Day #1 in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro)
We just returned from our weeklong trip in Brazil and I wanted to write up a blog post about each day of our travels. Here's day one.
After working a full day on Friday, April 17th, we caught an Uber and went to JFK. Our flight left NYC at 8:30 PM and we landed in Sao Paulo at 9:00 AM. Overnight. Economy. Seats would not stay reclined. Let's just say that we did not sleep very much, if at all. Nevertheless, we were excited to be in Brazil. We flew through customs. We were grateful for having retained our boarding passes from our flight as the Brazilian customs officer requested to see them. She quickly stamped our passports and we beelined for some breakfast, which ultimately consisted of hot black coffee and some eggs.
I washed my face and reapplied moisturizer/sunscreen (I still want to retain my youthfulness even in the midst of losing lots of sleep because of UV rays) in the airport bathroom before our next flight to Rio de Janeiro. We definitely slept on that flight. Once in Rio, we called an Uber to the Pestana Hotel, which overlooks Copacabana Beach. Once in the hotel, we promptly brushed our teeth and changed before going for a long walk along the shore.
I had my first caparinha in Brazil at a kiosk that we came upon during our walk. It was, in retrospect, a rather watered down, uninspired caparinha. It didn't faze me--I was simply ecstatic to be in an entirely foreign universe.
We walked all the way to Ipanema, which I'd been longing to see since I'd first started listening to Bossa Nova in college. We made a long loop back to Copacabana, where we went to the restaurant Brasiero for a casual dinner on the street. We ate the best picanha I've had. I found it so utterly delectable, which is a bit surprising because I'm not much of a red meat person anymore.
Z is not a man of many vices. He doesn't drink alcohol, he doesn't go to bars, he doesn't gamble that much. He does, however, enjoy the occasional cigar, which in all honesty, I am very happy about, because I sometimes feel like a lush in comparison to his consistent sobriety. We Ubered to a cigar lounge in the upscale Leblon neighborhood. We'd never seen anything like this before. The place was a full service restaurant with indoor/outdoor seating that also had a cigar library. While Z puffed at his cigar, I sipped on whiskey served over a big rock. To celebrate our arrival in Brazil, we ordered a dessert made of guava paste (goiabada in Portuguese) topped with cheese browned under the broiler.
