Alternate Sunday afternoon plans...

Pete returned from Brazil on Saturday. Later that day, the kids went to a roller skating party with Kendall's school. On Sunday, we had planned to go hear Barack Obama speak after church, but decided that it was going to be way too hard with the kids and the weather was a little cool. Could it be that two weeks away from the kids had caused my husband to "lose confidence"? Anyway. We decided to go home and go for a hike. It was a beautiful afternoon and the kids really enjoyed it. Oh, I enjoyed it, too, but that is immaterial, usually.



This part of Pennsylvania is the Ridge and Valley province. You can see we are on top of a ridge here.

Brazil--Day3

On Day 3 in Brazil we went with Pete's Post-Doctoral Student to Pao de Acucar. Franci is from Rio but lives in State College, PA right now. I had been there with her two years ago. She picked us up early and we drove straight there. It was a beautiful day. The views from this place are spectacular. The English name for it is Sugar loaf Mountain.


Picured above is a plane coming in for a landing at the Domestic airport in Rio.
After seeing Sugar loaf, we went back to the hotel and walked around a bit. We then checked out and headed to the airport for our flight to Sao Paulo.

We arrived to Sao Paulo around 5 pm. It was supposed to be an hour flight, but the weather had been bad so the traffic was backed up. Oh joy. We finally landed. Phew. Once checked into our hotel, we met the big group at the Unique hotel for dinner. The restaurant was on top of this very unique hotel. But, here is a view from the top of our hotel, The Blue Tree Towers Faria Lima:

I'm really blown away by the number of skyscrapers--as far as the eye can see.

Anyway, dinner was nice. At this point in the trip, we met a lot of Tati's friends and family. There was a retired Brazilian Olympian Swimmer there, Fernando Scherer. And a lot of Matt's mom's friends were there.

After dinner, a bunch of us went to a dance club. Pete and I didn't stay very long. It was very crowded and LOUD. This is when I realize I am not as young as I once was. I couldn't wait to get out. And everytime they opened a champagne bottle, they would light a flair and stick it in the bottle. Oh my. I couldn't help but think if there was a fire, we would all be in trouble. Kill Joy, I know. So, we went back to the hotel and fell asleep!

Brazil -- Day 2

Let me first say, that in Brazil, days tend to run into each other. Day 1 finished with us walking across the street from the restaurant where we had dinner to a Samba place. We were in Lapa--the Bohemian part of Rio de Janeiro. I can't remember the name of the restaurant (remember, I had just arrived to Brazil that morning), but the Samba place was Carioca da Gema. The place was OK. But that night the music wasn't that great. While my husband was standing in line to pay to get out, a man grabbed me and whisked me to the dance floor. He kept grabbing my head and pushing it against his chest. He was about a foot taller than me and it was very awkward. Oh well, welcome to Rio! Finally, my husband paid and we escaped. Which brings us into day 2.

On Wednesday, Matt had set up a Favela tour with Anderson Sa. People do not go through favelas on their own.

The favelas have federal gaurds placed at the openings to keep the people of the favelas in and to keep others out. I was a little uneasy standing there. And why were we touring a favela? A few years ago (maybe 4), Matt made a movie called Favela Rising. It is about Anderson Sa (AfroReggae) and what he did after a horrible incident in his favela. So, with that, Matt wanted us to see a favela and what a group is doing to try to make positive changes within the favela. Some us left after the first favela while the rest of the group continued with the tour.


I was in the group that went back to Ipanema. I had lunch with Ben (Pete's old friend from high school) and his wife, Emmy (and their 4 month old baby). After that, I pottered around the streets of Ipanema and then donned my Brazilian bikini and went to the beach. Soon after I arrived, Pete showed up. It was close to 6 pm.

OK, it's obvious that I am a gringa with that white skin. Yikes. But, what the heck, we were having fun.

After the beach, Pete and I met his old high school friends for dinner and another couple went with us. By the time we sat down, it was 10:30 pm. Hello! I am usually asleep by that time. It was fun, though. And needless to say, we didn't get back to our hotel until Day 3. Ha.

Brazil--Day 1

Our trip to Brazil was fantastic! We left on Monday and arrived on Tuesday morning to Rio de Janeiro. We were checked into our hotel, the Ipanema Inn, by 9:30 am. Alas, Pete hadn't brought any of the contact info with him so we didn't know where anybody from the big group was. We arrived two days after everyone else, so I was feeling a little down about not knowing where people were. We showered and changed and Pete decided that we should walk to the beach (Ipanema) to see if anyone was there. The hotel was in a great location--about a two minute walk from the beach. The weather was perfect. Hot and sunny. A nice break from the rainy weekend that we had heard about from our friends that had already arrived. And a nice break from the long winter of central Pennsylvania.

We walked toward the beach and turned a corner to see Matt. Pete called out, "Macho!" Matt turned toward us and gave us a big grin. What luck. The group was meeting at the front of the Caesar Park Hotel at 10 am to get on some buses and head to the port. Matt had chartered a boat and was taking the group to Niteroi for the day. Pete ran back to the hotel to get our swimsuits and towels. The group was going to have lunch on the beach and hang out for a while once we arrived by boat.

About half of the group took the little boat to shore while Pete and others dived in and swam to the beach. I took the little boat. Tati is pictured below in the little boat.

Matt giving the thumbs up! The lady in green is his Aunt Beth.

This is Pete diving in. He is a fish.


Once we all got to the shore, we had some typical Brazilian food of fish stew and beans and rice. And the restaurant made caipirinhas. I had talked about wanting to get a Brazilian bikini. There was a little shop there, and I bought one.

This lady was so patient. I think in all, she sold about 8 swimsuits. (One woman from our group had been given money to buy suits for people back home).


We got back to the hotel around 7 pm and then went out for dinner and dancing. It was a late night for us, especially since we had only arrived just that morning.

This is what we saw on our way back to Rio that evening. I was feeling pretty lucky to have walked toward the beach that morning. Thanks to Pete's intuition. What a day. And that was just the first one.

I'm back from Brazil...

exhausted. I will write about the trip later. For now, I am going to catch up on some much needed sleep. Ciao-ciao!