiti art and joined a pre-Carnival party.
There was music and a float, but it was pretty small. Still, it was a taste to get us to want the real Carnival! We went to the museum and went home. After homework again, we watched Rio, the movie from my last post! I want to party! Party! I want to samba! Party! I want to party! Party! And Fly!!! The next day started off with us walking on the beach. It was sweltering hot so we didn’t spend long and ended up doing homework for the rest of the day, but it was great while we were there. The beach was packed!
As had become the norm, the day and the days following consisted of swimming at the beach with Merrill in the evenings, doing homework during the day, and watching Desperate Housewives at night. Two days ago, February 25th, was Merrill’s last day in Rio and mine and Asher’s anniversary with Troy! Before Merrill left that night, I gave Troy his present. As you know, I’ve been working for roughly a month (maybe 75ish total hours) on it, and I was really happy when Troy fell in love with his customized tarot cards! Asher and I first met Troy when he came over for Shabbat dinner three years ago. Earlier that day, I had bought a deck of tarot cards at Pearl Street, so that night I read his fortune. You can zoom in on the little orange card to read the rest. Anyway, I’m not sure what happened to that deck, but I made him a new one with two illustrated drawings of Troy, two of me, two of the chickens, three of Aba, three of Asher, 11 of Trixie, 12 of Bruno, and 13 of others, for a total of 48 tarot cards, one dedication card, and one diy box!
I’m so happy he liked it. It really was a lot of work. Yesterday, we had planned to go to a beach outside of Rio. However, there was a lot of traffic so we stayed in the city instead. The highlight of my day was going to the Museum of Tomorrow. Even though it was mainly in Portuguese, I think I can honestly say that it is the best museum I’ve ever been too. I highly recommend it. They had many exhibits, all beautiful, about the world, how it works, what created it, how we are destroying it, and how we need to fix it. My favorite exhibit was demonstrating the fluidity of the wind and the ocean, called Four Oceans. Two lengths of near-transparent cloth were trapped in an air vortex, so they looked as if they were dancing. I’ve never seen anything even remotely like it, and found it magical. I wish we could upload videos onto jumpearth so you could see it too, but Troy says it doesn’t work. If anyone is techy enough to figure this out, please comment! I would love to put the video here. I bought my friend Una a really nice postcard at the awesome gift store and took a video of a really cool box made out of a plastic bottle. I want to try and make one myself!
After that, we went to an Aquarium. There were some wonderful fish and a lot of exhibits about water pollution and littering. I kept thinking about how much the environmentalist club (Net Zero) and the animal club (Animal Action) at my old school (Summit Middle Charter) would’ve had a field day at these places!
Aba mailed the Buenos Aires and Rio postcards today to Una, and we did homework until evening. Then, we ate with Reinaldo at a cool restaurant and I got my last taste of Brazilian steak…. *sigh*…… The restaurant was very cool because it had miscellaneous objects hanging from the walls and ceilings, the bathroom floors were layered with partly crushed coffee beans (so it smelled amazing), and they gave us literal hunks of parmesan! Hunks!!
We just drove back to the apartment, and we’re going to sleep early because we fly to Colombia tomorrow. I really did enjoy Rio, for sure a lot more than I expected too, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I came back. So, sadly, good bye Rio! 10-3-3-9-7-22-6…
Ella
The cards look amazing!
Thank you! You were a great help!! <3