The Mom Edition - Part 1, Rio de Janeiro

Because these posts end up long enough as it is (I need to remember how to write concisely before I have to go be a lawyer and whatnot), it is best to break the trip up by destination. As such, The Mom Edition of the blog will come to you in three parts. Here is part 1, Rio de Janeiro.

I couldn't have been more excited when my mom arrived! We walked around and got her a little acclimated, got ourselves a little pedicure, and then got a little lunch. She had a hot dog. Naturally. We took a stroll down Ipanema beach and back, but it was ridiculously hot so we decided to head back to the hotel and go to the pool. Except as it turns out our hotel didn't have a pool like we thought. Back to the beach, where we sat at a stand and had some beers and watched the waves :)

We spent her first night here at one of the nicest restaurants in Rio with Paulo and Claudia - I don't even have the words to describe it. I ordered lamb which came on the bone...but I just looked at it wrong and it fell off. awesome. It came with roasted artichokes. double awesome. One of the best restaurants I have been to, hands down (Sam, you would adore it!).

We did our touristy stuff on her second day here. Which also happened to be the cloudiest and haziest day she was here. Which was awesome since the touristy stuff also doubles as the "really sweet views of Rio" stuff. But we made the most of it!

I inherited my love of self pics from my mom. I did not inherit my incredibly large head from her. Honestly, look at how huge my head is. Weird. Anyway, here we are starting a day of touristing.

The hazy/cloudy cable car ride up to Sugar Loaf Mountain.

The monkey I found at Sugar Loaf. This is peanuts compared to the monkey pictures that will come with the Amazon post. In fact, maybe I should do a post dedicated entirely to monkey photos...

Us visiting the Christ statue. I figured you would rather look at us than at another picture of the Big Guy covered in scaffolding.

Afterward, we hit up the beach for a bit and had an impromptu happy hour at the bar next to the hotel. Then we went to Pizzaria Guanabara (a famous pizza place in Rio that has incredibly tasty pizza and stays open all night). Seriously so good :)

On our last full day in Rio we took a long walk on the lake. I had to pretty much drag Mom away from the dock where you can get a duck boat. Afterwards, we headed downtown to catch the red bull air show that was in town at the Flamengo beach. We ran into some of my friends and had lunch first - at Subway. Rest assured, it pretty much tastes the same here. We got to the show right after it ended, so that didn't really work out. We ended up taking a walk and then hitting up the bar next to our hotel (see this becoming a theme?).

We ended this leg of our trip with a Mexican fiesta. I had mentioned to Paulo and Claudia that my mom loves (understatement of the year) Mexican food. So of course they threw a Mexican fiesta for her! Mexican food is really uncommon here in Brazil. In fact, I overheard one of Claudia's friends, tortilla in hand, asking how to make one of these tacos. When she was done, her husband asked her, "what is that?" Sigh, I have so much to teach these people.

Ready to hit up the Mexican food - which included 7-layer dip made entirely from scratch :)

And the next morning we got up early and boarded a plane to Manaus to begin our tour in the Amazon!