I made it! It´s been more than 24 hours in Rio now and it is the first full day of my next expedition. The next six months will mostly be spent in the southern city of Florianopolis - Santa Catarina going to school at Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina and learning Portuguese (beaaaach). I´ll be in Rio for the next few days and in July I hope to go to the Amazon through Manaus and visit Bahia via Salvador.
Yesterday I went with a few people from the hostel to Academia da Cachaça and Carioca da Gema--two of the most popular nightspots in town. We caught some awesome samba and I even knew the band! Also, my level of Portuguese has surprised me and I found myself able to get by quite well and even converse with Cariocas...even if my conjugations and what not are probably crap.
Today I went with two people to the Maracanã futebol stadium and saw a nil-nil match between Fluminense and Gremio.
Tomorrow I am going hang gliding from the Tijuca rain forest onto the beach near Rocinha. It should be...petrifying
Corcovado, Pão de Açucar, Ipanema, Copacabana--this should make for a nice little holiday before my long holiday in Floripa.
In many ways, Brazil feels incredibly similar to home: A big, multicultural, insulated country with a bunch of Europeos. In others it is obviously very different...that should go without saying though
Well, It´s late here and I´m quite exhausted so my writing isn´t very interesting so I think I´ll just stop. Stay tuned...
Boa noite,
Andrew
|
