Oi Brasil!

I'm here! My plane landed yesterday morning without incident and so far everything has gone exceptionally smoothly. As soon as I stepped off the plane I had the overwhelming urge to skip through the terminal, so I did for a little while, but then my obese backpack started weighing me down so I stopped. For the most part, I spent the second leg of my trip out cold (thankfully) and flipped through my Portuguese textbook for a quick brush-up. I was feelin' good about my Portuguese and was excited to test out my language skills in the real world (the "rio" world? har har har). That all changed the second I entered the taxi to my hotel. I started a casual conversation with our driver, whose response sounded to me a little bit like "jjjjjj shhh? jshhh shjjj. shhajjjao!" Asking for a repeat helped a little, but my sense of Portuguese knowledge was effectively tainted.

At the hotel, all the UC-EAP students met up and bonded as the hotel put our rooms together for an hour or three. I was more or less jumping out of my skin with desire to go out and explore, so when the time finally came to hit up as praias de Ipanema, I once again found myself skipping embarrassingly. Some initial impressions of Rio from my first two days:

1. Wow. I have never seen so many beautiful people in my entire life. Believe the hype about Brazilian women and men alike - they are seriously works of art. I'm very confused about how their bodies stay so unbelievably perfect, because as far as my first two days have shown me, Brazilian food contains an awful lot of cheese and meat. Almost exclusively. Oh, but it is so good. I guess they must be working out a lot, and that takes a huge amount of dedication in this heat. Someone told me yesterday that Rio has one of the highest (if not THE highest) rates of plastic surgery in the world. Anyways, congratulations, homems e mulheres do Brasil, you guys are officially really hot.

2. Every guidebook of Brazil I've ever read emphatically states that you should not wear or carry anything that even looks expensive, even if it isn't, because this will make you an obvious target of mugging. Well, apparently Ipanema didn't get the message, because I have never seen so many designer labels on so few bodies. Of course, a well-dressed carioca will be less of a target than a conspicuous tourist, and of course, the areas I've observed so far have been the wealthiest and safest parts of Rio, but still, it's interesting to see.

3. Rio. Is. Beautiful. The taxi ride from the airport to Ipanema was, in a way, like a (much less over-intentionally perfect and much more startling) ride in Disneyland. Completely magical. I love the forests so much. All the green makes me feel weirdly vibrant and happy. Even in the most developed, commercial parts of Rio, vines cover buildings and huge trees with hundreds of hanging leaves in between the streets remind you where you are - the tropics. The heat helps too. The beaches' splendor pretty much goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway - they are incredible. I'm not sure how anyone gets anything done around here when the beaches are calling everyone's name so very loudly.

4. The favelas (slums) are absolutely huge. People had told me that they are like their own cities within themselves, but I really had to see them to believe it. I haven't been to one yet, but there are a bunch of volunteer opportunities to teach in the favelas that sound really fascinating and definitely like a sure way experience the other side of the huge rich-poor dichotomy here. Some other EAP students and I were looking at a map of Rio today and one of the first things we noticed was that the map was completely devoid of favelas, which take up enormous amounts of land and contain millions and millions of people. Pretty messed up, right? The reason, clearly, is that for the vast majority of tourists, the favelas don't actually exist. I realized that until I got here the only information I had really gotten about the favelas was that I should stay away from them. Obviously precautions need to be taken in the favelas, but I don't want to be one of the people who never sees one and pretends they aren't there.

There is definitely a lot more to say (I met my homestay host today and moved into her apartment!) but it's late and I am getting burned out by all this blogging. I'm going to have to build up the typing stamina for sure. All I can say for now is that I'm very happy and having a wonderful time. Até logo!