The rest of Bogota

One more day into my stay in Bogotá and I got the whole history lesson I was looking for!

Plaza Bolivar

Laura and I took a stroll to the biggest plaza in the city, in front of where the President lives and where all the government and judicial offices are. There was quite a bit of propaganda, encouraging people to vote for peace this Sunday (there's a vote on whether or not to end the civil war that's been ongoing here for more than fifty years).

On the way there, she explained all the details of what has been going on politically in Colombia and showed me statues and tributes to important political characters along the way. We also stopped to watch the changing of the guards and the folding of the flag outside the President's house.


These are historic moments in Colombia's history and it's super interesting to be here for it. The 26th, the day I got to Bogotá, was the day they finished all the paperwork for ending the war. Sunday, the day I get to Cali, is the day that the Colombian people will officially vote to end the war (hopefully).

 We went to another, huge market (that takes up an entire block) and I tried even more fruits that I had never seen before. It rained on and off in the afternoon so we spent our time in a couple different cafes. It was great because I'm slightly obsessed with the cafes here. Chains aren't popular so each cafe is really unique. They have creative menus (one place had an entire book where the first few pages were the menu and the other pages were there for the customers to draw or write whatever they wanted), interesting decorations (beautiful murals, different plants or a whiskey bottle used as the soap dispenser in the bathroom at one place), amazing coffee (each place has its own house specialties and they all offer a variety of options of coffee with liquor in it as well), and it's all super cheap!!

Coffee served with cinnamon, chocolate & whiskey

Inside a cute little cafe near Plaza del Chorro

The Gold Museum

The next day, we walked around the Botanical Garden and, because she's an ecologist, she was able to tell us what almost everything was. It was pretty impressive and the place was beautiful. We also walked though the Modern Art Museum and the Gold Museum, which has some really pretty displays and reminds you about the Spanish colonization...which is not a happy topic. I love Spain and the people from there but we thought that "Malditas Españoles" ("The Damn Spanish") would've been a more hilarious and maybe even more appropriate name for the museum.

Botanical Garden

That was my last day staying at Laura's house so, at night, I switched to my next couchsurfing place! I'm staying with another family who's also really sweet! I set it up with Juliana, who's 22, and I'm staying with her family. She and her boyfriend and I talked for a few hours when I got here last night and they are awesome. They're both new to couch surfing and dying to travel so they had tons of questions about the places I've been. She studies French so we talked about linguistics and they also explained a lot about how the Colombian education and health systems work.

Again, they gave me my own room (which I think I'm borrowing from her little sister who is sleeping with her mom while I'm here) so that is unbelievably nice! There's no hot water in the shower, which threw me off since it's pretty cold here in Bogota, but that's part of the adventure of traveling! They made me breakfast this morning, too...some fresh juice and a potato soup which was a breakfast first for me.

Now that I've been here for a few days, my brain is finally starting to successfully switch between Spanish and Portuguese without getting so mixed up but I still need a lot of practice. I'm speaking way more slowly than I used to in Spanish because I'm having to concentrate more (making it all-the-more embarrassing when I tell someone here I majored in Spanish, haha!) but I think after a couple of months here, my brain will be able to switch between the two pretty easily. That's the goal, anyway!

 I only have today and tomorrow left in this city so I'm gonna make the most of it!

I love walking around in this city. It's huge but it's not like a typical big, dirty city. There are some skyscrapers and big avenues and whatnot, but there are also so many small, adorable little streets that remind me of Cuzco (with the mountains all around the city and everything!).











Random side note: The weather here is completely insane. It's sunny one minute and rainy the next! They don't have distinct seasons here but they said you can see all four seasons every day and it's true! The first day I went for the bike tour, Laura asked me if I'd put on sunscreen. In the same breath, she told me to take something for the rain. It sounded crazy but I found out pretty quickly that she was right. Both necessary.

To sum up, Bogotá is amazing so I'm gonna go explore some more!

Less than 48 hours in, I'm already obsessed with Colombia...

This trip got off to a unique start for me. Normally, I spend my time on airplanes and buses staring out the window, romanticizing about my upcoming adventure or biting my lip, trying to stop from grinning like a fool so as not to completely creep out the people around me. I'm filled with adrenaline and have long conversations with whoever the hell is nearby.

