Rio de Janeiro. Today is a wonderful day. I did so much walking around.
I’m a little bit tired, but I definitely had to do a journal entry because I wanted to talk about the last two days and enjoying Rio. I’ve been staying here in this beautiful apartment by the beach. I am so close to the beach. Traveling as a nomad, you encounter things—and it’s something that it’s innocuous to other people—but it’s a little bit important to me. When you’re out here in these streets, you want to look fresh. You want to look nice. You want to try to look your best.
After all this traveling and, all the whereabouts that I was. All over Palermo; all over Buenos Aires. Here in Brazil, I was like, okay, there’s some black people here. This is my space. This is me. This is mi gente. They don’t speak Spanish here (so please don’t judge me…) They do speak Portuguese. Fallou do Portugues? No, I do not. I do not speak Portuguese.
But with all the dark-skinned people that are supposed to be a part of this country, I thought to myself, obviously this is a space where I can go get my haircut. So, I started off on that journey yesterday. I can tell you I was disappointed in the things that I found in the first stops of my journey. It wasn’t the best weather yesterday. I walked down the avenue. It was a little bit rainy.
That’s also why I didn’t really do a journal entry. I decided to take a walk and the first place that I saw. The guy there, he was older, you know, (whiter) lighter gentleman, and I was like: okay. Maybe I’ll try this out. So this guy starts off with—I kid you not—scissors.
He starts off trying to cut my hair with scissors and, maybe he knows what he’s doing. So I give him the benefit of the doubt. I assure you: he did not know what he was doing. He tried his best for 20 minutes or so and at the end of it, I just paid him and, you know, let him be content in what he thought he gave me was a haircut. It was hard because I was trying to show him pictures of hairstyles on my phone. Maybe that’s not the right way.
So I left out of there, and I decided to find myself—well, I went to trusty Google to try to find myself a barber. I had to walk a little bit further. Barbers weren’t in the neighborhood that I was staying at. We’ll talk more about that later. The segregation in this place in Rio is fascinating. In a way where you notice it, but you don’t want to point it out too much. I went to him, he got the clippers, he got the razor, he doing his thing. He looked a little Dominican or at least more of the Latin flavor and vibe that I was thinking that he should have. He gave me an excellent haircut, and then I took the metro.
The metro system was hot. I don’t think it’s as big as the metro system in Buenos Aires, maybe. It didn’t seem to have as many stops or as many train lines, but I got a card and took it a few stops. It wasn’t so bad. I decided to, you know, see what the place is like, try to live like a local and part of living like a local is definitely trying to see what a commute is like. I went there in the middle of the day, though.
I didn’t really need to see the commute at rush hour. I’m not trying to be all up in there, in too tight situations because I was told that Brazil is a place where you have to be very careful about yourself. The way that you wear your backpack, you’ve got to wear it on your front instead of your back because you might be susceptible to pickpockets. I didn’t want to be in a space where it’s too crowded. Kinda like where I am on Leblon, it’s convenient. I’m only two blocks away from the beach so instead of having to pack up big bags, I could just leave my phone in the apartment, take the key, tie it into my swim trunks and just walk to the beach, which I did. I definitely did that yesterday around four o’clock.
Show off, of course, I was looking fresh. I had to take a few pics on the beach. I walked all the way from Leblon all the way up to Copacabana and then back. Today I was like, okay, I went to the beach yesterday, I’m gonna take a walk in another place. I got some coconut today. I walked all over Uruguaiana, is it? You know, I can’t remember the exact name, but it’s like a shopping area that you go to. I went to Starbucks, had a drink, then I went to this other famous café there, you know, just checking out some of the things that are noted on the travel sites. Sometimes TripAdvisor and those sites could be a little cool. I just wanted to experience a little bit of the city, so I walked around, saw the different activities that were going on and it was nice.
The weather isn’t too great here, so being outdoors so much isn’t lovely, but it’s still good being close to the beach, hearing the waves. Every so often when the house quiets down—and you’re just sitting in the silence—it really is quite beautiful. I’m sitting by this window, and I’m hearing the beach; because it’s not too far away for you to hear the waves. You hear them gently, but it only happens when it’s a little bit quieter, a little bit more still. It’s given me an opportunity to meditate and to be present here.
Alright, signing off for tonight.