Tuesday 23 July 2013

No room to breathe

Day 55 - 23 de Julho: Rio de Janeiro

My official test of my watch alarm was a complete failure this morning. It was 7:30am when Robbie woke me up and I definitely could have slept more. We were ready to walk to the church and walked out the door, when our host dad flagged us back in and offered us a ride and breakfast. There was a mass at 8:00, but we for sure would be late now, so we would meet at 8:30 once everyone was finished mass. Our first place that we would visit was the cathedral. Our priest needed to get his documents from here and we of course wanted to see this cool cathedral. One of our group knew the bus number we needed and the street that had our stop. But since i've been really good at navigation, i took the lead to get us to that street. We jumped on the right bus and almost all of us had to stand at first. You could definitely tell that the city was full. This bus was over an hour, so most of us got seats after a while. I fell asleep on mine until our stop. It was sure a unique looking cathedral when we got there. Basically one enormous cone. We entered this amazing place while a mass for france was going on, but there were still a massive amount of people taking pics in the background. We had a bit of time to hang out together and walk around. They were giving out city maps here too which was useful later on. Once we were finished here, we moved on to a small shopping mall so that some of the group could get some supplies. I'm wearing my flag as a cape today, so i did the superman pose up the escalator here. Next, we took our first trip on the metro. I sort of helped navigate with this too, since i've got a bit of experience with metro. We made it to the closest stop to Copacabana beach because our opening ceremony would be there later on today. When we got out, it was absolutely packed with pilgrims. People singing songs and chanting their countries' names. It was such an atmosphere. We slowly made our way out and to the beach. I was in the lead again here since i had been to copacabana and the stage the day before. It was completely packed near the stage, but the group wanted to get as close as possible so we pushed through. Eventually, we decided that there was not enough room up close and moved back to a more comfortable standing area. Unfortunately, while we were in the thicker crowd, a few of our group got cameras/phones stolen. I couldn't believe that even our priest had his phone stolen from him! My phone was in my money belt luckily, but too bad, somebody stole my little notebook (probably thinking it was a wallet). Hope they have fun learning portuguese. We waited a while for the mass to start, and some of the group were wondering if we should just go home early to beat all these people to the transit. We decided no, since we already put in so much effort to be here. It was a cool event. So many people had taken part on this beach - probably millions! I actually ran into a guy from our area of town who told me the best way to get back - the 360 bus line. I was told how to get there, so again, I was navigator. I had a flashlight that had a red flashing mode, which acted as a good signal to follow. I suggested that we should stop to eat while the bulk of the pilgrims got on the bus. We had pizza, thanks to father who treated us. After we finished, it was pretty late. I led us to the appropriate bus station, but it still took us a while to get on a bus. It must have been 5 buses that went by, completely full already before an empty one stopped for us. And that's where i'm writing this - on a bumpy roller coaster of a bus. It's nearly 1am now, so i definitely won'f be writing when i'm home. Hopefully it is soon.

We get pics with everyone
The cathedral
The packed metro
The event

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