This time, though, was different. And difficult. It was so hard to leave Rio. It's always hard to leave a place but somehow this one completely destroyed me. The fact the I hadn't slept the night before didn't help with emotion control either...but still. I somehow spent the whole day without smiling or talking to anyone. I was just sad to leave my crew, my dude and that beautiful city.

I got some cathartic journaling in on the plane and watched some Friends, two things which always help. Then, as soon as I got to the airport, things really started looking up! The first reminder that I wasn't in Brazil was the lack of bureaucracy. My god...the line in Customs moved. We simply went to the counter, got checked in and moved on. So not the Brazilian way. Then, as I went down the escalator to baggage claim, the sound of reggaeton filled my happy little ears. Yep...things were looking good!

I took a taxi (for six freaking dollars) to get to the house where I was going to couch surf. I'm staying with a girl name Laura and her mom and they are amazing. They both hugged me when I got here, showed me to my room (yes, I have my own room, a giant bed, and even my own bathroom!!) and gave me a tour of their beautiful apartment. Laura had two friends over, a friend from childhood and a Venezuelan that she'd met the week before on couchsurfing, and we all went out to grab some food together.

Of course, when Laura asked me what my plans were, I told her I had none. Anyone that knows me knows that I hate to plan this kind of thing. 1. I'm too lazy. 2. I think it sucks the fun, adventure and spontaneity out of the trip.

She recommended a 5-hour bike tour that goes all throughout the city of Bogota so that's what I did with my first day here. I showed up almost half an hour late (okay, I should've left earlier but the traffic in this city is insane) but the people in charge of the tour were nice enough to ride with me to catch up with the rest of the group. Right away, I was terrified. I grew up in Ohio where you have all the space in the damn world to ride a bike. Here, though, it's a giant city filled with cars and mostly lacking bike lanes. We were squeezing through spaces between cars and curbs, just like crazy motorcyclists do--that, by the way, is something I now know I never want to attempt. We made it to the group and I pulled up next to a girl toward the back. Once the guide finished explaining whatever he was talking about and I stopped breathing like a damn hippo (we're at 2,640 meters/8,660 feet above sea level here), I said something to the girl next to me.

It turned out she and her cousin (that was there, too) were American. These girls were awesome (as was everyone else I met on the tour) and we hung out all day. The tour was incredible. The guide, also an American, has been living here for 17 years and is hilarious and extremely knowledgeable about Colombian culture, its history, politics and everything else!

We packed a lot into that five-hour tour:

We played Tejo, Colombia's national sport which, for you Ohioans, is like an intense version of Cornhole. You take a heavy disk and lob it underhand towards an angled box of clay that has a circle of cases filled with gunpowder. If you make it into the middle of the circle (which I did once!), you get two points. If you hit and explode one of the little gunpowder cases, you get one point. I'm dumb though and thought that the goal was to hit the gunpowder. That was what I was actually trying to do when I got it in the middle and got two points! But okay...whatever works!

Our guide teaching us the rules

Setting up the gunpowder cases

We also biked through the Redlight District. (You're not allowed to take pictures...which was fine by me.) Prostitution is legal here so there's no reason to hide it but child trafficking is a problem anyway. Speaking of children and prostitution, I found it a bit odd that school children walked either through or right around the area. There's also apparently a whole high-end prostitution market here in Colombia and it's extended to other countries, as well (often the U.S.). This whole topic is super interesting and I learned a lot about that yesterday, too, but I don't know if anyone wants to read about it.

the factory

At one point, we went into a small coffee factory that has a little shop attached to it and tried the beans and learned a bit about Colombian coffee...and then of course bought some. And it was less than a freaking dollar.

With my new American friends in the cute little cafe

 

We went to a market and tried TONS of fruits that I had never seen before
and everything was delicious. I think Colombia even beats Peru as far as exotic fruit goes!

