Dead Fish

Most of the weekend was uneventful. I went to dinner and then to a nightclub on Friday with a girl from work and some of her friends, and I had a really nice time. I hope I continue hanging out with them. Though, the whole not going out til 11 which leads to not coming home until a ridiculous hour makes for a rough Saturday! We found out on Thursday that Marcello (the son in my family here) passed his exams to get into the University of Medical School so we had a nice lunch on Sunday to celebrate -- and he already had to start classes today!

The most interesting part of my weekend came when I went out for a run on Sunday morning. I headed down to the lake and the first thing I noticed was the stench. Then I noticed the buzzards. I put it all together when on the bank of grass between the running path and the shore I saw several huge piles of dead fish. I made it about 200m before bailing.

Apparently (and news outlets/the citizens of Rio all have very different opinions on this) something happened to drastically drop the oxygen levels in the lake (the canal connecting the lake to the ocean was too dirty, there is too much algae in the lake sucking all of the oxygen out, some theory about the recent rainfall that I don't understand) and tons fish died. Literally, tons. Some sources are saying 40 tons, some are saying 80 tons. Either way, that is a crapload of dead fish. Seriously, look at this picture someone took. They have sanitation workers literally raking fish into piles on the shore.

Naturally, with that many dead fish comes swarms of birds of prey. And because I am terrified of birds, this was like a glimpse of a scene from my own personal version of hell.