This was put together rather quickly, but it´s cute. There are three links due to phone calls and other distractions that took me away from recording. :)
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Easter in Rio
This dear family brought me from school over to their home where we stayed until it was time to go catch the bus. The youngest boy is in my class and the mother works at our school. The father is from Rio and he used to take the overnight bus there every weekend. He brought me to the terminal and it was crazy. I posted a bit about this termanal, Tietê, before. It is the 2nd largest bus terminal in the world with over 1 million per day traveling through it. I was there on a holiday weekend and no doubt there were at least 2 million people there squishing you from every direction. We had some difficulty at the bus station, and I would have missed my bus but because of the craziness of the holiday weekend my bus was almost 1.5 hours late and I made it.
The next morning I waited for a while at the Rio bus terminal and then my friend and her husband came and picked me up. I was tired since I hadn´t slept all night so we went to their house and I took a 30 min. nap and grabbed a shower. Then we went to a beautiful park.
Parque Nacional da Tijuca- Cascatinha Taunay
Parque Nacional da Tijuca- Cascatinha Taunay
Chinese View
My first view of the Christ statue and Sugar Loaf Mountain (Pão de Açúcar). You can see the Christ statue on the mountain on the left and Pão de Açúcar is on the right poking up like a big thumb behind the city. My first view of Christ the Redeemer was at 1 PM on Good Friday. We remember His death from 12-3 on that day and I thought the timing was very fitting.
The next day I went hang-gliding. Rio is famous for this and my friend´s cousins were going so I joined in the fun. The mountain I jumped off when hang-gliding. You can see a little orange speck of someone else parachuting down.
A view from the mountain while I was waiting to jump.
When I went hang-gliding I ran right off this green platform over the edge of a cliff! I thought it would be scary, but there is no sudden drop. It was very smooth and I never felt scared. It´s like extreme sports for not so extreme people. :)
My guide (and me next to him) teaching me what I would need to do.
Underneath the platform I jumped from.
My very fashionable flying outfit!
My pilot and me
My glider
Stepping up to the platform
Practicing hanging
Jumping- We are still kind of running on the air
Flying
Flying
Running
Flying
We could see the mountains and the ocean
Christ the Redeemer- One of the 7 Wonders of the World
When you arrive you come up from the back
The view overlooking part of the city
The statue had a light on it, but for some reason it looked green in some photos. In real life it looked white/gray like the photo above.
I went up by myself because my friends had been up many times. I was able to practice some Portuguese with the girl next to me on the bus, Leticia. We became friends. She is 15 and was there with her mom, aunt, grandma, brother, sister, and a guy...maybe mom´s boyfriend? I couldn´t understand the word she used. She lives close (relatively speaking) to where I live in São Paulo.
Everyone goes around in their swimsuits...even to a fancy lunch! We had our Easter lunch here.
Barra Beach
Capivara -up close and personal
Rio International School
Copacabana Beach- they sell many things, but this is the first time I have seen someone selling shrimp!
About to get on the bus to go home. Tabita bought a beach dress that looks like the Brazilian flag.
Coming home took 8.5 hours due to the holiday traffic. It took around 5.5 hours to get there even with the holiday traffic. Because I got back to São Paulo so late the metro had shut down and I didn´t have a way to get home. I live about 1.5-2 hours from the bus station in Sâo Paulo. In addition, it is not safe to take the metro/train/bus at night. I texted the family who took me to the bus terminal originally and they came and picked me up. They let me sleep for a couple hours at their house and brought me to school the next day. I was so tired, hungry, dirty, and thirsty when I arrived. They also had just come back from Rio and I am sure they were very tired as well. However, when I arrived the mom had put out fresh towels for me so I could take a shower, and this. Anyone who knows me knows I love water. I was so thirsty and I arrived at their home with a beautiful pitcher of water and gold rimmed goblet on a crystal tray in my bedroom!!! Wow, I felt like a queen!!!
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Science Fair
This week we had two big events at school, Parent, Teacher, Student Conferences and Science Fair.
In April the students lead their own conference and tell their parents how they are doing instead of me. This was a new experience for me. I don´t have any pictures from that, but I do have some from the Science Fair.
1st Grade set-up
Stef brought me a cake-pop his mom made and was selling at the bake sale!
Magnet Magic...they could make the kite fly!
Teaching the kindergartners was so much fun!
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