"El agua vale más que el oro"
(Water is worth more than gold)

We saw a lot of the many beautiful graffiti murals around the city and they're incredible. Not only are they beautiful, but they send incredible messages, often criticizing the government. But here's the best part--they're usually funded by the government. The government here, knowing that the messages will often be critical, gives artists space on the walls to paint. They even pay for the material a lot of the times, too! It's definitely one of the things that makes Bogota uniquely beautiful.

"Sembra Sano & Cosecha Las Ideas"
(Plant Healthily & Harvest the Ideas)

The guide also told us lots of stories in each place and we stopped a few times to get some snacks. Colombian street food is AWESOME! So far, I've only tried some soursop (I just google translated that--I've never heard of it in English but it's called guanabana here) juice, their corn on the cob (which is grilled so it's sort of between eating popcorn and the choclo they have in Peru) and a hot, spicy drink soooort of like a cider that they spike with their Colombian liquor. Omg. All delicious.


 

My tasty $2.00 drink
Coconut Milk, Banana & Pineapple

After the tour, a few of us (a girl from Israel, a girl from Switzerland, an Australian couple and me) decided to get dinner together and we went to a famous (yet still insanely cheap) place for dinner. We talked politics, culture and traveling for hours before we finally parted ways (of course after exchanging facebook/whatsapp since we'll all be traveling around this country for a while and can meet up again).

At night, Laura and her two friends that I'd met the night before had decided to drive up one of the mountains here so they took Myriam (the Swiss girl I met on the bike tour) and me with them. We sat on little plastic chairs with warm drinks and looked down at the lights of the entire South Zone of Bogota. It was pretty incredible.

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Laura and her mom are the sweetest people in the world and have been feeding me breakfast every morning, making sure I'm safe and that I know where I'm going and sharing in wonderful conversation with me! Laura's mom even lent me some money the first day I was here before I could go to the bank.

This is how it is, though. People are amazing. Everyone helps each other without even asking for anything in return and, that way, we know we can trust in other people to help, too. Last night, Myriam and I ran into a Canadian guy who couldn't get cash out on his card. He didn't speak Spanish so Myriam translated for him but in the end, his card wasn't going to work. So what did we do? We gave him the money.

People have done that for me on a number of different occasions. When I've gotten sick, people have gone to the hospital for me. When I didn't have enough work, people have lent me money. When I've needed a job, people have helped me find students. People are freaking amazing and nothing teaches you that more than traveling. For anyone who has trouble finding faith in the world or other people....just travel. Nothing that I know of will fill you with more love, gratitude or empathy for the human race.

On that note...I was also reflecting yesterday on how it's not the place that matters. I could be in Rio, Seoul, Bogota, Lima or wherever...you name it! It's traveling. Traveling is amazing and traveling is my home.

The Nightmare of Finding Housing in Rio

This blog is a continuation of a previous post: I haven't actually burned any houses down .......

I'm not the only one complicating the housing situation here, though! A foreigner trying to find an apartment in Rio is one of the most difficult tasks you can imagine. I have lots of friends who have lived in different cities and countries all over the world and, although everyone has crazy stories, I have yet to hear of another city that makes it so difficult for foreigners to find a place to live.

Visas here are generally for 6 months maximum, so you can't really sign a year-long lease. Your only real option is to rent a room in someone else's apartment. That seems simple enough but people have the craziest rules here. Most of the places don't let you invite people over (or to sleep over); many places have rules about what and when you can and can't cook (ex: "You can't fry things."); the majority of the places are for girls-only so guys are even more screwed; some of the apartments have a rule that you can literally only sleep there ("You can't be here during the daytime on weekends, either."). All-too-many places make it seem like you're there as a favor, rather than because you're helping to pay the rent. They also don't take into consideration that you might be cool as hell and super fun to live with. The point is, even though it's 100% worth it, finding housing here is tough.

Don't believe me? Let me give you a brief overview of the places I've lived here.

