The Meek Clan in and around Rio

 Grandpa is all smiles to be off the airplane and in the land of pao de queijo

After months of planning, the Meek clan (both Brazilian, Delewarean, and parts of Nevadan contingents) descended upon Rio de Janeiro for some fun in the sun in and around Rio.

it turns out he is full of a few funny faces as well

Annie is full of smiles because she is with her Bubby who loves her

And Bubby is full of smiles because she is with her granddaughter

Over our time in Rio we stayed in both Santa Teresa, and in Copacabana. We used the website airbnb.com, which I'm not getting paid to promote, but for which I should!, as it was a great way to find wonderful furnished apartments at reasonable rates for all of us to stay. It was so nice not to be in a hotel all the time, and be able to cook, socialize, and watch the Olympics every night! 

In addition to just hanging around and eating the lovely chocolate baked goods that Bubby brought (that Bubby!) we did a fair amount of site seeing, including to the botanical gardens pictured above.

Every once in a while, the excitement was too much, and Annie just needed some personal time with her favorite play thing: a leaf. Word to the wise, don't take this child to the desert, the tropical rainforest with its abundance of leaves is much more her speed.

Jim and Rita came down first, and so got a chance to do a little Rio exploring together.

And then Jon came down, and although Gita and Victoria were certainly missed, we really appreciated having Tio Joao around (at Parque Lage with Christ statue a faint line on the cliff above).

                                                        Gratuitous pretty root picture

On our travels we came across a variety of exercise parks for the "3rd age". Here is proof that we transcend those distinctions, as Annie on Grandpa's back, David and Jon in the background get our elliptical on. 

 

And for Annie we found a particularly nice low-hanging sturdy branch that served as a great bouncy gym.

Try this at home

After what we were sure would remain the wild goose chase to end all goose chases, we finally located the elusive macerico.

 And where, but right across the street at our neighbors´ house, lurking quietly all this time: the ultimate tool of the trade, the weapon of war—the flamethrower.

And so the carnage began. Spiders, beetles, ants, raining down in a black, apocyliptic snow. It was a thing of beauty. If you don´t know what I mean by all of this violent imagery, refer back to our post from earlier about the long-term project of conquering vermin in our humble abode.

Forget karma. it´s time to burn.

while Annie was particularly interested in the flame thrower we thought it not an age appropriate toy. I know, uptight parents.

The joy that the macerico brought to our lives is really unbounded. While I´m sad that the excitement is over, I´m gladdened by the fact that in another few months, our vermin ´´friends´´ and general cloud of cobwebs will have returned and it will once again be macerico time.

The result was truly amazing, the ceiling and walls free of nastiness. I later learned that the principal usage of the macerico is to remove the skin of dead pigs before putting them on the spit. Apparently one person works the flame thrower, and another uses a machete to remove the burned skin. Perhaps too much information?

The only question remains: what can´t we use the macerico for? Ideas include mowing the lawn, rapid burning of trash, perhaps not shaving, but you never know....it is the macerico after all.

Happy first father´s day

So this is a little belated at this point (as are all these posts on Rio by the way), but who cares.

This year was a particularly special father´s day for me, as it was my first as a father.

I woke up and took Annie for a long run up towards the Christ statue, giving Jo a chance to sleep in. That might seem like special Mother´s day treatment, but for me to have a wonderful time with just Annie was really special.

Later in the day, Jo, Annie, and I went to a lovely little bookstore cafe and engaged in another of my favorite fatherly past times: perusing (and procuring!) foreign language children´s books. We came with a few including: I am a Plant; The day you were born; and Spot Goes to Sleep. Sure to be family classics. (my favorite is I am a Plant, although when Annie won´t go to sleep the Spot book has a special place in the rotation).

Aside from the books, there was some lovely afternoon sun, which coupled with a game of peek-a-boo (pictures below) and some excellent espresso and pastries was the proverbial icing on the father´s day cake.

And I think we can all agree that Jo can rock the fedora.

