Wednesday

What a busy day we had today! Marcel (Erik's driver from work) and his girlfriend picked us up at 10:30. we all went to Corcovado to see Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer). Before we left we could not see him from our hotel because of clouds but once we were on top of the mountain everything was clear. Beautiful! Once we took some pictures. We happened to be up there when the priest was saying prayers and putting ashes on foreheads. So I received my ashes there - very cool! The butterflies were so beautiful - electric blue!
Then we went to Lapa to see the arched aqueduct. which looked beautiful in the pictures but were much smaller and covered with graffiti.
Next we went to a cathedral that Marcel was baptized at, there was amazing stained glass.
Then a tea house in Centro - Confeitaria Colombo, we had great food and yummy desserts and new fruits.
Drove by Flamengo e Botafogo - one of the famous beaches, but you can not swim there to polluted.
There was a ferries wheel at an old Military base that separates Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. It is a special attraction to celebrate Rio being in the running for the 2016 Olympic games. So we went on it and had a beautiful view of the beaches.
Then back to the hotel to rest before going out again. The best part of being with Linny and Marcel is we learned a lot about the history of things. We saw parts of the city we would have never seen. Plus we learned about the schools down here. Like the public schools do not teach enough to get into a public university but you can get in if you went to a private school. It is different here. The public universities are free but really hard to get into, and you have to go to private school to learn enough to pass the entry test. If you go to public school and want to go to a university you have to go to the private school and pay for it yourself.
There is also 2 ways of saying Thank you - One is said by a man and the other by a woman.
We are having a great time!