1. That girl's apartment in Copacabana. Do you guys remember? She offered me her apartment because she was supposed to be leaving but she never actually did so we accidentally ended up spending a couple of months living together. She was really smart and interesting to talk to and we had a lot of fun at times. But her mom moved in with us at one point and that's when shit hit the fan. Three people in a one-person apartment is tough as it is. Her mom apparently became "jealous" of the time her daughter and I were spending together and began to treat me like shit. No joke. She spent her time cleaning like crazy, complaining about cleaning, cooking food, complaining about cooking, hating my existence, complaining about her daughter not wanting to spend time with her, complaining about her daughter's lifestyle, yelling at me for things I hadn't done "yet" like bringing sand into the house when I was about to go to the beach and yelling at me for giving any positive opinions of her daughter's life choices. It had started out really well but I had to find another place.

2. Largo do Machado - Nico, the jiu jitsu teacher I met while I was living in Cuzco, and I had become great friends by that point and his roommate had just moved out. I moved into his house where he lived with an 84-year-old woman, her son and his wife, and their son and his wife. Oh...and like 15 MMA fighters. Now that house was fun to live at. I had so much fun living with Nico, who truly became a brother to me, but the kitchen sometimes got so dirty that I literally couldn't use it so I wasn't necessarily upset when there were no rooms open when I came back from my four-month trip to the U.S.

My favorite memories from living there? Of course the time I spent with Nico and my precious 84-year-old friend...but probably when Chelsea and Raquel came to visit. The guys continuously stood in their window across from mine, flexing and trying to talk to Chelsea even though none of them spoke the same language. Those guys were hilarious. I still go back and visit sometimes even though my Nico isn't there anymore.

3. Tijuca - It was interesting to get to know another part of the city (it's in the North Zone rather than the South Zone where we foreigners typically spend our time). I spent a few months living there and absolutely loved the neighborhood and the other girls that lived there (there were usually about seven of us living there) but, omg, the family was annoying as shit.

It was a couple and their 6-year-old son. Sometimes the mom was fun to talk to and capable of being funny but she was also obnoxiously hypocritical. Though both she and her husband are extremely obese, she once asked me why I wasn't skinnier. She hung up notes around the house, passive aggressively telling us to do our dishes and turn off the lights when we left rooms, though she didn't abide by these rules, herself. Her family was louder than hell but expected us to be quiet.

One particular night, I was giving an English class for two of my friends. This was something we did weekly and that we'd gotten permission from the family to do before we ever started. Normally there were more people but almost everyone was busy that night. The three of us were talking, laughing and studying and having a good time. Normally, the family was wide awake at that hour (they usually went to bed around 1:00 or 2:00--6-year-old boy included) and it was only 10:30. Out of nowhere though, our whale of a landlord--the woman's husband--came banging on our door, swung it open, and yelled "Shannon, you said 10:00, right? Yeah! It's 10:30!!" and slammed the door on his way out again. The three of us sat there dumbfounded. What the hell did I say I was gonna do at 10:00?? Did I leave clothes in the washing machine? Did I forget to pay my rent? Was I supposed to talk to them about something? No. I was super confused.

We assumed he must've meant that our class was supposed to end at 10:00 but we ended at 11:00 every week and he was always there so he should know that. If they were going to bed three hours earlier than usual, he should've let us know. He should also know, as a grown man, how to make eye contact and use his words and inside voice to talk to people when he has some sort of issue. No one from the class wanted to come back again but, luckily, I was moving out just a week or so later.

4. I was waiting for a spot to open for me in an apartment in Copacabana so I moved into a "republica" (same deal as my house in Largo do Machado--it's sort of a mix between a hostel and a house) in Botafogo. It was a short--but strange--stay. Just ask Erin. I skyped her multiple times while I was living there and she even got to meet some of my housemates--all of whom hit on her.

I don't even remember how many people were living there but there were a lot and I was one of just two girls and the other was never there. Given that it was a similar living situation as Largo do Machado, I expected the bathrooms and kitchens to be disgusting but I was pleasantly surprised to find that they weren't. There was a reason for that, though. The bathrooms often didn't have water. Sorry for this extra info for you, but I had to walk to the little shopping mall down the street to take a shit most days because I knew the toilet wasn't going to flush. Then the kitchen situation was even more interesting. The guy who lived there and taken all the dishes away, as well as the soap, because "people weren't washing their dishes." In my opinion, taking the soap was a bit counterproductive...but whatever.

