Rio de Janeiro day 1! We were excited to be on the beach and Weston and I got up to do a run on the Burly Max calcadao (big sidewalk) that spans the beach. We found food at a padaria and brought it back to our room for breakfast. Jared had set us up with a member of the church he found through his friend Paulo, a taxi cab owner and tour guide named Reinaldo. He only speaks Portuguese so all my preparation was put to the test--for the next two days I had to listen to and respond in my limited handle of the language. Very different experience than our guide in Sao Paulo, lots of discussion on church topics and less on the city, more stops of places we requested to go and lots of vistas, and in Rio there are many more touristy things to do. We saw Christ Redeemer (amazing but hard to get the massive scale in pictures), Salardao Stairs (tile art), and the pyramid cathedral with the most stained glass in one building ever, Sao Bento baroque rococo style cathedral, and the gondola lift to Pao de Acucar, sugar loaf mountain. Beautiful views everywhere we went, and monkeys roaming the trees, we have never seen mokeys in the wild before. We had lunch at Casa de Feijoada, and had all the beans and rice you could possibly eat. The sun set while we were on Sugar loaf mountain which was amazing. We ate some Acai while waiting for the sunset. Very enjoyable company, Reinaldo is a salt of the earth type person, and very funny. Made lots of jokes, I understood most of them. We got back to the airbnb around 6:30. Then bonus visit! Jared had arranged to meet one of his previous companions from his mission who lives in Rio for dinner at an Italian restaurant on the same street as our place. He was 30 minutes late and it was very noisy in that restaurant and my brain was fried trying to understand Portuguese, but thankfully Jared and Weston carried the conversations and I just had to smile and keep trying to concentrate. They gave us a lovely gift and were very gracious. Thank you Fabio and Simone for taking time to reconnect with Jared!
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