Day 23 – Tchau Brazil!

Chunk o'cow in corner

Last day in Brazil. We take advantage of every minute by sleeping in ‘til about 11:30. For breakfast/lunch, we go to Mabs, a restaurant and bar at the end of our street on the beach. While not quite a buffet, the staff continued to bring us extra food. Pete ordered the filet medallion; and after 20 minutes of trying to finish the gargantuan chunk o’cow, the waiter brought out a second filet medallion of equal or greater value.

Where we went.

With no real goal, we walk, bus, and subway around the entire city. I wanted to check out the Museum of Modern Art because the building looked badass. Like the Jetsons’ home, plastered with priceless pieces of art inside instead of a wisecracking blue nanny robot with a red bow tie. When we arrived at the museum, it looked drastically different than what I pictured. The featured exhibit was uber-weak, a depressing and confusing gallery of pieces by Luis Felipe Noe. I don’t know who he is either. At the gift shop, I saw a coffee table book of Rio sites, and saw the museum I thought we were going to. Pointing at the picture, I asked a saleswoman what that is, and where are we? Turns out, I was thinking of the Contemporary Art Museum, not the Modern Art. Samsonite?? I was way off.

Niteroi - where I thought we were going

The next stop on our walking tour was the Cathedral Metropolitan. It’s a gigantic iron cone-shaped church. It actually looked like an iron temple in the middle of downtown. Other stops included the National Library, where I checked out “The Berenstain Bears Visit the Dentist”, and the Municipal Theatre, where we saw “The Kardashians on Ice”.

As our fine arts tour wound down, we headed back to Copa to grab some food and head towards the airport. We left for the airport around 8:30. As we waited in the terminal, I ordered an Itaipava, my 5^th local Brazilian beer - it wasn’t a Keystone Premium I can tell you that much.

Place got books

Place got drama

As we sat in our cushy coach seats with 9 millimeters of leg room, I looked back at all our amazing pics. Brazil was unforgettable (thanks to detailed notes I wrote down, otherwise I would’ve already forgotten half of it), but ultimately we were ready to head back home, which means searching for jobs in-between jaunts to Phoenix, Seattle, and Whistler.



Place got God



I’m pretty pleased we covered seemingly every crevice of Rio, some areas certainly by accident, and other than being here for Carnaval – there was little else we could’ve explored in Rio. However, there’re some spectacular beaches and geography a daytrip away from the Marvelous City I would’ve like to see, especially Ilha Grande, an island with rainforests, waterfalls, and private beaches, and is so small it doesn’t allow for cars. That could be for another trip. Perhaps bachelor parties in 2015? We gotta at least go back for the supertutes.



Tchau.