So, even though I wasn't living with a crazy family anymore, it was a bit difficult to live in a house without fully functional bathrooms and kitchen. There was no shortage of craziness, either. Some of the guys were super nice, a lot minded their own business, some were a bit strange and then there was this one meathead.

Guys, I wish you all could meet him. He was a nice enough guy but he is definitely one of the dumbest people I've ever met. He's a personal trainer and all he does is work out, eat and take supplements. I am not joking you: I would be walking through the house and he'd be sitting there on a chair with a giant plate of food. With his mouth full and still chewing, he would point at it and then flex his muscles, clearly to show me that his food was making him strong. Yes. Good job, buddy. Then there were the few times that I'd walk by when he didn't have a plate of food and he would do something else equally unnecessary. For example, he might suddenly start to do a random exercise move and then point at his muscles...or he'd try to give me some of his caffeine pills because he knew I liked to run.

Besides all that, the guy who owned the place never gave me a key to my room and even made me switch rooms halfway through my short stay. I had to leave my stuff all packed up when I left in the morning for work one day and he moved everything to my new room for me. When I got back later, I saw that he'd forgotten my towel so I knocked on the door of my old room ask for it back. A guy answered and, when I asked for the orange towel that had been hanging on the bed, he told me that he'd thought it was there for him to use to clean the floor. Tight.

5. Finally, I moved into my current apartment, with a guy named Jonas who is friends with a guy I've been dating here. There are no stupid rules, the water works, no one is an asshole and there are only four people max living here at any time. Jonas gave me a hug when I moved in and made me feel like family right away.

Well one day, once I was finally settled in, my dude and I were lying down holding hands and I was talking about how relieved I was to finally have a good apartment. I felt something on my hand but figured it was a fuzz or something and brushed it off. Two seconds later though, he jumped and I freaked out! Yes. You guessed it. There was a freaking cockroach IN my bed. I've had cockroaches in a lot of the places I've lived before but...in my bed? That was a first for me.

There's also pee on the toilet seat every day here and the kitchen has plenty of cockroaches but they're a smaller kind than I had in Mexico and Korea and that was the only time I had one in my room (I guess it was some sort of cockroach welcome hug?). Other than that, living here has been great and I'll miss it when I move out on Monday!

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Though the following isn't exactly my story to tell, it goes so well with this theme that I can't leave it out. A few days after my cockroach incident here, I told a student of mine about it during our class. Well a friend of hers had me beat...and she's Brazilian!

She had started renting a room in a family's house, here in Rio. It was a family of four (a grandma, two parents and a kid) and they were renting one room to my friend's friend and the other to a Colombian guy. Well, according to this girl, the family was getting crazier by the day. First of all, they had a cat, which they hadn't told her about, and she was allergic. Second, the family kept eating all the food she bought. Third, and most ridiculously, the second night that she lived in the house, the grandma came into her room while she was getting ready for bed and laid out a blanket and pillow on the floor...and proceeded to sleep there. What the hell?! It gets worse, though... The grandma went on to do this a few more nights until one morning, when the girl woke up, the grandma was in the freaking bed with her!!!! What. The. F&%$?!?!

The poor girl called my friend crying and I think got out of the situation soon after that but omg.

The moral of the story? Good freaking luck while looking for housing in Rio, especially if you're a foreigner or a dude and espeeecially if you're a foreign dude.

But do look for housing here because this city really is marvelous, as they say, and I'm gonna have a lot of trouble leaving here. Here's to better housing situations for the next few months in Colombia!

The Games & Volunteering

It took quite a while to get that golden, furry makeup off our faces and was 1:00 a.m. by the time we actually left Maracanã Stadium after the Olympic Opening Ceremony. A group of us that were all staying in Copacabana came back together and decided to find a place to grab some drinks. Right as we were walking by one of the only open (though already-closing) restaurants, we saw that the TV was starting to play the Opening Ceremony! We started FREAKING out (you all know how I scream when I get excited...it was like that times five) and convinced the manager to keep the restaurant open a bit longer. We ordered food and drinks and squealed nonstop as we got to watch the entire show for the first time. It was nuts to see ourselves and our friends on the TV and to watch the whole thing come together. By the time I got home, it was 4:00 a.m. and I had my first shift volunteering at beach volleyball starting that morning at 6:30 a.m.

