Mission 2 - Week 25 Rio

Sorry this is a bit late, it was hard to go through the pictures for our trip last week to Rio de Janeiro!
Started the week out with some bad headaches, don't know why.  But we still managed to get our work done.  Oh, and I also got our taxes done this week - Yea!
We left Thursday morning early with the Sondereggers and Sister Cox for our trip to Rio de Janeiro (Rio).  We had a tour set up with Julio (David used him in the past, he speaks English), and it was great - we saw all the typical tourist sites.  Sister Cox and Sister Sonderegger had never been to Rio before.
We started with the Tram up to Pão de Açucar (Sugar Loaf):

This is the Tram Station

A Picture on our way up.

A picture of the Rio Bay about half way up.

Other direction on top of the midpoint hill (2 Trams up)

Got this from the top looking across the city to
the Cristus (Corcovado) on the mountain

This is looking down at Copacabana Beach

I also snagged a couple cool bird-in-flight shots

Second one - I love the bridge and boats in background.

We took a little walkway and saw these Marmoset monkeys
They are the smallest monkeys in the world

Sorry, it`s a little out of focus.

What the Tram car looks like.

Then we went to Cristo Redentor (first time not taking the little train!):

Nice cloudy day!

I got this picture from the back side that I thought was cool.

 

We also got buzzed by a couple hang gliders, fun!

Last one.

After Cristo Redentor, we had lunch then went and saw a few other sites.

This is where we had lunch during the tour - it was great
because it was normal Brazilian fare.

Cable car in the little area where we ate.

Next to last stop on the tour - the Selaron tile stairs in Rio
(Sis. Cox, Sis. & Br, Sonderegger)

This is a water aqueduct built in the 17th century. (still standing)

Bell Tower outside the Rio Cathedral (below)

Rio Cathedral - looks like a pyramid.

Inside the Cathedral, stained glass windows.

This picture isn't great, but it was taken while driving by in the
car - it's the Samba Dome, where they have the huge Samba
dance competitions in Rio for Carnaval each year.  This is only
one section of the huge set of stadiums (like several football
fields!)

On Friday we had a tour set up for Petropolis (city of Peter) which is where the emperors summer palace was, about 1.5 hours from Rio.  We really enjoyed that tour as well, except that our guide had to give the tour in English, Spanish, and Portuguese!  (It wasn`t just the 5 of us).  We first went to a place that was a casino (until the 40's when gambling in Brazil was outlawed).

Huge dome in what was a casino in Petropolis.

More of the casino.

I loved it that they planned a Children's room in the casino!

Entry to the casino

 

This is the casino which is now a big bunch of condos

Our group in front

Next we went to the cathedral in town:

Stained glass windows were beautiful.

Inside the Cathedral

This was one of several wood carvings in the Church

Church view from the front

This is our tour group in front of the "Crystal Palace", which
originally was all crystal (long since gone) and built for Pedro's
wife, who loved flowers and gardens.

On Saturday we walked along the beach and took pictures before checking out of the hotel.  Then we went over to the Rio Fort, and went to the museum, more pictures, etc.

View of the Copacabana from the Fort

Of course, there must be a cannon, it's a fort.

And a bayonet for the end of a rifle.

The fortress at the end of the peninsula.

Oh, and there was a sweets store at the Fort!:

This is the sweets shop, inside the fort...

Some of the pastries - no, we didn't try them all.

I added this very pretty flower for some of the grandkids.

That afternoon we walked over to the restaurant on the Ipanema beach where the song "The Girl from Ipanema" was written.  It was really fun, and we met a family there that I help with English on my HelloTalk app on my phone.  We bought them lunch and it was really nice, and they were so appreciative.

This was the restaurant - very famous.

Lucineide and her two sons on the right.

And the kids will appreciate the fact that I paid this street
band to sing "Girl from Ipanema" to us as we ate in the
restaurant!

Oh, so funny story of the day - as we were walking to the restaurant, a couple guys played a scam on me.  One secretly squirted some mustard on my shoe (big blob) - I never saw him at all.  About a half-block later, the other (with his shoeshine kit) said "Hey, you have bird poop on your shoe.  Come over here and I'll clean it off for you."  I looked down and it was the first I had seen it.  I said, "It looks like mustard or something."  He said, "Nope, it's definitely bird poop, I'll have to clean it off."  Then he got a rag and wiped most of it off my shoe (I was wearing tennies), so I said I'd pay him two reais (about 70 cents, US) and he said, "Forget it!"  I gave him the 2 reais for cleaning most of it off and then walked away, knowing then it was a scam.  They probably take visitors for at least US$10-$20 to clean up their shoe after a nasty bird dropping...

Love to all,
The Church is True (Conference is awesome!)
Dad and Mom