The night I was writing my last post got even stranger. I performed open ear surgery on the French guy in my dorm.. Had to remove a piece of cotton wool that he'd wedged deep into his ear whilst on drugs before he left France. So that was gross. Then I went and joined the party.
During the party the power went off. It came on and off a couple of times, which was pretty cool to watch from the top of the favela. But then half the favela's power came back on and ours didn't. It's not great when there's no power in a favela because people take advantage of the dark (we heard at least one gunshot). There's no street lights even so it makes things unsafe. People on the street nearby came into the bar and waited it out.
Spent a couple days walking round the favela taking pictures, documenting/drawing things. You know.. Architect stuff.
Then I moved to Ipanema! Was so great to be able to just pop in and out of the hostel and walk around the beach rather than having to trek down out of the favela! Made lots of friends.
Christmas eve we walked to the lagoon to see the tallest Christmas tree in the world (85m) light up. Pretty cool. Then we partied. Christmas morning I went and lay on Ipanema beach in my newly acquired Brazilian bikini. Got sunburnt. Lunch we ate at Kilograma. I won the competition of who ate the most. Not sure that's something to be proud of... It's not Christmas if you haven't eaten so much you need to nap.
So nap I did. But first I checked into a nice hotel in Copacabana. Took a swim in the rooftop pool (post nap and digestion) to help cool my sunburn. Ordered room service. Watched TV. Sat around naked because I've been living in hostels for weeks and that's generally frowned upon. Slept diagonally across the queen sized bed. Ate from the minibar. Christmas well spent.
Boxing Day I moved into my last Rio residence.. An apartment in Leme (edge of Copacabana) on a quiet street just a block from the beach. It's an airbnb room so I have two Brazilian housemates, Ursula and Roberta. And there's a 24h doorman to let you in the lobby which I find very novel.
Ursula and I escaped the heat on Boxing Day and hung out at the mall. She's gone to Chile now so her mum is staying here. She speaks some English and she's really cute. I'm making her my Brazilian mum. She keeps feeding me. Awesome.
Tonight I went to sugarloaf mountain which is one of *the* touristy things to do along with going to Christ the Redeemer. It was a pain in the ass. Queue after queue after queue. The view was great but I couldn't really tell since there were too many people to really be able to stand and appreciate it. I saw a lot of selfie sticks.
6 nights left in Rio.
A xx
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