That's right.

I went home, showered, got all my stuff together, took a 10-minute nap and then headed out for my first day on-the-job! I'd assumed there would at least be coffee for the volunteers (wrong) but also that I would die of exhaustion (also wrong!). It turned out to be such an exciting day that I didn't once feel tired. I led a group of volunteers and we were in charge of seating people in one of the upper sections of the stadium. That meant that most of our group was inside the stadium at any given moment, able to watch parts of the games as well.

Some of my awesome team the first day!
(Yeah, that was like 7:00 a.m.)

It was such an exciting atmosphere to be in. Those athletes are incredible and you could sit all day in awe of their talent. It was fun to see people from all over the world who had come to cheer on their countries as well. My favorite part of the day was seeing a huge group of Argentinian men cheering on their women's team. With all the blatant sexism I observe day-in and day-out, with people not taking female athletes seriously and whatnot (especially living in Brazil), it was so refreshing to see men caring like that about a female sport. It was probably the lack of sleep but I honestly started to tear up a little as I watched them paying such close attention to the game and cheering so loudly for their team.

We had a pretty damn good view from up there :)

During the rest of the days I volunteered, one was spent taking tickets outside the stadium (which was actually fun because I was able to talk to the other volunteers as well as all the people coming in) and the rest were spent seating people. I was a team leader so I always waited to take my lunch break last and often volunteered first to take the not-so-awesome position just outside the stadium, but it was all fun! I was also usually the only person on my team who spoke languages other than Portuguese so I was called over by different people to translate a number of times for Spanish and English speakers and that was super fun, too!

Every onceee in a while someone got super rude and yelled at me because people were in their seats, they thought they'd paid for better seats, or because another volunteer had done something they didn't like...but these people were few and far between. Almost everyone was SUPER nice, some people thanked us for volunteering and I even made some new friends! I unfortunately got a cold and then a stomach virus that took me out for like a week so I wasn't able to do all of my shifts but I loved every minute that I was there!

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Volunteering, I got to see a bunch of beach volleyball games and, thanks to my friend, Emilie, I also got to see a game in the best sport in the world!! We watched Men's Soccer: Brazil vs. Honduras and "our" team won 6-0! It was so much fun to be there for the game and so awesome to spend with Emilie, who was the first friend I met in Brazil when I came back this time and who has had my back EVERY minute of this year! Brazil would not have been the same without her!

Then I got to watch two wheelchair basketball games with two of my all-time favorite students, a brother and sister that I taught for a while here in Rio. They are the sweetest, smartest little kids I've ever met and I will be forever grateful for the time I got to spend here with them. (Emilie and I gave them our maracatú costumes, too, which I'm sure they will make better use of than we would've!)

We put on the costumes and danced around
on the roof for a while to inaugurate the new
maracatús, lol

So not only were the ceremonies great, but the Games themselves were, too!

I hope that the IOC will be more careful about where they hold the Games from now on, given the high price that Brazilians and especially Cariocas (people from Rio) paid to have the Games here. It was honestly not a great decision but I don't know if everyone really knew that it would work out like that when they made the decision eight (or however many) years ago. Since the Games were here though, we made the best of it! I made lots of new friends, got to practice my language and leadership skills, got to audition and perform for the first time ever, and got to take my precious little students to a game, hoping they'd get even more excited about the world, languages and all the different opportunities that could come their way! Overall, I'd say this was a success! :P

Olympic & Paralympic Opening Ceremonies

Participating in the Olympics and Paralympics has been an incredible experience and was a great bang to end my 15 months in Brazil with! It all started when I was trying to sign up to volunteer for the Olympics and accidentally signed up to volunteer in the Opening Ceremony as well. There were all these boxes to check for your different talents: ability to juggle, ride a unicycle, break dance, etc... I, of course, checked no for every single item on the list and was sure they'd get my application and be all "What the hell? No!" but I sent it in anyway. Why not? If they let me participate, I totally would!

