Mama It’s Hot Outside
(Corinne, a friend from Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley, finds herself spending the winter in Rio de Janeiro; here’s the first of what will become weekly journal entries on the VanRamblings site) …
Hi all.
Sure enough, though it’s hard for me to believe, I am sitting in the Copacabana, a block from the white sand beach, writing to you. The trip from Halifax to Rio was not too bad. Continental has all new planes, with head rests that you can bend up around your head to support it if you are one of those lucky people who can sleep on planes.
I am not one of those people.
Don is hopeful that he has bought a house, the one with the colonial era furniture. It has four bedrooms, one for Don, one for Jim & Tania, one for me, and a spare one.
It is very warm, the women wear as little as possible, regardless of what shape or age they are. As for me, I am looking forward to getting different clothes.
The restaurants in Don’s neighbourhood are three to a block, open air with tables on the sidewalks, excellent food that they cook to order so it takes a while. Small children are everywhere. I read somewhere that 60% of Brazil’s population is under 40. The fathers are as involved with their children as their mothers.
As gas costs over a dollar a litre, and there are no parking places, all cars are tiny, like the Echo hatchback. Even the police cars. And the garbage trucks, while they are the same shape as ours, are only as big as a smallish pick up truck in Canada.
I am still a little tired from the trip, but very excited to see so many new sights. It’s all very “foreign”, which is exactly what I was looking for. Sorry that’s all I have the energy for right now.
Bye for now.
Corinne.
