When in Rome..
Do as the Romans do, right? Well, I got off the plane in Rio, and made a b-line to my hotel. Dropped off my bags, and went on the street to mug someone. I mugged two people, and made enough money to buy dinner- sweet! What helped was picking up a ‘Mugging for Dummies’ book in the Rio airport bookstore…
So I’m sitting here in an internet cafe, finished up a guarana soda, typing away after killing about 5 spyware/viruses on this friggin’ system. This ‘puter is totally infected.. anyway, Rio is amazing- so unlike what I expected. I am in a community called Leblon which is in the southern part of Rio, and walking distance from Ipanema beach. The hotel room is nice, but there is no shelf or anything to put your shampoo or whatever, so that is kind of annoying. Oh, and I seem to be getting a sore throat because I keep going outside in the hot weather, then going indoors into a air-conditioned room. When I’m outside, I feel great tho..
Ok, for today, we walked along the beach past Ipanema, past Copacabana, and up towards the subway. We went downtown to look at some of the older buildings, and then took the subway back. One thing that I thought was really amazing was that the city is SO CLEAN- there are people everywhere in orange jump suits sweeping the street of debris (sand, leaves, etc.) It’s really nice, and I really do feel that it is safer here than San Francisco. Leblon is overall very cosmopolitan, and people are walking around with jewlry, and with their purses out, so I think the misconception of Rio being dangerous is largly false here in Leblon.
Tonight should be fun, Adriana (the lady I chatted with on the plane from US to Rio), and the group I am with, and her friends are going out to dinner at about 8:30pm tonight, so I am really looking forward to that as it’s fun meeting new people, and hearing what people have to say. As for the rest of the day, I’m not sure what we’ll do, I need to do some laundry, so we’ll probably hit the laundomat, and spend some time lying out on Ipanema beach with my SPF 30 sunblock (I’m such a whitie). hehe.
I told the group that I am with about my bootie research, and how I was sort of disappointed, and they said ‘well, wait until you get to rio’. Well, I’m here, and I still haven’t seen the concentration of round booties that I was expecting. hehe. 
Oh, so Mia demanded that I call her to keep her informed with what is going on, so between her, Andie, and my folks, everyone should stay informed. Well, I try to call everyone pretty evenly so that they can inform each other (it’s a R$ 3 a minute phone call gets pricy), so I can’t call EVERYONE every other day. Anyway, I called Mia, and she said that she called my folks to let them know all was well, and she said she talked to my mom for a while, and my folks invited her over for dinner. Ug. It cracks me up thinking that will happen, and I am sure Mia is going to embarrass the crap out of me to my folks. I spent years working on my ‘tough guy’ persona with my folks, only to have it flushed down the toilet with Mia blabbing about some outrageous story about me. Ug.
I think it’s time for me to sign off, not much else to say for now, but still missing everyone, and looking forward to sharing a beer/margarita with you when I get back. 