Final in Rio and heading to KC

Hey All!

I am hanging in the Rio apartment on Wednesday evening just waiting to go to bed.  I fly out tomorrow fairly early (real world time) and then fly pretty much all day from here to Orlando to Charleston to Kansas City for a few days.  Should I blog about KC?  Maybe…we will see.

Yesterday was pretty awesome.  We walked around the nearby barrios during the day and came across a parade in a park with a fairly cool marching band playing.  It was a little too spring break, but still pretty decent time.  

Christ the Redeemer in the background with the park and the parade below....

We had also been passing this cone-like structure the past couple of days before realizing it was a cathedral. While it was a total scorcher of a day, we still went inside because it seemed like it might be totally hollow (it was) and there were giant stained glass windows on the 4 cardinal directions.  Beautiful

One of the giant stained glass windows in the cone/pyramid cathedral

Last night we headed to Lapa (a nearby barrio) for some more outdoor music where we met up with an English woman we had met at the sambadrome the evening before and the girls started in with the Caipirinhas.  I was incorrect on my earlier description of the ingredients.  Rather than a 20 count of vodka, it’s a 20 count of rum.  The ones with vodka in them are, of course, called Caipivodkas.  Allison, the Brit, was drinking those while Marci stuck with the ‘rinhas.

While we were waiting for Allie, two guys came up to us and one started talking to me and did the whole wingman routine that happened the last time we were at the same venue.  I told him I knew the routine and laughed about it a bit.  Really cool couple of guys from Sao Paulo and one of them really wants to (and plans to) head to San Diego to visit.  No worries, Bassetts, I didn’t hand out any contact info.  Throughout the evening both women were being told “Hi, beautiful” by the outgoing gentlemen in the crowd.  I am not sure who won the unofficial contest, but last I knew it was 4-3.  I will leave it to your imagination as to who might have been ahead…or behind. 

The band I wanted to see was called Sargento Pimenta (Sergeant Pepper) and they do Beatles songs with a little samba flair.  They were AWESOME!!!  Tam, you would have been totally digging it!  I recorded them doing I want you (She’s so heavy) with my camera, but the file is too big (I guess) and blogspot is gagging.  Sorry, folks.  Maybe I will open a youtube account and post it there.  It was pretty sweet.  I actually got to the point where being covered in a sheen of sweat wasn’t that bad…I was dancing with the music and jumping with the crowd and had a great freaking time!

The band, Sergeant Pepper on stage.  Couldn't load my video, but here is one from Carnival a couple of years ago.

We were out until maybe 3 or 4 last night.  After the music, we started looking for some more food.  We had all only had a little bit of street meat for “dinner” and were a little hungry.  Btw, Marci ate a hot dog.  There.  I said it.  Suck it Marci…it’s out there for posterity!  We ended up at a pizza place where they told us, after we ordered, we couldn’t get anything.  The girls went inside to the bathroom and met up with some locals who talked to the waitress and got our order in after all.  It was a super nice group out for the evening and they even gave us a couple of recommendations for dinner tonight that I will have to hit next time I am in Rio cause they were closed when we went by.  One I know had been open during Carnival and I guess, since it’s over, they took the night off.

Speaking of, it’s like night and day between yesterday and today.  Yesterday there were a TON of people out and about dressed in costumes and what not and today it almost feels deserted.  Plus all these businesses that had been boarded up during Carnival started opening today.  We went to Copacabana to relax on the beach and there were maybe 1/10^th the people there as compared to a couple of days ago.  That was all good because after last night, we needed a relaxing day.

Example of how few people were on the beach.

Just made it to the airport and through security.  It wasn’t too bad except the cab dropped me off at the wrong terminal (always difficult getting your point across when you don’t speak the language).  The cool thing is my bag is checked through to KC.  I was a little worried I would need to find a US Airways (worst airline ever) counter in Orlando, but the kind lady at TAM (the national airline of Brazil) was able to get my bags checked AND get my boarding passes hooked up.  I only have an hour and 40 minutes in Orlando so hopefully I can get through customs, do the bag thing and then get through security to catch my plane in that time.  If it’s like BA, I am hosed.  Stay tuned (which really means, read on since I don’t think this is going out until after I get to KC…..)

Made it through customs in no time and then had to lug my luggage to the US Airways counter halfway across Orlando.  But the dude there at the counter was super nice and got me hooked up quickly, threatening “worst airline ever” status for US Airways…crap…they have hosed me so many times but this guy was good….

Now I am sitting at my gate waiting for boarding and sipping a Diet Coke…mmm  They don’t have Diet Coke in Rio.  They do have Coke Zero, but no Diet Coke and its just not the same.  They also don’t have (or at least I never saw) McDonalds or Burger King.  They were all over the place in BA (along with world famous Kentucky Pizza) but nowhere to be found in Rio.  They do have Bob’s burgers for your burger needs (never went).

IPA I had at the airport in Charlotte during that brief layover.  Mmmm....good beer.

And finally in this disjointed post, I am at the parental units house in KC.  Made it after a Loooooong day of travel.  While I think I might write a bit about the KU game we are going to see on Saturday, I wanted to get this out there to wrap up the South America portion of the trip.  Definitely had a BLAST.  So much fun in Rio and BA was pretty cool too.  The people were friendly and Marci and I had a great time.  Which makes sense…because….

It’s our time, the peoples time!

Jim