Journal Entry # 11 Saturday, June 30, 2007
We woke up in our new hotel, which was very different from the hotel we had stayed
in earlier that trip. This hotel was much nicer and the rooms didn't look like
jail cells this time. In any case, we all woke up in the late morning-early afternoon
and moseyed down to a whole new breakfast buffet. The breakfast buffet looked
even nice and bigger than the last hotel's buffet as the semi outdoor café
was lined with fresh fruits and silver containers filled with hot breakfast foods.
We met most people at breakfast and after a nice meal we decided as a group what
we were going to do for the day. After little discussion we all decided to walk
the half a block down to Ipanema beach and spend some time there. Because it was
the winter time there weren't a lot of people
on the beach but unfortunately it wasn't all that hot either. When we first got
there it was about 70
degrees out and pretty cloudy but within the hour the clouds cleared up, making
it much warmer.
On the beach there were a large number of street venders walking the beach selling
tapestries,
jewelry, food/ drinks, and even offering to do tattoos. We all sat down on the
beach and
started to relax or watch people. After putting on sunscreen and bathing suits
some of us
went into the water. The beauty of the beach was solely surpassed in excellence
by the
warmth of the water and size of the waves. We wandered the beach and swam in the
water for most of the day. After we spent a good four hours on the beach we met
back
at the hotel lobby because we were going to see a derby professional soccer games
in the
new, very impressive stadium. We went up and changed out of our beach clothes
and
into our real clothes. We met downstairs to go take a bus to the game and because
we
were a big group of tourists going to a big rivalry game our coach decided to
enter us into
a group called "Don't be a gringo, be a local". With this we drove in
buses until we got to a
couple of blocks away form the stadium where we were instructed to get out of
the bus.
When we got out there was a small group of people waiting to walk us to the game.
We
walked down through a neighborhood surrounding the stadium and saw all the die
hard fans
marching while singing in a monstrous unison. The sea of green jerseys and flags
swept through the
streets as a thoroughgoing flood. When we got inside the stadium we sat down in
a section made up
of our group and other members of the tourist organization. The deafening cult-like
chants shook the
stadium through out the entire game. The soccer at the game was good but the best
part of the game was purely the atmosphere. The intensity of the fans at the game
was nearly nuclear as even the most fair-weather fun was crying and throwing beer.
After the game we went back on the bus and to the hotel. For dinner we walked
to a local pizza place which was the same style as the one in Jaragua du Sol.
The waiters would come around with plates of strange types of pizza and gave you
as much as you wanted. We then took the long way around to the hotel to allow
us to walk along the beach. We ended up getting home at midnight and then going
to our rooms after a long fun day in Rio.