Slap him so his gums bleed! / Kumbaya my lord!

Wake and breakfast of an egg, juice, and sandwich fixins. Too much coffee. Josh and I walked down to the Gloria neighborhood market. We took a new way down the hill, and came out of the steep streets and walked right by the Sexy Corner Cafe and into the market. It was truly colorful and was pungent all across the board from goodness gracious to the other end of the spectrum.

We hoped onto a bus that took us to Ipanema. By the time we got there, a storm was brewing. We had a coconut and walked down the boardwalk. An ear of corn between the two of us in the shelter of a drink stand to keep out of the rain. Watching the surfers out in the rain was calming. We headed back into the neighborhood, away from the beach. Found an outdoor cafe where we took shelter from the rain for a wonderful diner. We shared a meat platter and a large stein of beer. We realized how grateful we are for our lives and our families and friends. We played several games of backgammon over our sitting and people watching.

We were tired and went back to our new hostel to rest. So rest we did. There were samba bands out in the neighborhood so we stayed up in Santa Teressa for the night. We planned on taking it super easy since we had played out in the streets pretty hard the night before, but.... We made our way out and there was sure enough a band out on the street just outside our hostel. The crowd was big enough to where we couldn't even see the band. People cascaded into the streets talking with one another, drinking and eating. We had a drink and walked down the street into the heart of Santa Teressa looking for the next party. The view from this road is the best view of Rio that I found. You can see the center of town, the water, several bridges criss crossing the bay, and all the lights in the night. At times like this I am reminded of San Francisco and I have a similar fondness for how urban planning is dictated by the landscape.

The next party was unavoidable as it was in the middle of the street one again. The graffiti caught our attention and we had a few more drinks while meandering the party. Another walk to the first party. It was dying down as the band had ended, so we had another beer and decided to talk yet another walk to the second street party again. On our walk over we heard some great music coming from a house party on the hill. We could see them on their patio from across the way, and we were determined to find them. So we did! We were just going to sit and listen from the street, but one of the guys noticed us immediately and had us in. We came up the steps and hung back listening to them all sing to whatever song they wanted to play. The song they were playing when we came in was a song by Sergio Mendes. Josh and I had been singing this song earlier today, and I got a kick out of hearing it right when we showed up. There was one man playing guitar and leading the songs, but everyone there was singing along from time to time. There were three or four others playing drums and I eventually got to playing one too. There were about 15 or 16 people hanging out and they offered us meat off the grill, beer, and plenty of smiles. They played music for a while before starting a conversation. I really liked that they kept played songs rather than verbally trying to communicate with us. But when we got to talking we had good laughs trying to talk from Portuguese to Spanish to English and so on.

Ironically, when we started singing 'Don't worry about a thing, because every little thing is gonna be alright,' a fight broke out down in the street between some of our hosts and some people in the street. There were some pretty heavy throws to the face and kicks to the head, one of the kids from the party started crying, there was screaming from the men and women, neighbors started watching from their windows, and all Josh and I could do was watch from the patio with furrowed brows! We were not gonna split out onto the street with all that mayhem going on. Cops showed up almost immediately, as there was a cop shop just around the corner. When machine guns show up on the scene, fights tend to come to an end. There was a lot of yelling still, from both groups trying to explain the fight. I still am not sure how or why it started. Our hosts came in and there was more yelling and instant replays and explanations to one another. Then more beer. Then laughing and hugs between us all. They gave me a c.d. of their band and some stickers and then we took off for home.

When we got back to our hostel, David and some others were up drinking vodka. So of course we joined them. And we said we were gonna take it easy! Ha! I was on the balcony talking with my new Chilean friend, and Josh managed to get royally drunk in no time. I came back in the room to Josh asking about David's sister, so I said that David should never introduce Josh to his sister. Before I could realize, Josh slapped me! I was pouring a drink so all I could do was try not to spill my beverage. So he slapped me again on the other cheek! What a drunk bitch! The first chance I got I slapped him back, thus allowing his gums to bleed a bit. This slap was vengeful, and also to wake him up a bit. Good times! We stayed up late enough and hit the sack before the sun came up. We had told David to wake us up for breakfast so we could say good bye before he flew out.