Rio!

I went to Rio last weekend! Long overdue, what a great city to visit! And one of the families my Dad taught on his LDS mission offered to let me stay with them.....not only did they let me stay with them, but they took me all over town! And taught me a bit a Portuguese. Of which my favorite word was "Caraca!" (emphasis on the "a" in the middle). Sounds a bit like Caracas, and it's the equivalent of like "Holy Cow!" But I digress.

The "kids" of the family my dad taught are all grown up now, married with kids of their own. Great families! Junior now works as an architect on restoration projects, and he gave me a cultural/historical tour of the city. Saw the cultural museum he works at, with great exhibits, and the courtroom that was used by the Brazilian Supreme Court until they moved the capital to Brasilia.

Then I got the amazing chance to go with him and some of his fellow restor-ians to Ilha Fiscal (or "Tax Island"), where they used to collect taxes from the ships coming in before they made port. Looked more like a castle to me!

This is me trying to be an artsy photographer like my sister. Not bad for never having had a class, eh? She says that I did a good job with the "framing" of the palm tree. Why, thank you :)


Here I am with Juliana, one of the "kids' kids." I do think the kids were a little disappointment in my lack of Portuguese abilities. Next time! I was definitely getting better at it by my 3rd day there, but then I had to leave. But we did find that you didn't need a common language to take silly photos together, so we took lots. Funny story -- after Juliana gave one of the blessings on the food, she said "Aw, Dad, she didn't understand anything I said." And I said "I understood that!" But it was true, I only understood the "amen."


Here I am with Adriana, one of the "kids" from the family my Dad taught. She was also my cousins' nanny when I was little, so we had a great time reminiscing and catching up. And her English was great! It gives me hope that I can retain my Spanish even after it's been awhile.


And here I am with one of the other "kids," Junior, and his wife Renata. Great people. P.S., you say the "R" like an "H" if it comes at the beginning of the word, or if it's a double-R in the middle. I.e. "Hio de Janeiro," "Caho" for carro, and "Henata." But of course, I think half of you who read this blog already knew that. The linguistics dork in me was fascinated by this. In Spanish, you roll the R when it's at the front of the word or a double, but the "H" sound reminds me more of the gutteral (sp?) French R. Fascinating. Moving on.

I wanted to give you all a play-by-play of something we saw in the national park we visited, Tijuca. It was beautiful! And we went to this....cliff.....where para-sailers and hang-gliders jump off. Wow! Here is one of the brave souls, getting ready to go


But wait, he had to make a phone call. It lasted for several minutes. I was trying to decide if he was saying "Yeah, honey, I'm about ready to go, just meet me down on the beach in a few minutes." Or if it was "Hi honey, I just wanted to tell you I love you, in case I don't make it." You decide.


And he's off!


And sailing down to the incredible Brazilian beach below.


This is the famous Cristo statue. So yes, I saw it. But he was covered in scaffolding, as part of a restoration project, so we didn't go up. Next time. I would complain more, but it made me so happy to wander the city and see all of this restoring going on. Well done, Rio!


Of course, you can't visit Rio without seeing one of the favela's. This is a photo (from the car) of Rocinha, the largest favela in Brazil. On another occasion, we were driving past a different favela, and saw that they had started putting up walls (apparently as part of preparations for the World Cup and Olympics). I had heard about such walls, and thought I remembered them being assosciated with some sort of controversy. I asked if the people from the favelas were offended or angry about the walls. Not really, was the answer. The privacy would be nice. Maybe true. I need to read up on the walls a bit more.


As part of my culturally-packed weekend, we went to the ballet! And not just any ballet, but Don Quixote! Which I have actually read, but have apparently completely forgotten, because I still have no idea who two of the main characters from the ballet were, and what their part in the story was.

Well, the spoiling-of-Shannon-while-in-Rio continues. Adriana knew someone from church whose son was in the ballet that night, and they all ushered me backstage afterwards to meet the cast and get pictures. Here is a picture of me with Don Quixote! He had already taken his beard off, so we were laughing about that. And P.S. you pronounce it "Don Quizhoche" in Portuguese, which caused some confusion for me in the middle of the play. "There's Don Quixote!" "Who?" "Don Quixote!" "Who?" "Don Quixote!" "Oh, Don Quixote!"


One more picture of me and Juliana, and of course, Kevin Costner. We just call him Kevin.