Day 4 in Brazil!

Day 4 in Brazil
Howdy family and friends! After just a short nap consisting of about 3 ½ hours we stopped by the Assembly of God Church in Petropolis and took a picture.

We then arrived back in Rio at our hotel and changed clothes to board the tour bus to see the sites of Rio. We were able to meet Antonia—a girl from Brazil who is wanting to be a foreign exchange student. She was a great help throughout the day.
Our first stop was to the Christ statue.

To get up the mountain, we boarded a tram and about 15 minutes later we arrived. We were able to not only see the Christ statue but the city of Rio and the many beaches. While we were also there, several Children were getting baptized by the Catholic priest. In between baptisms, the priests came out and sprinkled holy water on people while blessing them. As I stood back and watched, I was amazed how quickly people flock to them for a sprinkle. I, on the other hand, got a picture with one of the priests!

On the way back down the mountain, we wanted to make sure we boarded the tram that held the Samba school so we could enjoy more music. They were right in front of Dave and I and then one of the drummers handed me the noise shaker! He wanted me to be a part of the band! It was so much fun!

Once down the mountain, we boarded our bus again, but not before getting a picture at the tiniest Hard Rock Café in Rio. The bus drove us around the Carnival site, the Chapel of Santissimo, and the Soccer stadium. We found some street sellers selling hats. Originally they wanted 25 Reals for each one but I love to barter and I talked them down to 10 Reals per hat! SCORE for me! I actually did this twice today! The other reps were jealous of my bartering skills and wanted me to go with them to barter!
Finally we arrived at Cocurtio (Sugarloaf). We ate a delicious lunch here before going all the way to the top of the Sugarloaf. Dave was not too sure of this ride as he doesn’t like heights, but I loved it. He would have been content to sit on the floor! You could see for miles the city of Rio and the ocean. As we were preparing to go back down Dave and I spotted a little trail and took off on it—only to be followed by my boss, Georgina. She yelled, “Wait up you two! Where are you going now?” (She claimed that she had to supervise us but in all actuality, she didn’t want to hear about another of our adventures, she wanted to participate in it!) The trail took us a quite a little way down the mountain. It was beautiful! On the way down though, Dave decided the window wasn’t such a bad place to be and was right there at the front of the car watching everything!

We boarded the bus one last time to make our way back to hotel and decided that we were going back to the ocean to go swimming. For almost two hours we played in the ocean waves before going to the street market to barter for more souvenirs. As we made our way back to our hotel, we stopped by Copacabana Palace to see what it was like inside there…priceless!
Supper tonight was on our own for the first time since we arrived in Rio and we found this quant little restaurant on the corner one block from our hotel. We didn’t understand one bit of the menu but ended up with some great food. I had a roast beef sandwich that had a pepperoni stick bored into the middle of it! Delicious! Dave had steak/ham/egg sandwich on one piece of bread. Very yummy! I couldn’t finish my sandwich because it was so big so I asked for a to go container—they brought out a Tupperware like container—and then charged 1.50 for it! Crazy! I washed the container and am bringing that puppy home! Overall a great day! From my Brazilian bartering picture window to yours, have a great day!