Free Time in Rio

We had the day free today, and of course, being in a city with such beautiful beaches, you would have expected that the students would have headed straight there. But instead, they organized several trips for themselves. One group spent the morning at the famous Botanical Gardens, with all the amazing flowers and trees and orchids. The bird life and the monkeys were really interesting, reportedly. The other group of students organized a trip to the major soccer stadium here (Maraconda Stadium) and took a tour of the place. They got to walk through the stands and go down almost on the field. I think they got a lot of great photos, or so I heard.

Many of the group headed for the beach in the afternoon. Some of us rented chairs and umbrellas from one of the beach concessions, and we sat in the sun (or shade as the case may be), and swam in the ocean, or slept or read. It was a gorgeous day, with bright sun and blue skies, with a gently cooling breeze coming in off the ocean. All around us on the beach were the incredibly tan people of Rio, most of them wearing the tiniest bathing suits imaginable. There are quite a few organized sports on the beach, with whole areas roped off for playing beach soccer, or volleyball, or the amazingly difficult sport of volley football (which is a combination of volleyball and soccer, where the general rules of volleyball apply, but only the feet and heads of the players are used instead of the hands). It´s pretty intense to watch it (and probably more intense to play it!).

Tonight we have a group lesson at one of the local Samba Schools. Samba is such an important social and cultural force here that I think this will give us even more of a feel for the culture of Brazil.

We´ve been eating some amazing food here, with most of the students trying quite a lot of local food. I think the group favorite so far is the guarana soda, which is absolutely delicious--not too sweet, but very refreshing. It´s a bit like ginger-ale, but not nearly as heavy. I think some of the students were talking about lobbying the Elmira College Dining Services to start carrying this soda on campus. It´s really that good! A lot of the food here is fried, so we have been eating empanadas and fritters, even fried bananas. Lots of rice and lots of salads. Today for lunch there was a mango and cucumber salad that was amazing. Another typical salad has a little bit of shredded chicken mixed with corn and shopped carrots and onions. For dessert, there are lots of sweet cakes and little tarts, as well as a lot of fruit. Not only are we eating some Amazonian fruits, we are getting fresh mango, passionfruit, watermelon, and pineapple for breakfast each morning. And papaya too. The pineapple here is skinnier and longer, but the bananas here are all shorter and stubbier. Acai drinks are everywhere, as well as the coconut water from the center of the green coconuts. Even though we are surrounded by all this delicious food, we still have a number of students curious about the translation of American fast food to Brazil, so we had a group of students head out to KFC last night. And: the potatoes are yellower! They don´t serve biscuits! The chicken tastes a little different! But otherwise, right down to the Colonel´s face, it´s pretty much the same.

We leave for the Amazon tomorrow, with a 4 AM ride to the airport and a 4 hour flight to Manaus. Of course, the moment we touch down we start right into the class with a cultural and historical tour and overview of the history of Manaus. Bright and early the day after we arrive, we head out to the Eco-lodge where we will be staying for 3 days. We aren´t certain if we will have access to the internet while in the Amazon, so we may not be able to update the blog for some number of days. Don´t worry if that´s the case, we´ll update with details as soon as we can.

Martha