Rio de Janeiro

Oi Amigos,

My mom has been here in Brazil with me the past week and I have been taking her around trying to show her the best of what the country has to offer. The first few days consisted of her recuperating from the lengthy trip over (through a hurricane and across a continent) an acclimating to the amazingness that is Brazilian food.  Let's just say she is now addicted to coxinhas and pão de queijo.  

Aside from that, I have been showing her the main sights such as Pampulha (the lake near Belo Horizonte which was recently named a UNESCO World Heritage Site), Inhotim, and Praça da Liberdade.  

However, the main attraction of this post will be our trip to Rio de Janeiro!  I had been dying to go to Rio since the moment I landed in Brazil (and many many years before) but last Wednesday we finally made the hour-long flight over. 

As we descended into Rio on our Gol flight, I legitimately couldn't stop smiling.  Christ the Redeemer was overlooking us in the background and the beautiful Atlantic water was shimmering the reflection of the mountainous landscape around us.  I don't really know if I had ever descended into such a beautiful city before in my life.

On the first day, we relaxed a bit.  Our hotel was in Copacabana, suggested to us by many people who had already been to Rio.  This was the perfect base to depart and see the rest of the city.

I am lucky enough to be blessed with a good friend who is on co-op in Rio, so I ended up meeting her and her work friends on my first day.  We set up camp at Ipanema, one of the two main beaches in the city.  

Here is Elisa to the left of me.  She is an awesome friend who I made back in Boston and is legitimately one of the smartest people I've had the chance to meet since starting college (She speaks like 6 languages no joke).  It was great catching up with her, given that the last time I had seen her was back in Spring semester.  Then to the right is Richard (from Holland), Edu (from Mexico), and Zsófia (from Hungary).   All of them were super nice and it was so great to meet them. 

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On the second day of our Rio trip, my mother and I set forth on an adventure to see all of the main sights of the city.  Well, it was adventurous as you can get in a tour bus.  They had a partnership with our hotel and it came at a pretty reasonable rate - so we took it.  

The first stop on the tour was The Metropolitan Cathedral of San Sebastian, located in the famous Lapa neighborhood of Rio.  I need to be honest, when I first saw the cathedral, I thought it resembled an indigenous temple.  Tell me what you think.  

As an architecture fanatic, I was pretty amazed by the structure of this cathedral.  It was probably the most unique one I had ever visited, given its non-conventional style.  Before I had too much time to enjoy it, we were already off to our next destination, Sugarloaf Mountain.  In Portuguese we say "Pão de Açucar" which literally translates to "sugar bread."  I still do not know why it's called this but the name is pretty hilarious right?

I am not going to lie, this was probably my favorite part of the city.  I cannot even express with words the beauty of this place so I will attempt to express it with photos.  In order to ascend to the heights of this mountain, we took a cable car diagonally from its base.  The panoramic view from the cable car was nothing less of spectacular.

We ended up at the top of this first mountain.  The views seemed like something you could only see in a movie.  Somehow Brazil managed to put a café and some luxury stores up here, but the place definitely still maintains its natural beauty.  As we walked further around the perimeter of this mountain, we realized there was a cable car to an even higher one.  We decided to take it up, and well - the views only got better.

Then here's a photo of me with my freaky cheap sunglasses that I bought who knows where.

Then here's the picture my mother and I took at the top as well (now my cover photo on Facebook).

At this moment we were standing at the top of this mountain, I could not think of anywhere more beautiful I had ever been.  People have always told me that Rio de Janeiro is a magical city, but I never expected it to be this whimsical.  This is not even an exaggeration - and I have lived in Hawaii.  At this point, I happily told my mom I was going to move back to Brazil later in my 20s and I would be living in Rio.  She was definitely happy about this (yeah, no).  

After descending from the peak, we went to a churrascaria for a typical Brazilian lunch.  As most of you know, I am a vegetarian - so that was an adventure.  Brazilian churrascarias are known to be overflowing with meat.  However, there surprisingly was food I could consume and I ate - well - a lot of it.

I probably gained a few kilos from lunch, but whatever.  It was time to head to Christ the Redeemer - the symbol Brazil is most known for.  We drove across the city once more and then took a slow tram up the mountain the Christ is perched atop of.  Note: Pão de Açucar was high, but Christ the Redeemer was MUCH higher.

Here's the view from when we finally reached the top.  That big shadow you see over the city?  That's the shadow from the Christ statue itself.  There were hundreds of people packed onto the top of this tall mountain and it was hard to get a nice picture with the statue, but I managed to snap a pretty rad selfie (now my Facebook profile picture).

It was definitely worth the long tram trip up.  Although the Christ statue was hard to look at (notice the blinding sunlight?) it was amazing just being in its presence.  It was something I had seen in so many pictures, and finally, I was standing right in front of it.  

On the way back down, my mother opted for us to take the escalator to the tram.  I wanted to take the stairs of course and burn all of the calories I had consumed from lunch, but hey, I decided to make the best of the view.

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Our third day in Rio was a day of relaxing.  We were both exhausted from all of the touring on the previous day so we decided to go to some beaches and explore the more commercial district of the city.  My friend Camila suggested that we go to the Arpoador.  This is essentially a giant rock right at the edge of Ipanema beach with amazing panoramic views - best at sunset.  I was impatient though, so we went more around noon-time, but the views did not disappoint.

After climbing rocks and basking in the sunlight, my mother and I walked past Ipanema and towards Leblon, the wealthier and more modern part of the city.  Here we found streets lined with stores (my mom was in her glory) along with trendy restaurants and hundreds of dogs.  I am not kidding about the dogs.  There was one woman who had three gigantic dogs and they followed her into every store.  My mom and I made jokes about it but the lady had the last laugh once our allergies started kicking in.

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Now we have arrived at our last day in Rio.   I decided to organize a tranquil itinerary for us to partake in before heading to our afternoon flight.  Our day started with a trip to the Escadaria Selarón, what I like to call the Brazilian version of the "Spanish Steps."  I've seen these steps in travel photos everywhere and well, I had to get a picture with them.

Who's that guy I'm sitting next to?  Well funny story, I was climbing the steps to see what lay at the top when all of a sudden I heard someone yell "Mike!" in a loud voice.  Yup, my friend Wendel from Belo Horizonte found me here at the staircase.  Just casually.  I made my mom take a picture of us lol.  I am such a difficult son to deal with.

From the staircase, we headed to Museu do Amanhã, "The Museum of Tomorrow."  This is a new museum in Rio which contains rooms and rooms of exhibitions with the theme of our future.  There are some exhibits which illustrate astonishing scientific advances while others show the possible catastrophe if we do not save our planet in the present.  I heard about this museum because a lot of my friends from Belo Horizonte were dying to go and told me all about it.  It sure did not disappoint.

Upon walking out of the museum, my mom and I stumbled into a street fair of classily-presented Brazilian food and artisanal goods.  After sampling some eats and checking out the local artwork, it was off to the airport.

This trip made me realize the greatest difficulty that comes with traveling - when you fall in love with a place and realize you actually want to live there.  I'm not even kidding, Rio was the stuff you find only in dreams.  I know one day my life will take me back to Rio and I am so thankful for all of the wonderful memories I have shared and people I have met while in the cidade maravilhosa.