Мне лень....
...редактировать написанное. В 2-х словах-было чудесно! Фотки coming
First three days we spend in the southern part of Rio de Janeiro: Copacobana, Leblon, Ipanema, Jardim Botaniquo. The public transportatio works very well and can be easily used to get from one part of town to another.It's actually quite interessting how in Brazil the wealthier and cleaner part of town is located in the southern part of the city and the favelas (slums) are located in the mountains closer to the northern/central part of town.In U.S. it' the other way around. The tourists are so interested in seeing how the poor population lives, that the locals even began giving out the tours around those areas which comprise of 20-25% of the total Rio population.
There was a lot of grassroots marketing on the streets with not only young but older population as well giving out flyers to restaurants and tours around the city. Speaking about shops and restaurants. Brazilians are super crazy about shoes and bags and have lots of stores that carry such. Another common shop that is found everywhere is juicing places similar to jamba juice where you can get freshly squeezed sucos for very cheap.
The beach of Copacabana was truly amazing with sand closely resembling brown sugar in consistency. All around the beach area you could find little beach shops where you can purchase fresh cocos (aqua de coco-coconut) with a straw and capirinyahs that grab you from the first drink. Alcoholic drinks here are much more strong that those in US. When we went to a pizza place on Tuesday, only one glass or margarita carefully prepared by a young brazilian boy right in front of our eyes completely took us to another world. ;)
Brazil is famous for its meat dishes so it was pretty diffifult to find a good vegetarian place (only one in copacabana that opened just one year ago). Even then the prices for food were skyrocketing reaching 50 dollars per dish. When we stumbled upon the local supermarket-it was clear why-the prices for local fruits were also higher than those in U.S.Drinks however are suuuper cheap here. Whcih brings me to a nice conclusion: in US they encourage people getting fat and in Brazil they want people getting drunk. :)
On Tuesday we visited the The lake above ipanema, even took a swan boat for all romantic couples :) We could see the whole ipanema from the boat and even coronado (the christ). On Wednesday we took a bus for Botanical garden which had an enourmous territory and plants from around the globe. Better to be seen that talked about. they had 1000 species of just orchids alone. and we even saw some carnivorous plants that ate the insects.
Brazil is encouraging fitness in it citizen. In parks and on the beachline you can see exercise benches, manual ,achines for step exercising and directions on how to use them. That is one of the reasons why cariocas (name for brazilians who live in Rio) are so fit.
On Wednesday we spent the whole day at the beach and visited Ipanema. The waves were huge so we could only get in the water knee-deep and just over the waves. So did other people around us. In some places where whe waves got unusually high, local workers put up the signs "do not swim" so that nobosy gets damaged. Police in Copacabana is incredibly good. Right away I notices that there are not many locals lying on the beach or a lot of black. It is becuse police cars drive around the beach and ask those to leave the area to keep the tourists safe.
On Friday we visited the fowntown of Rio. It very much reminded me of Russia with lots of squares, beautiful old buildings that looked very similar to homes in Saint Petersburg and memorials/sculptures devoted to famous generals and politicians. The weather that day was rainy and the air was smoky from cars, just as expected to be in any downtown.There were not many tourists there mostly locals, but the subway was still superclean and free of homeless people. Since center was not a touristy stop, everything was very cheap ncluding restaurant and umbrellas. we were able to get an umbrella for only 5 Reales (3 USD). We took walks around the city and even visited a local Catholic church that was a size of a 10-floor building. I've never been to a Catholic church before so it was very unusual for me to see a temple with no images inside and no candles or pope in black clothes, but it was an interesting experience for sure.
Every night we've been going to a great pizza plae that serves delicious pizza and capirinhas. Nobody there spoke english so we had to try and communicate with servers using spanish phrases that we knew and change s's to sh's to make it sound a bit similar to Portuguese. There's this guy who served us every night, his name is Wisley, he came to Rio to sing and he totally looks like the guy from Amelie who helped the evil store-owner to sell vegetables. Every time we would walk into the place, his brother would burst out laughing becaue we had troubles understanding each other at first.
Saturday was the first day of the carnival, it was absolutely spectacular. Everybody was dancing, singing and dressed in funny costumes. There was even a woman who had a dick instead of a nose and it looked absolutely hillarious. We were dancing with a crowd for some time and then went back to our hotel to watch other troupes from out window. It was even more fun ;) Especially making love listening to the carnival songs.
It is very humid in Rio, so I've been having the most craziest hair here, nothing helps.
The order in the city is not as bad as we expected, there is no obvious criminal element on the streets around areas we visited, including center. People dont feel like they will get things stolen from them, people leave things laying around without fear, i saw a person leave his jacket in a salad-bar place while going to get himself a plate. There is also a lot of police presence. The police does not mess around here thou, there are armor-clad cars here and there with additional back spaces that look like 5-6 people can sit there without being seen. Also a lot of normal guards in different places carry guns and bullet-proof vests.
Surprisingly we didnot see any Rap or hip-hop culture, people prefer latin songs and latin rhytms. Which is great, the energy of the place just does not get matched too well by rap beats, i guess.
Football is everywhere. On our way from airport we saw many games going on in the parks, mostly younger generations, but some grown ups play as well. On the beach there are games going pretty much all the time, there are tons of separated spaces to play, with goals. I noticed they do play rough thou, with sliding tackles, etc, some knocks on the legs looked harsh, we don't allow this type of behavior on the field in California. Also the level of players was not as great as i would expect, of course there are some tourists mixed in there, but i just wanted to see more.
We saw a game of football between 7-10 year olds, there were trainers and a few what looked like parents. The kids were fast and all possessed good ball touch and good shot, which was surprising. Definitely much higher level than kids same age in cali.