The only other person who wanted to do it with me was my friend Emilie (from Sweden) and, even though she hadn't signed up online, the two of us went to the audition. We assumed 1) that she wouldn't be allowed in since she hadn't officially signed up, 2) once we got in that we wouldn't be chosen or, 3) best case scenario, we'd end up being hip hop dancing bananas or something similarly ridiculous (this based on youtubing Brazil's World Cup Opening Ceremony).

audition

It was the first time I'd auditioned for anything in my life, aside from sports tryouts if those count (and I actually knew what I was doing in those cases). Instead of being nervous, we decided to just have a good time and not worry about what would come of it afterwards. We later found out that part of our audition later ended up on the news (but the online link doesn't work in the U.S. so here's a shitty version I recorded on my phone for Erin to see):

 

Soon after the tryouts, we received emails designating us to the same group, MCT, which we later found out stood for maracatú, which are folkloric warrior-type guys that come from Brazil's northeastern culture. The first day, we started learning our battle-like choreography and were pretty unenthused about it because, obviously, it wasn't as cool as hip hop dancing bananas would've been.

In the end, though, the costumes did end up being pretty baller...lol

The truth is, for the entire first month of rehearsals, we considered quitting almost every time. Except for the very first rehearsal, they were all terribly unorganized. The food they gave us was awful, the hours were super long, we had no friends except each other and we were apparently going to be warriors for like two minutes in the ceremony (and then do a dance with a silly choreography after that). As time went on however, we started meeting more and more people and by the time we moved into Maracanã Stadium, everything had changed.

There was something amazing about being in the middle of those thousands of seats and imagining what it would be like to run out there on the night-of, making the hours and hours (of sitting around and waiting for the choreographers to get their shit together and figure out what they wanted) worth it.

We had also started meeting more people and that second month of rehearsals ended up being way too much fun. We eventually stopped even caring that we spent less than one of each 7 or 8-hour rehearsal actually doing something productive and the rest of the time waiting. Towards the very end, we even got to see other parts of the show while we sat around in the stands waiting and that was pretty awesome.

rehearsals the first month took place outside the stadium

We'd made friends with the most talented, hilarious, dedicated and positive people and there was constant singing, dancing and laughing going on at all times. Brazil. :) I was impressed to find out that most of the rest of the people there were actually artists of some sort--either into acting, singing, dancing or whatever...and it was fun to have it all mix together to make each rehearsal into a new party.

rehearsing in Maracana Stadium w my new friends!!

Then...I can't say enough about the energy on the night of the ceremony. Backstage, though about 10 degrees hotter than anyone would've liked, was amazing. Per usual, our choreographers were nowhere to be seen and the stage managers and our coordinator were yelling at us to get to makeup and put on our insane costumes.

Nerves were high, as we'd only practiced with our outfits one time before and it didn't go so well (we only learned once we were already running on-stage that we had to be careful because the little shreds of the material our wigs, clothes and spears were made of got sucked into our throats and noses--which resulted in two people vomiting the first time we tried it)...but everyone was super excited! They had us all ready hours early and just sitting there waiting which led to nonstop shenanigans until the show started and then shit got real!

A couple of people held up cellphones to live-stream the show as each group did what they'd been practicing for the last two months and we all crowded together to watch.

It became so emotional. As each group went on or came off stage, everyone backstage cheered them on.

Giselle came running by and waved on her way off-stage which meant it was almost our turn.

 

Normally there would've been constant chatter and dancing but I looked around and noticed that for a few minutes, everyone was completely silent. Knowing 60,000 people were in the stands and that millions and millions were watching worldwide...and that we'd still never gotten final answers on the choreography changes they'd made just a couple days before....the nerves had totally kicked in. The music we'd heard so many times at the beginning of our scene came on and we walked to the entrance where we were about to run out.


After that, it happened fast but luckily I'm well-versed in living in the moment. I enjoyed every minute of it, including the things that went wrong. The fireworks went off as we ran out on-stage, we found our places even though it was dark as shit and we were wearing sunglasses and our choreography began. We did it...and fucked things up as well...and then went on the the "charme," the second more pop-ish dance we did. It was way too much fun and, at that point, we could really look into the stands, see ALL the people and hear the crowd roar as we jumped around singing and dancing on-stage. I ran out of my position and went to find all my friends of course and then we got to run offstage into the stands and high-five people and sing and clap on our way out.

