A well deserved feijoada

The last few days in Rio have been fun but extremely challenging! The ease of which we do our chores every day is not to be taken for granted. One of our main goals is to buy artwork in each of the countries we visit and ship it home. 

Yesterday we bought some beautiful canvas paintings depicting Rio’s famous favelas (Brazil’s “slums”). We thought shipping them back to CA would be easy enough but instead it became our biggest obstacle yet. After visiting two separate post offices, answering relentless questions and being given long forms to fill out, we got them shipped successfully. Here’s a pic we took walking to dinner that shows a colorful favela extending up a mountainside –

  
And then came the ordinary, mundane task of doing laundry. Most laundries here only do two day laundry service but since we were in desperate need of clean clothes immediately, we had to keep searching. We finally found a semi self service location that had actual washing machines and were able to pick up our fresh smelling clothes an hour later – right as they were closing. Here’s a picture of the laundry place – Tinturaria Imperial. 

  
Our entire day was consumed with these few simple tasks so in order to make things right again, we decided to indulge in our favorite Brazilian dish – feijoada. It is the national dish of Brazil and consists of a bean stew with various meats accompanied by several side dishes like oranges, rice, farofa, chicharron, and greens. 

   
  
Of course, we had a few more caipirinhas too 🙂

Hangin’ around Copacabana and Ipanema

We took the metro today from the Botafogo station near our hostel down to the station close to Ipanema beach – it was our first time using the Rio metro system and we managed to NOT get lost! It costs about 93 cents to ride the metro to any station on the line. We usually take cabs everywhere so this was a big step for us in terms of being a little more brave and venturing out into parts of the city we haven’t seen before.

We walked along the signature black and white patterned sidewalk that lines the coastline all the way from Ipanema to Copacabana beach. Although it was overcast, it was still hot and there were a ton of people out.

We’ve been to these beaches before in 2014 so we had a good time reminiscing about all the familiar sights. We stopped at one of the many food shacks along the beach and ordered our favorite drink in Rio – the caipirinha. Nothing is better than a real caipirinha in Brazil.

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We made it to Rio!

After three flights and two realllllly long layovers, we made it to our first hostel in Botafogo. We almost couldn’t find it! It’s friendly and has everything we need. We will be here for most of the week before we move onto our next destination which is yet to be determined! More pictures to follow, but first, we need showers!

They’re OFF to RIO

20160109_034149After a nice dinner with family and friends at Opa’s in Palo Alto, the girls made it to San Francisco International airport at 3:30 a.m. for their 5:55 a.m. flight to Rio de Janeiro via Avianca Airlines.  It looks to me like they brought their own parachutes ha!

Have fun girls, be safe and let your friends and family know what you are up to.  Love you both.

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New Boots

BootsThanks for the hike yesterday, girls! I hope your new boots are working out well.  Here’s a couple more pics from our trip to Alum Rock Park.

Robert