Reflection 1/5/17
Today was basically a pretty uneventful traveling day. We overnighted to Rio and then got to the hotel and slept. The hotel that we were staying at was in Copacabana and it was just a few blocks from the beach. We had a few hours of free time to walk around the city and so naturally we went to the beach. It was breathtaking- white sand and blue water. The only catch was that it felt like it was 1000 degrees outside, so needless to say we didn’t stay at the beach for too long. Professor Tait, Lester, I and a few other students wandered around Copacabana trying to find a place to eat lunch. At first we went to a little restaurant but it was a little pricey so we left. We then went to a buffet that seemed much more reasonable, however Erika managed to spend about 100 reis on lunch!! Our “cheap” lunched turned out to be one of the most expensive meals of the whole trip! After lunch, we went back to the hotel and waited until it was time to adventure onto the subway. The subway system in Rio is called the “Metro” and it was pretty much just the same as the subways in Philadelphia except for the fact that the train cars themselves don’t really have an emergency open option. To my astonishment, there are people who have never taken a subway before and they took their grand old time getting onto the train. They managed to take so long that about three quarters of the group got on the train and four of us (myself included) got shut out of the car and left at the station. Georgie’s foot got caught in the doors, but at least we saved her flip-flop that fell off of her foot. As the train pulled away, the group of us that got left behind couldn’t help but laugh because of the series of events that had just occurred and because we were stranded at a subway station in Rio. We knew we had to get on the next train and just hope that we could find the group at the next stop. When we finally got on the next train, I started saying how I wish our phones worked because nobody speaks English and its confusing to explain why we need to borrow a phone in Spanish to someone that only speaks Portugese. After my ranting, I heard someone laugh behind me and I asked him if he spoke English. Luckily he said yes and that he would let us borrow his phone to call our professor at the next stop. Little did we know it, but the rest of our group got on at the next stop and lined the subway terminal to look into the windows for us. Jaclyn saw my bun in my hair and started pounding on the glass to get our attention, so I told the nice man that was going to let us borrow his phone that we had found our class and I thanked him very much. We got off the subway and reunited with our class, then all of us got on the next train. WE finally got off at our next stop and continued to walk around downtown Rio and sightsee. Taking the metro in Rio was quite an experience. Reflection 1/6/17 Today was the day to be a tourist. Personally, I love being a tourist because people come and tell you a lot of random things about wherever it is that you are touring. Oddly enough for us, our tour guide was not the most informed at all about anything really that we did or saw today. He also didn’t speak very good English so it was sort of comical to communicate with him- I love this language barrier. We got up early and went to the Christ the Redeemer statue, or “Christo”. I felt so sick all day today, as soon as we got to the statue, I threw up. I guess not many people can say that they puked at Christ the Redeemer in Rio right? After that I felt slightly better but I knew I had to take it easy. The statue itself was truly amazing. We got to the statue early enough that there wasn’t all that many people there and we got to take great pictures. Although we were there for maybe 45 minutes to an hour and it got so crowded that you could barely walk. So we left and got in the van to go to Sugarloaf Mountain. It seemed like someone had gone through professor Tait’s bag when we got into the van and every time Tait asked our guide about it he said “Its all good”, but it certainty wasn’t all good. Another great example of how comical the language barrier was. At Sugarloaf, we had to take a series of two cable cars. One to get up to a smaller mountain just in front of Sugarloaf, “sugar slice” as we nicknamed it, and then one from “sugar slice” to Sugarloaf. “Sugar slice” was neat because there were tons of little marmoset monkeys jumping around the paths. However the view from sugarloaf was seriously something that you have to see to believe. It was breathtaking. You were able to see both Copacabana beach and Ipanema beach, favelas and just about the entire city of Rio De Janiero. We took endless amounts of photos here and took our time enjoying the views. After descending form Sugarloaf, we went and saw some other tourist attractions such as the Mercana stadium and the street where Carnival takes place. At the stadium we all bought fake soccer jerseys and at the Carnival street we took pictures with fake samba dancers. Unfortunately, Jaclyn was very sick this day and Tait had to take her to the hospital at night. We all went to the pool and hung out, swam and played games. We made a whirlpool and played a version of the popular pool game “Marco, Polo” except we personalized it and played “Marcus, Rafael, Tyke” after our beloved tour guides in Manaus. Today was a really fun day. Reflection 1/7/17 Today we hiked Tijuca National Forest! It is located in the Atlantic Forest, which is a biodiversity hotspot in Brazil. The hike was absolutely beautiful and very fun except we had the same dud of the tour guide leading us around. He wasn’t really able to tell us much about the forest or surrounding areas like our tour guides in Manaus but it was still an awesome hike. The park was astounding and it was home to mountains and some waterfalls. One of the only facts that our guide was able to share with us was that “there are a lot of different kinds of trees here” which was also extremely comical for our class. After we completed our hike, we went back to the hotel and relaxed for a little while until dinnertime when half of our class went to Ipanema and the other half stayed in Copacabana. I went with the group that was going to Ipanema because I wanted to explore Rio as much as possible. Professor Tait and Lester also came with us to Ipanema to have lunch. We took the metro over and had dinner at some chain restaurant that we had found. After dinner we walked to the beach and we still had a few hours of sun so Tyler, Kim and I decided that we would go swimming while the rest of the group hungout and relaxed on a huge rock that jetted out into the water. Tyler, Kim and I jumped off of the rock into the beautiful blue water and it was so refreshing. We floated around for a while until we decided it was time to get out and jump in again. Tyler climbed up the rock and jumped in and assured Kim and I that we would be able to climb out the same way. I swam over to the rock and waited for the water to lift me up but as soon as the water disappeared from under me I slid down the side of the rock which was covered in barnacles. I didn’t know the extent of my injury on my leg but I knew that it hurt a lot. We decided it wasn’t that good of an idea to climb out anymore and we swam to the beach. On our way to the beach Kim saw something floating in the water beside us, and it turned out to be someones poop. Needless to say I had never swam so fast in my life as we cackled out of the ocean. We went to the lifeguard stand to get first aid as soon as we saw how torn up my leg was but nobody really spoke English except for one guy who didn’t even have a lifeguard uniform on. All he was able to offer me was some clean water and a bandage so I took what I could get at the time and left. We reconnected with our little group and decided we would walk back to our hotel in Copacabana. On our way back, Professor Tait told the entire class in our WhatsApp chat that a hammerhead shark had attacked me and he told the little group that went to Ipanema that this was the story we were to stick to. To my disbelief, when I got back to the hotel and we all got together to do presentations the entire class believed the story and kept asking me questions about the shark. I told them that if Kim wasn’t there I probably would have been a goner. This story stuck until well into our stay at Foz do Iguacu. My nickname became shark bait, thanks Tait. |