Mid March 'Til Today

So as I said, I wanted to post a megapost with lots of stuff about the last couple months. I just went through my photos since mid-March to pick out a choice few to include with this post...but I ended up picking out almost 60. So this post might end up being a couple posts, just because my internet really isn't that fast so it will take a while (and I'll lose motivation) to post 60 photos. BUT I WILL TRY. Starting now:

One Saturday towards the end of March, a couple of my American friends here invited me to go on a hike with them on the Morro da Urca (The Hill of Urca). This is the hill next to the famous Pão de Açúcar (Sugar Loaf), which is one of the iconic images of Rio. The Morro da Urca is accessible by the same gondola that goes up to the top of the Sugar Loaf, but it's also accessible by a fairly reasonable hiking trail. So I got up bright and early (around 6 am I think) and went out to Urca.

This is the Peugeot Building in Botafogo, which I pass most days on the bus, and I walked by that day to get to the hike.

This is Praia Vermelha, a small, less-frequented beach next to the Sugar Loaf.

And this is Praia Vermelha from above.

And this is a nasty little marmoset on the top of the hill.

This is a view of Botafogo, with Cristo Redentor to the right and the Pedra da Gávea to the left.

So yeah. Morro da Urca. Nice hike. At the very beginning of April, I had a feriado from school (aka a vacation), and so I decided to go to São Paulo with Brazilian friends. As it turns out, there are lots and lots of feriados from school, and if you include the fact that I don't have to go to school on days Brazil is playing in the World Cup, I have just way too many days off. But it's cool. So São Paulo was cool, in terms of being a giant city. I saw a lot of museums and nice cultural things and I liked that, and all the people I met were really cool and nice. And the Paulista accent is a lot easier to understand than the Carioca accent, albeit kind of not as cool sounding. So all in all, I like São Paulo. But definitely I prefer Rio in terms of scenery/nature etc.

A cool work of graffiti in SP

São Paulo is home to the largest population of Japanese people outside of Japan, in a neighborhood called Liberdade. All the street lights and stuff there are Japanese themed, and I went to a couple of Asian markets there (bought some Sriracha! Yum!)

Avenida Paulista, the main drag in SP.

A/The train station in SP.

An Orthodox cathedral that I could see out my hotel window.

A Catholic cathedral (On Easter Sunday maybe?)

Same cathedral.

After SP weekend came my birthday week, which normally would have been a big deal but for a couple things: one, 21st birthdays don't really matter in a country where everyone drinks from age 15 or so on. And two, on my actual birthday, and the days following, Rio experienced the worst rain/flooding it's experienced in 40 years. I'm talking I was stuck in my apartment and neighborhood, the government was telling people not to leave their houses, etc. Kind of a downer. But oh well, makes for a good story I guess..

The view out my window (flooded street)

A couple views of the closest major intersection to me (this was not at the peak of the flooding, obviously).

Getting worse

So as I predicted, the post is taking a long time, and I have tired of waiting for pictures to upload, so I'm gonna cut this off here. Which really only brought us up to April 6, aka LONG WAY TO GO. So look forward to more pictures/old news soon!

I KNOW I totally didn't blog faithfully at all. SORRY.

That being said, I have about a month and a half left here and I would like that month and a half to be recorded on this blog. Right now I should be asleep, but I wanted to just write this to motivate myself to actually write a post tomorrow. It will summarize my last 2 months...