My apologies for not keeping up the daily journal. While I've had much to say various reasons kept me for recording these thoughts. As I sit in the Lubavitch Barra courtyard, enjoying the waning afternoon, I figured I'd take a few minutes and update the readers with how my week has been.
First, about Rio itself.
You know those futuristic cities that we've read about that describe enormously large cities, with tens of millions of people crawling in and out of every space possible, where overcrowding is rampant, all classes of society seem to live together on top of one another, and the highway infrastructure is enormous and incredible? That's Rio. The city is massive and that's an understatement. Massive Beijing like apartment buildings riddle the city. Hills and mountains are often covered in colorful square houses built one on top of another, tightly packed in, with little breathing room. Across the street from said houses could be a modern enormous mall. One block down, graffiti infested walls littered under a hornets nest of electricity wires, connected to leaning electric poles. Tall buildings, small ones, old ones, new ones. It's like every city I've been to, but on a much much larger scale. The true character of the city though lies not in its artificial architecture, but in its natural one. Jagged, spiking mountains surround and break through the city all over it. If you drive from borough to borough you will likely pass through tunnels, bridges or out of the way routes. The beautiful mountains are often covered in clouds, but not all at the same time. Some there, some here. The weather is a stunning 70-80 degrees everyday. To go from one place to another is a challenge. As I mentioned in a previous post driving is a lesson in merging. There is no too close or too fast, there is simply going. Plan for traffic jams, no matter your distance. It's hard to describe the drive from where I'm staying to closer to "town". I took a drive there on Tuesday. Much of the drive was spent, fighting traffic in a four lane highway built on the side of a cliff, covered in tropical trees and plants. When you walk along the beach, there's a refreshment stand about every 300 meters that sells coconuts. And people are sitting there with a straw sipping out of a raw coconut. It was during this outing that I had my first glance of the large statue hanging from the top of the mountain. A symbol of the city. It's a pretty big statue. My coworker and I had taken a trip into town (40 min cab ride, over 60 Real in cost) since our network was down and we had no work to do. We hoped to catch some lunch at the Jewish school, but the network came back up and alas, we had work to do.
And that's basically all its been. On Tuesday we ventured out and I spent the rest of the day in my room. On Wednesday, I decided to do my work in the lobby since I was sick of sitting in my room all day. Wednesday afternoon I had finished what I needed to do so I went into the office, picked up some stuff Omer left for me and then went to the New York Shopping Center mall where I found a Starbucks, another huge shopping mall and a movie theater. I wasn't in the mood for a movie so I hopped in a cab and went back to the hotel.
Thursday I worked mostly in my room and by 7pm I had had enough so I went to the mall next door to my hotel, saw a movie (made sure it was subtitled and not dubbed) and came back.
When I go out, especially shopping at the mall (feels like it's all I do) I turn on my Google translate app, which had saved the following phrase in Portuguese : "im sorry, I do not speak Portuguese." everyone is nice about it. They smile. One person tried a few words in English. Others speak to me, but use pointing and body language to make their point. It's fascinating to converse with people when neither of you are speaking the same language. Google translate is an a so amazing piece of technology.
Sunday is gonna be partly day off for me. I want to see the city a little. I'll do some work in the morning but then around two I hope to go take a tour. I have a choice of cable car rides up to the famous Rio peaks, sugar mountain and the Corcovado (that the one with the Big Cheeses). Or I can take a jeep ride through the forest and then the botanical gardens. Sunday night I hope to go eat at the kosher restaurant there also, and maybe walk around copacabana a little (the neighborhood not the nighclub).
I am now sitting at chabad of Barra DE tujica, a quaint little courtyarded building with a shul and a house and a guest room. The guestroom leaves a lot to be desired, and I get the top bunk, I have to give the bottom one to about seven mattresses piled up there. I do hope i am comfortable there, it's a tiny room. But Baruch HaShem for free and beautiful chessed.
Have a great shabbos everyone. Please excuse my typos, I typed all this on my phone and I'm uploading without proof reading.
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