The Passineau Family: Pittsburgh Edition: Brazil Part II: Rio De Janeiro

So the 2nd part of our trip took us to Rio De Janeiro. I knew it would be great, but it was probably even better than I expected. The city is so beautiful with the bay & it's mountainous terrain. One thing I didn't expect was that there would be hardly any Spanish there....all Portuguese my friends! A lot of people did know some English, particularly in our hotel & in the restaurants where we dined. The cabs---oh boy, let's just say it was a good thing I drank a fair amount before getting into these death traps & it's also a good thing that my Portuguese pronunciation seemed to improve as the number of caipirinhas I drank increased (not really, but seriously, those cabs were something else). Most cab drivers only knew Portuguese & drove at least 2 Xs faster than the speed limit. They also had a bad habit of weaving in & out of heavy traffic. Most times I would just shut my eyes and pray that we would get to our destination safely. So besides the crazy cabs, I can honestly say I never felt unsafe or threatened like I could be mugged. Before going to Brazil numerous people who had traveled there told me not to take my wedding rings or anything particularly nice and they recommend that we get concealed wallets. I was all ready with my waist wallet & Michael had a neck wallet, but truly I don't think this was very necessary. I'm sure there are bad areas of Rio, as in any other big city, but I can't say that we were ever close to anything really dangerous. We stayed in the Hotel Santa Teresa, which sits above the city in the area of Santa Teresa. Santa Teresa is a unique area with a lot of historic homes. This was an area where the wealthy shippers/coffee growers of Rio would come during the summers to seek refuge from the heat of the city. Our hotel was actually formerly a coffee plantation itself & has been completely renovated in the most modern luxurious way. I can't say enough good things about this hotel. The view overlooking the city was amazing both by day & by night. Both the restaurant and bar were awesome with the open air seating & food & drink were equally awesome. The staff was friendly & we had VIP service for every aspect of our stay. They even had an armed guard out front of the hotel (concealed weapon of course), but he had a headset & some pretty cool looking sunglasses--having him there made me feel like a movie star or important head of state (hey, a girl can dream, right??) The only thing that we found to be difficult was getting to & from our hotel. Before we went to Rio I had researched ways to get around the city & it seemed as though the best way to get to our hotel was to take their famous little streetcar to & from the metro stops...well, that would have been nice, but apparently the street car is no longer in service thanks to an accident that killed some tourists...yikes! They are planning on bringing the streetcar back in a year or so once they have made the necessary safety changes. Instead we relied on those crazy cabs.

The first full-day we were there we went to Rio's most famous site Corcovado to see Cristo Redentor or the Christ statue overlooking the city. You have to catch a train to climb the rather steep slope up to Christ, but the wait was well worth it. You get amazing views from the train itself & the statue, truly an experience. I know everyone has probably seen the statue on tv or in pics, but the scale of it & the height of it was unexpected to me. You are above the clouds when you get to the top....it is way up there! It really is a beautiful statue & the view from the top is amazing. Following our Sunday morning excursion to the statue we went Copacabana beach. We began this part of our day with a coffee/dessert treat at the famous Copacabana Palace hotel. Apparently, many movie stars & famous folks have enjoyed this beautiful hotel. It's totally old hollywood glamour. It reminded me of the grand old hotels along Michigan avenue in Chicago, only grander. After our refuel, we walked the beach & then completed this day by doing some shopping a wonderful open air market. They had so many handmade items & we actually completed all of our gift shopping here. I even got a great piece of street art--it's a black & white painting of Christ overlooking Rio (very excited to get it framed). That evening we ate at a local place near our hotel called Espirito Santa and we were both surprised by how much the flavors of our dinner were Caribbean tasting.....delish!

The 2nd day of sightseeing we headed out to the Sugarloaf Mountain cable car. We walked down from our neighborhood to the area of the city called Gloria before heading to the cable car & got a great look at some of the architecture in that area. Looks very New Orleans with all the ornate iron work & such (but I guess I should say New Orleans actually looks very Portuguese since they are the some of the folks that influenced the architecture in New Orleans). The Sugarloaf cable car was quite an experience. It is also very high & since neither Michael or I enjoy heights, it was a little daunting to take 2 little dangling cable cars up to the top of the narrow "mountain" or cliff as we called it. We both were a little green by the time we got to the top. Obviously, since you're reading this blog post we made it!! After Sugarloaf we headed to look at some other architecture & historic buildings in Rio. This night we dined at a real Rio institution Cafe da Feijoada (pronounced Fe-o-jo-ada). It's sort of like a black bean & meat stew served over rice. It is served, traditionally in Brazil, with collard greens, fried yucca, fried pork skins and sliced oranges. Not a real light meal, but great to try the "national dish" of Brazil & it really was tasty.

Our last day in Brazil, Michael indulged me & we went shopping on the Rodeo drive of Ipanema beach for jewelry....brazilian gemstones to be exact. Because we were American tourists & Americans get treated like VIPs in Brazil (no seriously, this is true), we had gotten an invitation to the H. Stern museum & showroom. H. Stern is the premier jeweler in S. America & they are also international, but they began in Brazil. So we did get to go throughout the museum, which was neat to see how they make the gemstones from the rocks they dig up from the ground, but my favorite part was trying on the ridiculous expensive jewelry. Now I may currently be unemployed, but I have exceptional taste so I go straight for the most precious & rare jewelry on earth....the Paraiba Tourmaline--of course this catches my eye. Apparently Prince William just gave Princess Kate some jewelry made of this stuff. I had fun trying on the beautiful jewels, but in the end the jewelry was just ridiculously overpriced. We rounded out the morning by walking Ipanema beach & then headed back to the hotel to enjoy our beautiful pool. Since we had a 3 PM check out, but a 10 PM flight, we did the museum & then grabbed some dinner before heading to the airport. It was an amazing trip. Truly, I was pleasantly surprised by how wonderful the city was & how much we enjoyed ourselves. Although, it is a very long way to travel I would say we got the most bang for our buck during our time in Brazil. I would encourage anyone reading to consider Brazil as a vacation destination, our experiences were only great! Enjoy some pics of our time in Rio & have a wonderful day ;)