We woke up at 9am this morning to get ready for a busy day. We enjoyed breakfast at our hotel and headed downstairs at 10am to meet the driver that we hired to take us to Petropolis. We knew that there was going to be a huge language barrier due to the fact that the driver only speaks portsugese and we didn’t, but Edie was ready to practice what she knows I Portugese so we were off.
The drive to Petroplis was an hour and fourty-five minutes. Edie and I chatted the whole time about her job. She definitely is working long hours but the job sounds wonderful. The school has bent over backwards for her and have done everything and more to make the transition to Brazil easy for her. I am happy that she has found a place that is such a good fit for her. Her husband, Mark, will be joining her in Janurary so I was interested to hear all of the details about the move and what they are doing with the property and cars.
Our first stop in Petroplis was Emperor Pedro II’s summer house. Petroplis is a popular vacation town for people in Rio because it is a little south and the climate seems to be a little bit cooler. It was nice to be comfortable. We walked around the outside and observed the architecture.
Our next stop was as a cathedral which is a neo-Gothic Cathedral of São Pedro de Alcântara, it was built between 1834 and 1925. It contains the tombs of Dom Pedro II, the Empress Dona Teresa Cristina, Princess Isabel and her husband the Conde d'Eu. The cathedral had beautiful stain glass windows, Edie and I enjoyed walking around and seeing all of the murals.
Our last real tourist stop was at the Crystal Palace which is a structure imported from France and erected by the Conde d'Eu as a gift for his wife, Princess Izabel, for a flower show. The structure was built in France and inspired in London's Crystal Palace. It is now used for exhibitions, concerts and the Festa do Colono Alemão (Festival of the German Settler). We took some pictures outside and were on our way.
From there we headed to Rua Teresa which is the biggest shopping street that I’ve ever seen. We went in and out of dozens of stores but they only seemed to have clothing. Edie bought a dress for herself and a couple of gifts but we didn’t really find what we were looking for.
Our driver then took us to visit the state of Christ the Redeemer. We had huge problems when the driver dropped us off and said something in Portugese that we didn’t understand. We got out of the car and walked around but couldn’t really find a way up to the top of the statue. We walked for a bit and found a tram which took us to the top for $36 real (even though the guide at the hotel said it would only cost $14 real). We enjoyed the tram up and spend an hour seeing Christ and getting some great pictures of the city. We grabbed some ice cream and took the tram back to find our driver. We found him he quickly realized that we had taken the tram and didn’t understand his direction to get on a van (although the vans were in a completely different area than where he left us). He pointed to the vans as we passed them, we were annoyed.
We got back to the hotel and decided that we should splurge on both our budget and our stomachs and go to a Churrascaria again to get our fix of delicious Brazilian steak. This one cost a bit more, $45 USD but was even better than the first and well worth it. We were so full we decided to just relax and headed to the hotel. We took the evelvator up to the top floor and sat by the pool and check out the beautiful view of the city and favelas that were all light up. Edie and I talked about various things for a few hours.
We decided to call it a night and headed back down to the room where we chatted some more. Edie had a completely different impression of Carnival that what I experience so I showed her some of my pictures and we youtubed some of the samba Rome parade. After seeing everything and hearing me talk about it I think she is really excited to experience both Rio and Salvador during carnival in 2011. I really hope that my parents will be able to go and we can have a big family reunion. I will be there! I joked with Edie all night about how she has top be nice to her students because their parents probably own several of the luxury box seats, and that if shes nice to them maybe they will hook us up with good seats!
That’s all for now.
Love,
Katie
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