Brazil is very alien. This is my first trip to a non-English speaking country and boy, am I glad I took James! I wouldn't have made it out of the airport on my own (I'm beginning to think I couldn't make it out of a Brazilian paper bag without him). Rio is big (I'm such a country mouse from little Portland) and has an aura of aging dignity mixed with enduring vanity. We're right near the once-popular Copacabana beach (Impanema is now more in style). We saw so many levels of living conditions on the bus ride from the airport to our apartment that it made my head spin. Some of the buildings look like concrete shells ravaged by WWII air squads in Europe and later just inhabited without bothering to fix the lack of roof or walls. Just throw a tarp here and there and voila! Your new home. Others are more what I would expect for middle class workers, but probably cost a mint here in the heart of Rio de Janiero. We're in a modest studio, with such luxuries as AC, wireless, and a private deck and mini-pool shared only with the half-dozen other rooms on the top storey of the building. It sounds fancy but everything has movie-set stability. It kinda reminds me of my first apartment in downtown Portland, but smaller. I think if it was any fancier, I'd feel guilty since there is still so much blatant poverty all around me.
I love Brazilian food. We ate "street food" at one of the many luncheons along the streets (at least as common as coffee shops in Portland). We had a fabulous dinner: fried teardrop-shaped breaded dumplings as big as your fist with shredded chicken and cheese or taco-like meat inside, cheesey-bread, Guarana soda (about as ubiquitous in Brazil as Pepsi, but it tastes like sweet ginger ale) and chocolate sweets for dessert. Yum!
