Lions and Tigers and Bears Elephants...oh my!

So I know I have a lot of catching up to do with this blog and I will get on it when I get home on Sat...but I had to post what I did today. AMAZING!!!!!

Dale dale Boca!

Tonight Boca is playing and you definitely don't need to be anywhere near a TV or a radio to know the score...every time there is a goal this city BLOWS up. I mean this quite literally as the yelling and honking is one-upped by fireworks...FIREWORKS...from rooftops. People sure do love their futbol here.

Tomorrow is my last day of school aka be expecting some lovely posts FULL of pictures of the falls.

Just hit me..

So tonight during the taxi ride home from eating tacos at CBC with Kira it really hit me...I leave this place in 18 days. I started my list of "Qué Necesito Hacer antes de que Me Voy" list today. One of my Mark's girls laughed when I used "tipo" today as a true Argentine. Kira and I were at our ridiculous best. I gave a cup of coffee to the man who waves at me every day on the corner of Armenia and El Salvador. Had my daily totally average conversation with my wonderful licuado maker at school. I passed my favorie beautiful french looking building that splits two streets...you know the one. Buenos Aires and I started out with kind of a rocky relationship, but with time I really fell head over heels for this place. My heart hurts.

Vanessa 21 at midnight!

Hey everyone Ryan here. In Buenos Aires with Vanessa and she's turning 21 at midnight. Anyway 21 isn't a huge deal here plus it's a school night and all, but we're having a mini power hour at her place. Basically that means pizza and beer.

Anyway you can call during our mini-power hour and wish her happy birthday. It's made it easy via the wonders of Skype. You just call 520-829-1109 (it's just a local call for you!) Try to call between 8 and 9 Arizona time tonight. That's midnight to one here.

And then you all owe her a shot back in AZ at the end of June.

Best,
Ryan

Note to my MILLIONS of readers...haha

The different colored words in my posts can be clicked on to find out more information about some of the words or places I've included in my blog. This was quite the huge update that I just managed to pull off so I hope you all enjoy!!

Maracanã

This is the Estadio Maracanã aka the site of Ryan's near demise.
This really made me laugh


The favelas really are everywhere. This one looks over the stadium. You can't see it very well in this picture, but the government contructed a very large road through the favela that winds through the favela and looks incredibly out of place.

Well hello, Jesus

My aunt asked that I take at least one picture of the the Christ the Redeemer. Here you go! We were up close and personal with the big guy (talk about an understatement as he's 125 ft tall and weighs 1000 tons). It makes me laugh to compare this Jesus to the one that is the star of Argentina's Tierra Santa (see my previous post). I

Helicopter, Helicopter Over My Head

My ever wonderful boyfriend made it possible for me to take a breathtaking tour of the city...in the sky.
Our helicoptoro



Las islas

Buzios

Of course I managed to go to Brazil during not so fabulous weather, but we decided to go somewhere for a little beach and vacation time anways. We hopped a bus from Rio to Buzios for a couple of great days of luxury. We managed to find a hotel with a southwestern theme...two kids from AZ in Brazil, what are the chances?



Lil downtown Buzios...VERY cute

Us on the dock downtown

Ryan's Birthday Party- Part 2

Haha, there wasn't a cake so we had to get creative. That is definitely a banana with a rolled up piece of paper stuck in the top. Everyone sang happy birthday at the top of their lungs out in the hall...none of the neighbors even complained...only in Brazil.

Las chicas bailando

They definitely know how to shake it!

Julia was VERY into the boxing game on the Wii.

Breno and Grace

Ryan's Birthday Party- Part 1

The wonderful Fatima was happy to allow Ryan to have a birthday party in the house a couple days after his birthday. We spent all afternoon rearranging the living room and getting the Wii (a big hit with Ryan's brazilian friends) set up. When Fatima came home from work she joined right on in with the festivities...very much like Ryan's actual mama, Karen.
Julia, Fatima, and the two of us...a lovely little family for the week.
Julia and Fatima...the Brazilian Gilmore Girls

Grace - one of Ryan's fellow Fulbrighters

It's pretty much required for all Brazilian boys to play the guitar or some other instrument. It's very nice in this kind of atmosphere because they entertain themselves AND provide entertainment...can't beat that!
Isabel dancing with a chip haha

Ryan's English Class

Ryan has been volunteering as an english teacher with The Two Bros Foundation in Rocinha. His birthday happened to fall on a class day and his students really pulled through with an in-class celebration. They came equipped with presents, food, drinks, cakes and didn't even forget the candles.


Happy Birthday to you! After this, Ryan cut the cake and gave me the first piece...this was followed by clapping and "ehhh Ryan!" I wasn't aware, but apparently who you give the first piece of cake to is very symbolic in Brazilian culture.

