Rio by the Sea-O

In the past two days, I've eaten about 5kg of meat at Churascarias, drank bottles of wine, laid out by the beach in Copacabana, gone to samba clubs and seen Christ the Redeemer.  

I am very satisfied.

I split up with the rest of the crew because Laura came down from

 New York to visit me in Rio, and we stayed at the Sheraton which to me felt absolutely amazing.  Hot water that lasted forever and big soft free towels!  I was obsessing over the towels.. the tiny travel towel was getting a little old and grimy.  Basically got to enjoy everything that I've taken for granted before and it was great.

The other guys went from hostel to hostel because everything was booked solid.  They have a funny story about hopping in the

 back of a pickup truck by a dude on the street who asked them if they were looking for a place to stay.  Look forward to the whole turn of events next time they post.

We met up with Vince, Amrit, Dali and Sophie for the first day before they flew back to Sao Paolo.  It was great to hang out with some old friends to change the pace of the Phil, Scott, Auggie Chris extravaganza.  We ate dinner and went to a samba club where we listened to live music until late, and went back to the beach to have a few cervezas.

The next day Laura and I went to a highly recommended Churascaria,

(brazilian style restaurant where waiters bring unlimited swords of meat.)  Laura became very entertained by the fact that I completely stuffed myself with meat until I looked lethargic and sick by the end of the evening.  My goal was to eat everything.

Today the guys came over to the hotel and we all 

relaxed by the pool, taking a nice breather from the hectic schedule of the previous weeks.  

Afterwards we decided to hike up to the Christ the Redeemer statue, to which the taxi driver

 seemed a bit concerned about our safety.  Most tourists take the train or a car to the top.  The hike was about an hour and was decently steep. We passed by a Favela (slum), and there was a rather shady character looking at as with a saw, as in hacksaw. That kinda irked us a little and we walked briskly past that area.

Once we got to the top, the view was absolutely amazing.  

The statue itself was huge, but it's really the fact that it was located on the top of a cliff that makes it thoroughly impressive.  

Tomorrow we are all planning to go on a helicopter and fly around the statue.  None of us have ever been in one before and we are all pretty psyched for it.

More updates to come soon, and if we don't it's because Rio is being pretty great to us.