I think I´m doing everything backwards. I arrived and got straight to business (well pretty much haha) and started looking for a job and going to interviews and I´ve already been working over a week! But the last few days I finally went back and did some of the touristy things I hadnt done (which was embarrassing when people asked what I´ve done here so far).

First of all, I took a boat to Niteroi which is a place very comparable to Coronado Island in San Diego. It´s a part of Rio de Janeiro, but seperated by water. It´s very close, also has a big bridge like Coronado. People live and work there but it´s more expensive to live there and a lot of people commute to the center of Rio to work. It is beautiful though, nicer beaches (like Coronado because it´s less crowded and farther from downtown). There is a great Contemporary Art Museum which is on a cliff with an amazing view of Rio. My friend Welber lives there and he showed me around. We went to the museum and walked around the beaches.

Then on Saturday after a great lunch at Ricardo´s house (Im considering hiring his dad as my personal chef) we went and hiked Pão de Açúcar (famously known as Sugar Loaf in English). You can pay to ride one of the tram things up but we just hiked a trail. It´s only 15 or so minutes to hike up but it´s really steep, so it was a good work out (then going down was even more difficult trying not to slip!). We made it right at sunset and the view was beautiful.

On Sunday I took another boat to an island called Ilha Paquetá. There are no cars! There are a few official vehicles like tractors or police cars but no real roads and no traffic. It´s mostly dirt roads, homes, and of course BEACH. The island is actually kind of poor when it comes to living, I´m not sure if there´s even a school but as a tourist it was beautiful. We wented bikes for like $3 and rode around for a couple hours. The day was perfect, clear sky, warm sun... After that we walked through a big park which is closed to bikes. There is an older open "building" type thing up on a hill, it´s like an old open cement house with no windows or doors. We climbed that and it had even more great views. Ended the day with fresh cold coconuts (that will never get old to me to drink water straight from a coconut!) and the boatride back at sunset.

I still have to climb the famous Corcovado (Jesus mountain) and this coming weekend Im going back to Niteroi for a good hike on the beach that I didnt have time for before... but Im glad to finally be seeing all these beautiful touristy things I´ve heard about. Also, now that I´ll live in Tijuca I plan to go to the national park with a waterfall soon... lots of stuff to do :-) and of course I´ll squeeze in some work too! Haha. Work is actually going good, I love all my students but it is looking like it will be annoying to go around to different places every day, back and forth from Tijuca to Centro (downtown) to Botafogo to Copacabana... oh well, I´m in Brazil and I cant complain too much!