waking up was rather difficult this am. rachel was up reading and i woke up at about 10. felicio and ana were up, and looked at the weather forecast—sun! change of plans, grab breakfast at ipanema and lay on the beach. we quickly through on our swimsuits and headed towards the metro. first stop. breakfast. at nectar suca. a juice bar where they freshly blend fruits for you. similar to a smoothie but not as thick or ice chunk filled. we also got sandwiches (ham and cheese) to eat before the beach. everything was so tastey and so fresh. rachel got a pinneapple and mint juice and i had a fruit native to brazil. we headed towards the beach. passed pier 7, 8 (the gay pier) and arrived to pier 9 where we set out to find a spot in the sand. laid out our new beach layupons and lathered up in spf 8 sunsceen. within 5 minutes felicio was dragging me and rachel out to the water. sure.... pretty sure the waves were MASSIVE and forceful. we were out for maybe 10 minutes and i was quite a workout to not get taken with the current. i was ready to head back. laid down on my towel and enjoyed the hot brazilian sunlight. shortly after ana and felicio went out to the water and one of the cabana boys brought an umbrella and two chairs over for us. we also tried a matcha. this guy walks around with 2 5gallon tanks on each side of him, one has ice tea the other has lemonade. so it basically was an arnie palmer, but you could chose how much of each you wanted. very delicious and very relaxing. i swear, i could do that everyday if i could. lay on the gorgeous beach, admire the brazilian swimsuits, and be served food and drinks. people walked around with everything you could imagine—drinks, food, peanuts, beach layupons, even brazilian bikinis. we stayed at the beach until 3pm because it was getting cloudy. decided to take the bus back to lappa. omg, that was crazy. we need to go to bus station 2. then you have to wave down the bus you want and hold on. 2.50R per rider and there is someone sitting inside the bus that controls the gate you have to pass through to sit. then hold on. drivers are crazy! weaving in and out of traffic, speeding up then slowing down abruptly. and the buses are manual transmissions. boy oh boy. we got off in lapa just under the arches and went to the grocery store for food for lunch. felicio purchased food to make pasta and we all showered while he prepared the food. there definiately was sand in places there shouldnt be sand. the pasta dinner was quite good. it was an alfreo and large pasta noodles with corn and mushrooms and peas. mmmmm.
Ana continued to mention things from the states she likes but are very expensive here. like an iphone is 2000R a macbook pro 4000R+ they just got kitkats to be distributed here 1 month ago. they do not have snickers or butterfingers. also, victoria's secret lotion is worth a lot like 40R a bottle. they do not have VS unmentionables. i told her she could have some of mine since my mom just counted out 36 pairs in my last load of laundry. but next time i come, im going to stock up on these things and we can sell them on the street and make a lot of money :-) eh, probably not but we do need to create a 'small things of america that are very expensive in brazil care package” and send it down.
after lunch (which happened at 5pm) we are relaxing before we head to copacabana beach. more to come!