Day to Day Life in Rio

I've said this time and time again to anyone that will listen - but Rio is a marvelous city.

In the spirit of "the third's time's a charm," I headed back to Rio to see if this is the kind of lifestyle that would appeal to me, as a resident and not a tourist. See if I can learn the language and see if I'd be able to build a support network nearly as half as good as my amazingly generous family and friends.

For the past week, I've fallen into a bit of routine that is more "life of leisure" rather than full on living. But it's closer than being a tourist sightseeing and partying all the time.

My routine is to wake up early for exercise. Sometimes, if I am feeling ambitous, I will try to make a 7:30 yoga class at Rio Academy, which everyone calls the Free Gym. It's an outdoor gym on Ipanema Beach that is like a temporary Muscle Beach in Venice. It's free, because there are corporate sponsors, and it's a fun way to work out and learn some portuguese (1,2,3...)

I don't go to Rio Academy as much as I do volleyball lessons with Pele. I had met him late into my trip last time (see previous blog about Rio).
I prefer to go to the 8am on Ipanema Beach. There are all levels in his classes and the format is to do drills for about 45 minutes and then play a game at the end. It's a fun way to get a good workout and also learn some skills too.


Another thing that I recently tried is slacklining. Slacklining is not, contrary to Doug Preston's popular belief, ziplining for lazy people. Rather it's something that derived from
It looks really easy when you watch stuff like these jokers... Http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXIaMj3tYn8&feature=youtube_gdata_player


It's a piece of we. I cant explain why it's fun for me, but seeing teeny tiny improvements is so motivating. The folks on the beach are pretty welcoming too.

Once the fun and games are over, I head to my portuguese lessons. I knew I wanted to learn or improve a language on this trip, and was deciding between german, spanish or portuguese. German made the best sense because I majored in it in college, and Michaellyn was welcoming, but private tuturing was just too expensive. So it was a toss-up between spanish and portuguese. Again, I have a stronger base in spanish, but I ultimately chose portuguese mainly because of Rio.

I researched a bit online but didnt solidify anything until I got here. Luckily the best school with the best prices is a ten minute walk from my hostel. It's called Casa Do Caminho and the proceeds go to a local orphanage I was able to walk in and start private classes the next day. My teacher right now is Marcos. He is super "legal" and teaches me slang so I wont sound like such a toolbag if people ever do actually understand me.

Then if I dont have a blind "friend" date with a friend of a friend who lives in Rio, I come back to the hostel and sit around with 2 of my roommates in the girls dorm who are also on a bit of a routine. We drink chilled white wine, play with our blackberries or iphones and complain about how loud all of the younger backpackers are. As I'm typing this, another girl that's been here for a few days came in, booted up and made a "granny" comment too.

Oh well, it's 10pm, lights out for us grannies...