Gringas from Holland traveling together in Brazil :)

Ooooi!

You know, when I first arrived in Brazil, I didn't know anyone there other than the people from AIESEC and Saci, the school, who received me and whom I had 'met' online before leaving Holland; I didn't speak the language, and was feeling a little bit lost for the initial period. It was so different when my friend Bryley arrived at the Rodoviaria Novo in Rio de Janeiro, three and a half months later. And it was such a funny feeling in the beginning to see her there in Brazil. We often said in Brazil that we made a good traveling couple, as I speak the language and she has a great sense of direction, so together we made our way around easily. Of course, Bryley has even traveled in more challenging countries than Brazil and on her own, and I always admire people who have the guts to just go anywhere and everywhere by themselves, and wonder if it takes a certain type of person to do that, or it's something you can learn as you go about it?

In Rio, we stayed at a hostel in Copacabana recommended to me by my friend Roberta, which, I remember, we had to put some effort to find initially once we got off the crowded, rambling city bus. We should just have stayed where we got off as the hostel was just around the corner, but instead we actually decided to try our luck with a cab... the driver had no idea (hmm?) where to go and just drove us in a circle before setting us off somewhere close to where we started, but it was a funny conversation, as it involved a random conversation in Portuguese between me and the driver about where we came from and, since we were from Holland, about the Brazil-Holland game two days later. Bryley just arrived so I'm not sure anymore how much she understood, other than what I might have translated for her benefit. I just remember it being really funny, so that I didn't even grit my teeth too much that we paid the taxi ride money for nothing, since our hostel was really so close, we just didn't know. And I remember the guy thought that Holland would win the game... and well, he turned out to be right. In any case, he must have been pretty entertained as even in a busy tourist area such as Copacabana they still probably seldom get such random gringas (with such good Portuguese skills ;)).

After spending a couple of days in Rio and getting about a bunch of tourist things like seeing Christ the Redeemer and the Sugarloaf Mountain, on Friday we ended up going out till 5 30 am in Lapa on the night of my birthday, with a big group from the hostel that quickly reduced itself to me and Bryley following this random Brazilian guy for a little while who came by the hostel every weekend or something to take the whole lot to Lapa. But as we weren't satisfied by the quality of the first place he took us to which was full of seriously horny guys grabbing you at every corner (it was a seriously intense atmosphere hahaha), and we kind of figured that the guy was just trying to show off by demonstrating how many friends he has, we made our own way for a while. We ended up in this funk place (it's a music style) in the middle of Lapa, where we found our hostel roommates again and their friends, a bunch of Brazilian guys! One of the girls knew them from her previous stay in Brazil, as I remember... well, I can only hope that I can come back to Brazil and show off such a cool friends-pack at a party hehe (I'm sure I can). The funniest thing was, they even acted as our protectors from the other guys around who wouldn't leave us alone (there were some annoying ones). Time flew and it was early morning by the time we left and climbed back into bed, to roll out too late the next morning to have breakfast at the hostel, so we had to go eat our sandwiches and drink our juice at a local cafeteria, perched on high chairs by the counter, listening to the sounds of fireworks around, which were in the honour of Argentina losing so impressively to Germany in the Cup. If Brazil didn't get to use up the fireworks the day before, this was the day to do it... apparently, in JF, it was the same case! Fireworks, just for Argentina!

That afternoon, after perusing the area of the city with the beautiful Teatro Municipal which is similar to the one in Paris, and another coconut-water stop-over by the Ipanema beach, we headed to Petropolis, a small near-by town in the mountains (right on the road between Rio and JF) famous for having been the summer retreat of the Portuguese kings during the colonial period. The kings left several famous castles and building around the city, which is a small but beautiful place surrounded by green mountains, and is relatively cooler than Rio, which explains its popularity with the cariocas from the capital (and thus the Portuguese kings), when the heat is just too much to take even lying sprawled on Copacabana beach. And yes, it is one of the towns that was recently affected in the floods that took place again in Brazil... There was a big flood in Rio where I was still in Brazil myself, but this was unfortunately even more serious, so as I have been to two out of three places that were hit (the others towns were Teresopolis and Nova Friburgo, and I've been to the latter) I was quite sad to read the news on the floods in Brazil... it's interesting how much more you find yourself paying attention and how much more it means to you when something happens somewhere in the world if you have a connection with that place. So I hope that things will soon get better in these towns.

As for the moment, back to that day in Petropolis... (well, yes, it was my birthday... who would have thought that I'd spend my 23rd birthday in Rio and Petropolis, in Brazil!) We were met there by Amanda, a girl I met through Aiesec, whose family lives in Petropolis. So we came over to her family's lovely, comfortable house (so nice after three nights in a small hostel room), where we met her family and her cats, had some dinner, went out to get a movie (the famous Brazilian comedy I already wanted to see before, called 'Se eu fosse voce' - 'If I were you'), and as we were tired, fell asleep soon after it ended (Bryley fell asleep during, haha). The next day we went to explore Petropolis for a few hours, starting with our visit to the top of the hill popular with sporty-outdorsy paragliding people, to seeing the richly done homes of the Portuguese kings, to even a German-inspired party that just happened to be taking place in Petropolis that weekend. I remember Bryley's reaction to it, because it was one of the first things she did in Brazil... a German party.

It was a short, but lovely trip to Petropolis, and hopefully not the last one! In the following weeks, we did a lot of traveling, that's for sure: we traveled to Belo Horizonte, Ouro Preto, Cabo Frio and Buzios, met up the other trainees in Rio again... and after a weekend back in JF, we headed together for the exotic Bahia in the north-east of the country. Well, I do hope there will be more adventure in Brazil next time for me! (Who knows, I might even have the guts then to travel by myself a little bit, too!).

Hope you enjoyed reading!
Beijos! :)