note: location is rio de janeiro, brasil

this morning, with ushi resting in the garage, simon drove us around some more of rio. we were hoping to head up to christ the redeemer, but the clouds rolled in as we were driving over there. instead, we walked around the beach a bit then headed over to a little bar/restaurant for some pasteis and feijoada. the place has apparently been there for years and is kind of a local institution. the pasteis were delicious. the feijoada was huge. it was probably also delicious, but had too much flavor for me (…i’m more of a cereal & milk kind of a guy). afterwards, we waddled back to the apartment with full bellies.

this evening we were lucky enough to watch santos and flamengo (the most popular soccer team in brasil) play at maracana (a huge stadium, seating 90k people). the game was fun (bruno, the flamengo keeper saved two penalties), but the most exciting part was being there with the fans. with almost 80k flamengo supporters, the stadium shook when their team scored a goal — i’ve never been around such a large group of excited people in my life. the only annoying part was a guy behind us, who kept yelling ‘senta!’ (sit down!) to the people in front of us who were standing up…..i wanted to start yelling ‘stand up!’ back to him. the experience was awesome, and the tickets were only $12 (which entitled us to sit anywhere on the lower level).

an aside: vehicle exhuast tends to smell different in brasil…it’s probably due to the large concentration of alcohol-powered cars. it’s a little confusing at gas stations, since they’ll provide gasoline, diesel, alcohol and mixtures of them. i always just ask for the cheapest gasoline….and it must be ok, since both the sentra and i are still alive.