Easter Weekend

Yay for a fantastic three day weekend. My friend Taimi, who is teaching in Belo Horizonte, came to Rio to visit from Weds-Monday. On Thursday night we ran around the Lagoa, showered, and walked back to the Lagoa for a meal outside. We decided on a Middle Eastern restaurant with live music. After our caipirinas (Taimi had a not so delicious pineapple one) we ate mystery meat with cheese, tomatoes, ham, and a tortilla. On Friday we woke up and went on a favela tour. Part of the reason it was interesting was because one of the two favelas we toured was the one that is directly across from my school. I learned lots about favelas and have a much better impression of what life inside is like. From the tour we were dropped off at the beach. We spend the remainder of the day lounging at the beach, playing in the waves, and purchasing cute earrings ☺ That nigh we went out for pizza and beer. Even though we looked at an English menu, we chose the house special pizza… it did have one topping that was not translated.. but we decided to give it a try. The mystery topping ended up being sardines or anchovies… can we say YUCK! So, to make things better we had chocolate ice cream! At 11:30 we headed to the Lap area to dance at Rio Scenarium. In Lapa the streets were overflowing the live music, mini-bars, vendors, and people. At Rio Scenarium we had about an hour wait to get in. Once inside there were three floors and two separate rooms. They had a live band playing samba and other Brazilian style music. We returned home around 4am—only to wake up four hours later for a boat trip. The boat took us around the coastline of the city. Our next adventure was to Santa Teresa. Here they had a celebration with lots of color, music, and dancing. It was very bohemian and like a mini-carnival. Taimi and I went to Melt that night… it was much different from the previous night. This was much more of the club scene that I am use to. The music started with hits from the 80s and then current hip-hop. We returned home at 3 am and slept into the afternoon on Sunday. My favorite pick up line of the weekend came from the beach when a group of guys said, “Hey ladies, wanna get high? Let’s get some marijuana!” Needless to say… we just kept walking. We did manage to get in a trip to the Hippie Fair and the beach on Sunday- although it was cloudy, and a run around the lagoa- which we ended in a rainstorm. Our Easter dinner included Mac & cheese and jellybeans… YUM! Today is Monday and I have two other student teaching friends that are coming to visit because they have spring break this week…. Tomorrow we are going hang-gliding after school… oh how I love this city… ☺