Rio de Janeiro... cidade maravilhosa

Waking up bright and early on Wednesday, 10 do Freb., we excitedly boarded a bus that would take us to the famous Rio de Janeiro, the city famous for Copacabana, Jesus, Ipanema and of course... CARNAVAL!!!
Looking back on that day, it taught us to appreciate how beautiful things are and the balance of life, the ups and downs. So, it sucked. The bus ride was 6 long hours of turns and jolts. Nicole can actually drive stick better than the bus driver can. And, for the first time in her 22 years, Nicole got motion sickness, and threw up. Twice. After arriving to the bus station, we were greeted by about ten creepy women hissing at us to use their taxis, each charging us what our Lonely Planet guidebook had promised it would cost. We got to our hotel, located in what we thought was the booming Centro of Rio, but turned out to be the depressing part filled with the homeless and an intense smell of pee. There is actually a campaign to stop people from peeing on the streets hee hee!! In the end, we would see at least 5 guys in mid-peeing action.
To cheer ourselves up, we decided to treat ourselves to a fancy meal at an italian restaurant. First though, Stacen leaned on the wonderful small diital camara, completly cracking the screen. So, for the next 6 months we are just guesing at what we are taking pictures of :)Sorry if you notice the pictures are always a little crooked! The ´treat´ turned out to be the most expensive place with the meanest waiter we had ever had! We are acually positive he spit in our food! And the food was so bad, we both got so sad. So, we went back to our hotel room, hid, and planned out the next 6 days, reminding ourselves that there is a reason that Rio is called the ` Cidade Maravilhosa´... the city of marvels.
We woke up the next day to a beautiful sun, and headed off to the famous Copacabana beaches, singing ´her name was Lola, she was a showgirl...` the whole way. As we walked up the metro, we saw the beach and rocks that are legendary. We picked up our carnaval tickets for the famous parade, and walked around the beautiful boardwalk. While, happily sipping on some cold Skol (the national beer of Brasil), we bought Stacen amazing Ray Ban sunglasses, Nicole got a rainbow colored wrap from a nice Peruvian woman, and met a really cool guy from Mallorca! We were both so happy to speak Spanish and understand someone! Adding to our happiness, we climbed on a rock with a beautiful view of all of Copacabana, then on a four hour walk on the beach in Ipanema. Most importantly, we passed about 200 of the hottest gay men in speedos you have ever seen!!!! Like wow. Nicole enjoyed :)
The next day we retuned to Ipanema to meet Tomer and Ziv, who were staying with Ziv´s aunt in the beautiful neighborhood of Leblon. We had a total bum day at the beach, where we decided we would travel South America together! The four of us then went to eat dinner at Anna´s (Ziv´s aunt) apartment-- we ended up eating there every day, with delicious meals complete with things like filet mignon, shrimp, swordfish, waldorf salad, and at least 2 desserts! so wonderful. On Saturday, the four of us met (after a CRAZY, amzingly fun bus ride where we almost killed 10 pedestrians!!) at Corcovado, the famous Jesus statue. After taking a cog-train up the mountain, few tourist shots with the big guy, we headed over to Centro to check out some Carnaval parties. There, we discovered an insane orgy-like party. Sadly, even in carnaval, there is a pretty huge class divide. The parties in the Centro were those for the majority of Cariocas (people form Rio), those from the favelas (ghettos), and were unsafe and a little scarry. So, we returned to beautiful Ipanema and got to party with costumes, drag queens, and just had fun. (Nicole was very sad bout the unfair carnval experience).
Continuing our carnaval fun on Sunday, complete with fairy wings and butterfly headbands, we all headed over to the Hippie Fair, a super cool open market. There, we discovered that Israelis are the BEST barterers in the world, and that we are never buying anything without Tomer´s help ever again. He got an art vendor to lower the price by more than half on a painting that we simply fell in love with (our first piece of real art!!). We were so excited. After wandering around the steets and chilling at a bar enjoying all the sights and sounds, we headed to.... Avatar!! we know, we know, avatar in Brasil?? But it was awesome !!!(even though Nicole only saw fuzzy lines because she does´t see in 3D and is so scared that all movies will be like that from now on). We then hung aroung Ipanema for a few hours in an outdoor bar and headed home.
Monday the 15th was the big carnaval day.... the parade!!! Not only was it our 6 month wedding anniversary (awwww!!!!) but it was the day we had been waiting for. After a delicious lunch at chez anna, we planned the next month through Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile with Ziv and Tomer. We headed to our hotel for a power nap and a pizza. Then... the event. That night, from 8pm to 6am we watched the most beautiful parade in the world. Our eyes could not absorb all the colors, dancing, costumes, fireworks, sparkle we saw. We were amazed by the samba and the crowd´s energy-- they were still actually people samba-ing at 6am!!! In a happy daze, we walked home through the amazing street parties to breakfast, then to bed.
We woke up that afternoon at 2pm and headed to Pão de Azucar, the famous gondola/teleferico (and where James Bond fought Jaws in Moonracker, as Stacen reminded me 30 times). We walked around the beach (there are always beaches), a rainforest park, saw three monkees (the scene was 4 little kids and Stacen all staring up into the trees with raptuous joy), and went up to see sunset and the city lights come on. Truly, the most beautiful city view either of us had ever seen.

Yesterday, we chilled with Ziv and Tomer all day (their place has a pool on the roof!), then headed off to the eco-city Curitiba on a night bus, where we arrived today a few hours ago....