Given the day, we decided to include party and birthday vocabulary in class and since I was there we also decided to teach dating/relationship vocab. It was really a great experience and I was able to return the next week as well. The students are really great and range from 16-38 years old. Most of them work with tourists in some manner and want to expand their vocab and work on their accents to help with their jobs. By helping with the foundation's myspace page, I have managed to find some way to keep doing a little something to help out.

Rocinha y las favelas

Ryan has been teaching English twice a week in Rocinha, the favela just on the other side of the mountain from his beautiful middle class neighborhood of Leblón. After a lecture about how dangerous it is from Fatima, I was able to head out there with Ryan the night of his bday.
This is what I guess one would call the entrance to the favela. There are rows of places where knock off items are sold and street vendors sell food before you actually enter the favela.

This is the view from the top of Rocinha overlooking the city. You can't really see it, but at the bottom of the picture there is a country club with a pool and tennis court etc...the disparity and inequality that this picture symbolizes is just so hard to wrap your mind around.

A picture of Rocinha at night from the bridge that crosses over the freeway to where the illegal buses back to Leblón wait.

A shot of a favela from up in the helicopter on my last day in Rio.

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Riding on the back of a motorcycle taxi clinging on to the sides of a random Brazilian trying to speak to me in portuguese... Weaving between cars and dodging people...Catching a wiff of street bbq and then the pungent smell of the open sewer...Samba music drifting down from a dance studio over the noise of honking and motorcycles...This was my introduction to Rocinha. Ryan and I rode motorcycle taxis up to the top of the mountain that Rocinha covers to take the second picture from above. I don't really know what I was expecting of the favela, but I found that I was on sensory overload. The energy there is vibrant and people are out on the streets chatting and happy. I find that it's hard to put that experience into words, but it was wonderful and I would say on the top ten list of things I have done in my life. Looking at Ryan on the motorcycle buzzing ahead of mine, I was very thankful to have this adventurous person in my life who has really helped make my world a bigger, more diverse place.
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I found myself rather frustrated when talking to middle class Brazilians about Rocinha. We had dinner at Ryan's professor's house and the topic came up with his daughter, Julia. The first thing is that they are always shocked that you have ventured into the favela...and even more shocked when they find out you entered unescorted and at night. The second thing, and what really makes me angry, is that they are very quick to bring up the fact that Rocinha is a fairly well off favela and that there is worse out there. One thing sited, for example, is the fact that many people in Rocinha have cell phones (my first thought was off the images I have seen of farmers in Africa with cell phones or the old ladies who sell calls on their cell phones in small towns in developing countries). This way of thinking is hard for me to understand, but I don't judge it. When something is in your backyard, almost literally as the favelas continue to expand and creep closer to middle class areas, it's easy to become accustomed to it.
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One favela that was particulary interesting was on the way to the bus station. I thougt it was very interesting that this particular favela seemed to be constructed completely out of matching red brick -- unusual as most of the favelas are haphazardly constructed out of various, multicolored materials. When I looked to the other side of the road I saw the framework of what must have been a huge warehouse at some point with a few of the same bricks scattered here and there...talk about recycling and innovation...practically a whole favela from one warehouse.

Happy Birthday Boyfriend/First Whole Day in Rio

The only present Ryan really got from me this year was...ME! Thankfully midterms ended right before his birthday and I could hop on a 3 hour flight up to Rio de Janeiro to spend it with him.
Breakfast in bed from me and cake in bed from the wonderful Fatima (his house mama)...talk about a rough way to start your birthday.


My first trip to the suco (juice) stand. This one is açai, but pretty much every single day after this I ordered a watermelon suco. AMAZING.
A praia (the beach)

A favela with a view of the beach

This city never fails to surprise me...

One night my friend Tristan and I ventured out to eat some Arabic food and I ended up getting more than I expected from this grand city...


When we got to Sarki's (a very popular arabic restaurant here), the wait was really long so Tristan said he wanted to show me something. We walked down the residential streets of Villacrespo to this HUGE old door with a man standing in front of it. I couldn't seem to get a good picture, but this is what was behind the door. A speakeasy type bar called 878 (it's street address).
Only in BsAs can you get such HUGE portions of food and drink lots of wine and then say, "wow that's it" when the check comes.
When we were heading back towards the home side of the city, we passed what seemed to be just an empty restaurant or something. Tristan said we should go in. We did and in the back was this scene of people dancing away. An older gentleman came over and asked me if I knew how to dance...er, No. "Es facil" he said and pulled me out onto the floor. It was really fun being swept around the floor and just closing my eyes and doing whatever he signaled me to do. Just say "yes," right?

Fancy par-tay

Kira and Augusto invited me to their friends' birthday party...quite the nice change from the only going out option being the boliches. The friends were another american girl/argentine guy couple...there are quite a number of them here.
Quite the lovely loft in an old warehouse by a set of train tracks in BsAs.

Aren't they so precious??
Augusto had had his eye on this lion since we first walked in the door. It just took a few drinks to get him on it.
...and to get me on it. He scooped me up and plopped me on it. This is my pouty protesting what is happening to me face.