The morning came way too quickly today. Of course, this is the general trend of WYD so i have to get used to it. No hangover which was nice. The start to our day made us think that perhaps we should have just slept in. As we were running late leaving the house, we realized that the door was locked, and I had no idea which key I needed to let us out. I found a set and tried a few - no, nope, no. Finally one turned, so i figured it was it... until the key snapped in the lock! I was horrified - this nice family had let us in and I go and break their house. I left a note for them - luckily there was a second exit and our luck with the keys were better. We left in a hurry into the pouring rain. The rain had been incredibly abnormal for Rio. I'm still convinced that vancouver followed us here. That or maybe London - they're pretty on par with us for rain. As we walked to our bus stop, a bus zoomed by and completely tidal-waved us with a big puddle. I was a little luckier since i was wearing some waterproof pants but Robbie was wearing jeans. We were hoping this was the end of this trend, and we got on our bus to the school for breakfast. Luckily, it was the end, and the day turned out to be phenomenal! We all collected our breakfasts and made our way out to our first stop - the place for mass that we had never been before, called Vivo Rio. I had put together a plan to arrive here, and was officially called the navigator of the group. I got us on the first set of busses to a main station called Alvorada. Here, we actually lost a few of our group who were going to a different event. Among those was Robbie, our best translator. So I would kind of be on my own if the need arose. And it did - we got on the bus, recommended by a volunteer and I asked the attendant on the bus to let me know when to get off. It's good i asked because I'm pretty sure it isn't a usual place for this bus to stop, just a spot on its route. She understood my portuguese fine, which was great. I sat up front with my map, waiting for her signal to get off. In the meantime, a group from Venezuela joined us on the bus. I was very pleased with myself as i was able to have a basic conversation with one of the guys that didn't speak any english. He was nice, and the conversation made the long bus ride go by faster. We got off the bus at exactly the right place - what a relief. I'm glad that navigating is something that i can be a help to the group for. We got there just as the talk was ending and started mass. It was a great one, good speakers. Afterwards, all the Canadians stayed behind. It was the Canada event next in this same venue. It was great to see all our country here. This event was actually televised and started with some of the youth carrying in the flags of our provinces and territories. As you might thing, there were some that had nobody representing them. They asked for volunteers to carry these flags in and i was one of them. Hence, i am now officially a member of Nunavut. I live in igloos and ride polar bears to my job at the ice carving shop. The event was neat - they had talks and great music. We had a lot of fun cheering our country on. Right after, we needed a game plan to get to Copacabana beach to see the pope come in. I was put in charge of this and we decided to try the metro first. We were told that it had been closed but some of our group had just used it. We were also told that these were special days when our normal metro passes would not work. I got us to the metro and not only did our passes work, but the metro could take us right to Copacabana. We got right on and were taken most of the way there. One of the stops were not working so we had to get out early. It was crazy on the main street. It was closed off because the pope was driving by. We had a great gameplan - get to the back of the beach where there was less people. We got there with almost no effort! We somehow had a perfect spot to see and only had to wait an hour! Everyone was ecstatic when the pope showed up! He actually drove by really slowly this time and I got a great video on my phone. He was stopping places to bless babies and wave to everyone. He seems like such an amazing guy. It was a great welcoming ceremony. Lots of music and presentations and a talk from the pope to us. Of course, we were far back but had a great view of a screen on the beach and were very comfortable in this place with fewer people. When it was over, we hung out a bit to meet up with our group that had separated from us earlier. We all took a long walk to a nearby bus station and got on our bus home. The bus driver was absolutely crazy here! He drove so fast, some of the people standing were being thrown off their feet onto the seats. It was a little fun actually. I talked to some brazilians in the bus on the way back to pass the time. This time, we did not miss our stop. Robbie and i walked to our house, but they were out to dinner (at 11:00 at night) so we had our dinner at mcdonalds. It was still packed, even at this hour! When we returned, i was told that the lock was fine and they never used the key that i broke. Thank goodness, all was fine. It didn't take long for me to sleep last night; hence my tardiness with these posts.
The ceremony on the beach
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