First three days we spend in the southern part of Rio de Janeiro: Copacobana, Leblon, Ipanema, Jardim Botaniquo. The public transportatio works very well and can be easily used to get from one part of town to another.It's actually quite interessting how in Brazil the wealthier and cleaner part of town is located in the southern part of the city and the favelas (slums) are located in the mountains closer to the northern/central part of town.In U.S. it' the other way around. The tourists are so interested in seeing how the poor population lives, that the locals even began giving out the tours around those areas which comprise of 20-25% of the total Rio population.
There was a lot of grassroots marketing on the streets with not only young but older population as well giving out flyers to restaurants and tours around the city. Speaking about shops and restaurants. Brazilians are super crazy about shoes and bags and have lots of stores that carry such. Another common shop that is found everywhere is juicing places similar to jamba juice where you can get freshly squeezed sucos for very cheap.
The beach of Copacabana was truly amazing with sand closely resembling brown sugar in consistency. All around the beach area you could find little beach shops where you can purchase fresh cocos (aqua de coco-coconut) with a straw and capirinyahs that grab you from the first drink. Alcoholic drinks here are much more strong that those in US. When we went to a pizza place on Tuesday, only one glass or margarita carefully prepared by a young brazilian boy right in front of our eyes completely took us to another world. ;)
Brazil is famous for its meat dishes so it was pretty diffifult to find a good vegetarian place (only one in copacabana that opened just one year ago). Even then the prices for food were skyrocketing reaching 50 dollars per dish. When we stumbled upon the local supermarket-it was clear why-the prices for local fruits were also higher than those in U.S.Drinks however are suuuper cheap here. Whcih brings me to a nice conclusion: in US they encourage people getting fat and in Brazil they want people getting drunk. :)
On Tuesday we visited the The lake above ipanema, even took a swan boat for all romantic couples :) We could see the whole ipanema from the boat and even coronado (the christ). On Wednesday we took a bus for Botanical garden which had an enourmous territory and plants from around the globe. Better to be seen that talked about. they had 1000 species of just orchids alone. and we even saw some carnivorous plants that ate the insects.
Brazil is encouraging fitness in it citizen. In parks and on the beachline you can see exercise benches, manual ,achines for step exercising and directions on how to use them. That is one of the reasons why cariocas (name for brazilians who live in Rio) are so fit.
On Wednesday we spent the whole day at the beach and visited Ipanema. The waves were huge so we could only get in the water knee-deep and just over the waves. So did other people around us. In some places where whe waves got unusually high, local workers put up the signs "do not swim" so that nobosy gets damaged. Police in Copacabana is incredibly good. Right away I notices that there are not many locals lying on the beach or a lot of black. It is becuse police cars drive around the beach and ask those to leave the area to keep the tourists safe.
On Friday we visited the fowntown of Rio. It very much reminded me of Russia with lots of squares, beautiful old buildings that looked very similar to homes in Saint Petersburg and memorials/sculptures devoted to famous generals and politicians. The weather that day was rainy and the air was smoky from cars, just as expected to be in any downtown.There were not many tourists there mostly locals, but the subway was still superclean and free of homeless people. Since center was not a touristy stop, everything was very cheap ncluding restaurant and umbrellas. we were able to get an umbrella for only 5 Reales (3 USD). We took walks around the city and even visited a local Catholic church that was a size of a 10-floor building. I've never been to a Catholic church before so it was very unusual for me to see a temple with no images inside and no candles or pope in black clothes, but it was an interesting experience for sure.
Every night we've been going to a great pizza plae that serves delicious pizza and capirinhas. Nobody there spoke english so we had to try and communicate with servers using spanish phrases that we knew and change s's to sh's to make it sound a bit similar to Portuguese. There's this guy who served us every night, his name is Wisley, he came to Rio to sing and he totally looks like the guy from Amelie who helped the evil store-owner to sell vegetables. Every time we would walk into the place, his brother would burst out laughing becaue we had troubles understanding each other at first.
Saturday was the first day of the carnival, it was absolutely spectacular. Everybody was dancing, singing and dressed in funny costumes. There was even a woman who had a dick instead of a nose and it looked absolutely hillarious. We were dancing with a crowd for some time and then went back to our hotel to watch other troupes from out window. It was even more fun ;) Especially making love listening to the carnival songs.
It is very humid in Rio, so I've been having the most craziest hair here, nothing helps.
The order in the city is not as bad as we expected, there is no obvious criminal element on the streets around areas we visited, including center. People dont feel like they will get things stolen from them, people leave things laying around without fear, i saw a person leave his jacket in a salad-bar place while going to get himself a plate. There is also a lot of police presence. The police does not mess around here thou, there are armor-clad cars here and there with additional back spaces that look like 5-6 people can sit there without being seen. Also a lot of normal guards in different places carry guns and bullet-proof vests.
Surprisingly we didnot see any Rap or hip-hop culture, people prefer latin songs and latin rhytms. Which is great, the energy of the place just does not get matched too well by rap beats, i guess.
Football is everywhere. On our way from airport we saw many games going on in the parks, mostly younger generations, but some grown ups play as well. On the beach there are games going pretty much all the time, there are tons of separated spaces to play, with goals. I noticed they do play rough thou, with sliding tackles, etc, some knocks on the legs looked harsh, we don't allow this type of behavior on the field in California. Also the level of players was not as great as i would expect, of course there are some tourists mixed in there, but i just wanted to see more.
We saw a game of football between 7-10 year olds, there were trainers and a few what looked like parents. The kids were fast and all possessed good ball touch and good shot, which was surprising. Definitely much higher level than kids same age in cali.