Tourist?

Two weeks into my life in Rio, I am struggling with the concept that this is not a vacation. I live here. While the locals may still treat me like a tourist, I must adopt the mentality of a true "Carioca."

Of course, I still have to make time to see all of the tourist sites.


EXCURSION TO ILHA GRANDE

During my first weekend here, I visited Ilha Grande with several other international students. I had the chance to see the famous Lopes Mendes beach. The fascinating thing I have found about beaches here, not just Lopes Mendes, is that they lack anything besides perfectly white sand. No shells, no seaweed, seemingly no living creatures. The only thing we did see on Lopes Mendes were these fairly large crabs with big eyes separate from their bodies that looked like they were from a cartoon. I have a video of me chasing one. They were incredibly fast.


FIRST WEEK OF CLASS

After the excursion, the first week of school began. I attended a ton of classes that I did not sign up for. The University has a fairly relaxed culture about dropping and adding classes. They act like there is plenty of space in any class we could want, so when the "drop/add" day comes in a few weeks I can potentially alter my entire schedule. I think I will ultimately take more hours than I intended, as class is perhaps the best way for me to make friends from all over the world and enhance my Portuguese skills.

I stumbled upon a row of houses on my campus that remind me of a typical collection of Greek houses you might see at an American university. These houses have no affiliation with Greek life, however. Instead, they are small clubs that are organized by major. I went into the "philosophy" house and found students playing Super Smash Bros on Nintendo 64. Alas! My chance to make the Brazilians worship me. I almost never lose in Super Smash Bros in the States. I walked in confidently and asked if I could play. In spite of the 7 controllers laying on the floor, only two functioned properly. When my new amigos found out I was American, they put me up against their stud: Omar.

I'll spare you the dirty details. Let's just say that Omar made me question my entire childhood. For those of you that have never played Super Smash Bros, consider this analogy: our match was like the Super Bowl, and Omar was the Seahawks.


CITY TOUR

Saturday morning I made it to the University by 8 a.m. to travel by bus around the city. I'll make a separate post with a simple list of what we saw combined with some pictures that will have to suffice for a description of the tour. Rio is a collection of every type of natural beauty I can think of. It is a city thrown between mountains, beaches, forests and even waterfalls.