after we got back from the night before. Like 10 people from the night
before had said they had wanted to go and watch the sunrise on the
beach, but only Dain, myself and one other person ended up going. It
turned out to be their loss because it was completely amazing and worth
every lost minute of sleep. Dain took a time lapse video so he has the
whole thing of 1000+ pictures watching it happen which will have to be
posted in May. After the sunrise, we went back to the hotel and had
breakfast. Dain was staying with SAS for the day and going on a jeep
tour into the jungle, but I was separating from the group to go shopping
with Megan, Katie and Kaitlyn.
The four of us left around 8 and tried to find a shopping district
called Inpanema. Eventually we got there, but it did take us a while. We
went shopping for about 3 hours and I ended up getting a few things but
not too much. Around noon we decided to head to the Copacabana beach and
then to get lunch. I couldn't eat anything where we went, but I got a
gelato a few doors down. After that we went to Christ the Redeemer.
There are two ways to get to the top: by cable train or by car. We
decided to take the car mostly because of time constraints, but I'm glad
we did. With the car we got to stop at a different mountain first to get
a view of everything and we got to share a car with three people from
Sweden who were really nice. We also got some really nice pictures. When
we got to the statue we actually ended up running into the group of SAS
kids who went on the jeep trek that morning. I'm always amazed at what a
small world it is. So we all got to take some group photos, although it
was quite difficult to get the giant statue in a picture with a bunch of
people too. The statue is beyond amazing, and I can't quite express the
scope of how large it is. You can literally see this thing anywhere in
the city - crazy. After the statue the four of us went back to the hotel
to shower and get ready for the night.
That night most of the SAS group went to a district called Lapa, which
apprently is THE place to be for social activity. There were lots of
bars, clubs and resturants, and we ended up at a three story
resturant/club that I forget the name of. It was a lot different that an
American club, and actually was themed as a masqueraid. So we all got to
buy masks and dance to a live Brazilian band. The place was completly
decked out in old antiques, and each floor had a little hole in the
middle where you could watch the band on floor 1. It was a whole lot
different than any American club I have ever seen, and a whole lot more
fun. The resturant part wasn't a fun experience for me, as the waitor
and the tour guide didn't seem to understand the portugese dining card I
gave them and got really offended when I didn't eat my plate, but other
than that I had a really good time. When it was time to leave, the whole
group met out front and took a count and realized we were missing one
person in our group. The tour guide went in to look and couldn't find
him and no one in our group had seen him in hours. Most of us went to
sit on the bus while the tour guide, Dain and 2 girls went to look for
him. The few of us that were sober enough to realize what was going on
got really worried, while the majority of the people on the bus were
obnoxious as hell and just complaining that they wanted to leave to make
it to another club before it closed. Anyway, about an hour later the 4
searchers came back without our missing suspect, and we had no choice
but to leave. The club had been searched up and down and the correct
authorities had been notified. Most of the bus got dropped off at the
"downtown" area of Copacabana, while the 7 of us who hadn't drank into
oblivion went back to the hotel. We left a note on his door and told him
to call someone when he got back.
4 hours later, we woke up to get ready to head to the airport. I went
downstairs for breakfast and Dain told me that mister missing had called
him about 2 hours earlier and was at the hotel. When he walked into
breakfast that morning, he had no idea how he had made it back to the
hotel, but apparently he had drank quite a bit too much and had wondered
out of the club on his own. Anyway, we left for the airport around 630
am and made it back to Manaus and the ship around 3pm Manaus time, got
back on the MV and left Brazil.
I was way past annoyed more than once on this trip over the way some
people handled situations regarding alcohol on this trip:
1) Idiot drank too much in Manaus that he almost missed a trip he
paid $2,000 for AND is in massive trouble with SAS, but the first thing
he says at the airport when showing up hungover is "who wants some shots?"
2) Someone from our group drank too much to properly control
himself, and found himself wondering off and missing in a foreign
country. Yet most of the people in our group were already drunk and
could only talk about going out and drinking more.
Maybe someday these people will learn to behave responsibly? Unless I'm
wrong in thinking that the whole point of Semester at Sea is to
experience the world, not get to too drunk to remember it, make poor
decisions and put yourself in danger in foreign countries?
Anyway, besides those incidents I really did have an amazing time in
Brazil and Rio, and I'm super excited to get to Ghana!
Safety - I was surprised at how safe I felt in Rio! I had been hearing
left and right to watch out here, but I didn't feel threatened at all.
Even with just 4 girls at one point, I felt pretty safe. Manaus I felt
more in danger of pit-pockets and petty crime, though. There were some
incidents with SAS kids too, mostly involving theft but one person did
get held up at Machetti-point and another got beat up. However, as far
as I have heard it, both of these occurred in the area of Manaus that
SAS told us to avoid. Some theft and minor incidents did occur in the
major city as well, but again, it's really all about just being smart.
Theft can occur anywhere, and it's ridiculous to think you are
completely immune even in your own neighborhood, but Brazil definitely
wasn't as bad as I had anticipated.
Gluten-Free - Mundo Verde was a great store and there are quite a few
locations around Rio. There is also a lot of fruit to eat everywhere and
every label says in bold at the bottom of the ingredients if it does or
does not contain gluten. I had a great experience at one restaurant and
a bad one at another, but overall I am really happy with the GF
experience in Brazil. For a country where I don't know the language, I
was able to eat pretty well for the most part.
0 comments:
Post a Comment