When you run across the entire stadium to find your friends
and dance with them during the "free" part

We snuck in and out of the stands during the rest of the ceremony and watched the athletes walk by backstage before they went out. I thought the ceremony, as a whole, was incredible. They presented the world with Brazil's history and told the story beautifully. That music and the choreography when the Indigenous people came out...then when the Portuguese arrived--it became emotional, even for me. Then all the other groups of people who arrived in Brazil and affected the culture, making it what it is today--they only made the scene more beautiful. I loved it!

The songs Eu Só É Ser Feliz (that speaks so beautifully and honestly to the injustices, inequality, racism and class-ism that people in Brazilian favelas face on a daily basis) and Deixa a Vida Me Levar (a song whose title basically sums up my lifestyle) played right before we came out.The 81-year-old singer, Elza Soares, who has fought to improve life for minorities in Brazil, especially black women, performed. The famous athlete, Vanderlei de Lima, who would've won an Olympic gold years ago, had a crazy Irish priest not jumped out of the audience and grabbed him during his marathon, lit the torch, giving him a well-deserved moment.

Right before going back on-stage one last time <3
(No, we weren't supposed to be with all our friends but, no, we didn't care.)

We went out one last time at the end of the show, in time to see the lighting of the torch and take part in the confetti and samba party. We got to dance samba (bahaha--believe me when I say I cannot do it as fast as that music was going) in the aisles between all the people in the crowd to get everyone excited. (Before we went back on, we had to wait backstage in the heat (and our crazy costumes) for a ridiculously long time, as usual...and it turned into a Pitch Perfect-type battle, with each of the groups chanting "insults" at each other, singing and dancing around and it was all hilarious--I just wish I could say I understood everything, lol -- Videos to come later!).

The whole thing was an incredible experience to be a part of and, needless to say, we all started to go through pretty severe withdrawal once the ceremony was over and we weren't spending hours and hours together with our new friends, waiting around (still, in my opinion, quite unnecessarily) in Maracanã.

*****************************************************************

So one day, while I was in the middle of my volunteer job in the Olympics, I hear that, if we had participated in the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics, we could audition for the Opening Ceremony of the Paralympics even though they had started their rehearsals more than a month before. Yes, I was exhausted and, yes, I was starting to get sick but my friend (who had already auditioned but is amazing at life) offered to go with me and, at that point, I couldn't resist.

Straight from work, he made me a coffee
and we were off to the auditions!

Right from the first moment, it was even better than the first ceremony. Yes, I was back to knowing very few people, making the first few rehearsals a bit awkward, but I knew it would work out and I would make amazing friends, just like I had the first time. (Spoiler alert: I was right!) The audition was muuuuch more difficult than the one we'd done the first time but that led to me actually dancing in the next ceremony. The clothes turned out to be worse (I felt like a sad, homeless clown dressed in a garbage bag, rather than a golden warrior rock star like the first time) but the dance and all-around choreography were SO much better!

Paralympic Rehearsals

Paralympic Rehearsals

I was a part of the typical Rio beach scene they did and it was awesome! They had everything: parasols, people laying out, selfies, sunscreen, soccer, fresco-ball, and people selling globo biscoitos, mate (typical snacks sold up and down the beach every day) and bikinis. There were about 400 of us dancing and no one that I know of even messed up the choreography that night! The dance was super fun, the crowd freakin ROARED when we made the Brazilian flag and, of course, I made some awesome new friends during the rehearsals and we've been hanging out since!

Right before going on-stage

We came back on-stage one more time at the end of the show

In case you missed the Paralympic Opening Ceremony, here's the link! Our scene starts at about 27 minutes and goes until the end of the Brazilian National Anthem at 40 minutes. (By the way: Want to know where I am? Look for the only dumbass that moves right at the end of the national anthem (I'm second from the left in the row closest to the camera). I bent down to pick up my soccer ball to get ready to go offstage. My bad! lol)

Overall amazing experience. Plenty of Brazilian bureaucracy but way more fun than I ever could've asked for. Opening Ceremony Korea 2018, anyone?? ;P