Tourist life

Waking up just before dawn, Anna and I went for a morning run along the beach in Ipanema. Passing a statue of Antônio Carlos Jobim who wrote “The Girl from Ipanema”, it was not difficult to understand how the jet-setting Hollywood celebrities of the 1960’s came to see Rio as the arcadia of Latin America.

After taking a swim in the wild waves of the Atlantic at Copacabana, we jumped on the metro to the Glória station in downtown Rio where we were confronted with a very different city, one of open drug scenes and rowdy football supporters (the latter did not do us any harm I should say). Escaping a barrage of firecrackers, we found an old cinema turned Starbucks where I truly got to feel like a tourist with my Zara hat and cold brew coffee.

A long walk later, we were back in Ipanema at Aussie Coffee for a heavenly avocado toast and the freedom of being able to communicate. Were it not for Anna and her incredible polyglot skills, I would have been truly lost here in Rio as very few people seem to speak English. Now, time to work a bit through the hottest hours of the day.