40 hours spent on airplanes and in airports is tedious to the point of pain. The first flight and layover were decently relaxing, as I spent the last morning on Bainridge riding the 33 mile Chilly Hilly course and my legs welcomed the break. But the after the second, third, and fourth flights all the sitting around lost its appeal and I took to wandering back and forth repeatedly in the airports, probably much to the confusion of all the airport shop employees. Maybe faulty, but it did make me feel a little better to know that all those shop employees were probably having about as much fun as me as we loitered around in empty airpors together. I think all the cramped sitting and lack of exercise got to my body though, my circulation was adversely affected, resulting in my hands puffing up and forcing me to loosen my watch band by two notches. Felt like I had giant ham-hands, and making even a loose fist stretched my skin taught.
Stranger in a familiar land:
My stay at the LAX airport was not what I expected. 90% of the folks there were hispanic, with the remaining 10% split between Asian and Caucasian. Most of the signs were in Spanish first and foremost, with English subtitles. I was the only non-hispanic person at my gate as we waited for the plane. Granted, it was flying to San Salvador. They still made all the announcements to our group in English after the Spanish though. I did my best to speak only in Spanish to the flight attendants regardless of their biluinguincy however, and managed fairly well.
Pilgrimage to the Sea:
I arrived in Rio at 4:50 and caught a taxi (successfully dodging the tourist trap taxis charging twice the price) to my apartment where one of my two roommates, Adriana, was already up and waiting for me. I launched into asking her all about how to get around, and she gracefully answered all my questions, even drawing me a sweet map of our neighborhood. My room is about the size of my matress, so I needed to lean it up to have any space for moving (shout out to the brother for pioneering this method in the Beacon Hill estate).
Once I had understood in which the direction the beaches were I was set, and left immediately. I had decided to give myself the first day off, but having decided that didn´t want to squander my freedom sitting around the house in jet-lagged stupor so I kept myself in constant motion. During my brief sit down for lunch I nearly succumbed to a nap but fought it off. Much cooler things to do. I spent all day on the beaches, walking the roughly 5 miles from my apartment, along Copacabana beach, and then to the end of Ipanema.
Then I returned to my apartment for an excellent snack of bananas and yogurt, before doing just about the same course again; this time running, bodysurfing, and taking my camera with me, three aspects I felt were lacking on the initial expoit.
After returning from the second excursion I met up Adriana at our place and she helped me navigate the enormous shopping center next to us in order to get cash and a cell phone. Mission accomplished, we headed back and I cooked up a Brazilian-style dinner for my roomies (Andre was back from work by this point) with the food I´d bought earlier. Big pot of beans with chopped onions and spices, even bigger pot of rice, and stir-fried broccoli.
My portuguese is serving me well so far, nobody around me speaks english (besides Steve, the 55 year-old Californian businessman who spends 7 months of the year in Rio, loves to demean US politics, and bragged to me about still having 20 year-old girlfriends. I met him on the beach.) so I´ve had lots of practice in just my first day here.
Tomorrow I go to work at the bioethanol lab, which incidentally is in a large research building in downtown Rio which both of my housemates work at too.
Got to sleep now. Will hopefully post again soon.
Patrick