Rodizio

Perhaps one of my favorite things in Brazil is the pizza rodizio. There, I´ve said it. No, it´s not the beautiful beaches, cultural diversity, or ecological riches. It´s the pizza...especially the dessert pizza.

Chocolate and strawberry anyone?

For those who might have missed previous posts in which I mention the rodizio the short and long of it is that it´s all you can eat pizza, but it´s not just that, oh no. Rather, it´s an experience, an environment. A beautiful environment in which waiters circulate endlessly between tables with pizza after pizza.

I actually feel ridiculous devoting a post to the rodizio, but when one has been in rural Amazonia for an extended period of time. There´s no denying it´. One word. Rodizio.

Now, when we were in Rio our friendly hostess E. decided to challenge me to a pizza eating competition.

Being empirically minded, we decided to add a series of handicaps for E. and Jo. Gender counted as a slice as did beer.

                                             Annie was underwhelmed we weren´t sharing.

Unbelievably, in the final tally, E. won. It´s true. To preserve both of our decencies, I won´t give out final numbers here, but let´s just say we both made it well into the double digits. And now, it might just be time to look for another rodizio.

Morning walk

One wonderful thing about Rio is just getting up and taking a walk. Staying in Santa Teresa, this meant that we got to stroll up towards Cristo (the Christ statue).



It's a gorgeous walk through a national forest, which given that it's Brazil is temperate rainforest.






And the views from the lookout over Rio's incredible coastline are...well, just incredible.

Market day meets Rio

Readers of this blog might remember my love of old antique (read: junk) markets. Well, it turns out that there is a great one in Rio.

  

 On bus over with E. Annie is a big fan of mesh it turns out; who isn't really?

Turns out it's right below an overpass (FYI make sure to book it out of there once the market's winding down!)

 It was a place where the most random of most random things can be found


Dolls which have seen better days...

 

Speaking of being a big fan, there's nothing I like more than random motors....

also was glad to see vintage Nat. Geo's are a favorite

And old VHS cameras

 

Annie did get a little nervous though....

 

when she saw the vintage surgery instruments! 

The strangest juxtaposition of all was the vintage porn and machetes. 

Sorry, no picture due to the young readership of this blog. 

In and about Rio

Rio is an amazing city: beaches, mountains, hiking, climbing, national forests--all within the city limits. We were here for two weeks for Dave to conduct research at the People's Summit of the Rio+20 environmental summit.

Dave taking a quick break from research to consult his notes

We stayed with our wonderful friend E in Santa Teresa, an artsy neighborhood up in the hills overlooking much of the city. It's so hilly up there that until very recently, public transport was confined to a system of street cars called the "Bonde" (after James Bond because he rides one in one of his films). The Bonde has become the emblem of the neighborhood, but a few months ago, a car tipped over and killed 14 people. Now hair-raising buses are running up there instead, but there's a large community-based movement to bring back the Bonde. The movement uses a lot of art work involving the iconic street car with a little teardrop on it, like it's crying.

 

Rio+20=Rio+Verde (on poster above)

Below are the Lapa Steps, an installment of ever-changing mosaics on a very long staircase leading down from the hills to central Rio. Rumor has it that the artist lives underneath the staircase.

There's also a lot of street life in Rio. There's the bar scene, which we didn't get much exposure to because we're old oldies, but the food scene was more our speed. In Santa Teresa, a Bahian woman (named Teresa, no less) sets up a decorated tent every Thursday-Sunday where she sits and makes acarajae, a typical Bahian dish consisting of shrimpy-okra-y-lentil-y paste on these deep-fried buns.

A storied fixture in Santa Teresa is the artist Getulio. His art, made out of repurposed trash, wood, and paint. For the last 25 years, he's occupied a workshop he built on a median in the neighborhood that looks just like a Bonde car. His work is currently being shown in an exhibit at a national museum. It's pretty awesome. It depicts Bonzolandia, a fictitious robot-inhabited world that eerily resembles our own.

"The value of the ticket is respect, charisma, and happiness." (Above)