Oi everyone! So it is 10:15 AM in Rio and World Youth Day is finally wrapping up with a closing mass on Copacabana beach happening right now. I'm watching it on TV from the comfort of my homestay living room ... there's no way I would go back to the craziness of Copacabana right now haha. I ventured out into the crowds of pilgrims on the beach on Friday before the stations of the cross parade and that was quite enough for me. I even saw the popemobile speed by ( and the jolly old pope himself for 2 seconds!) so I was satisfied. Sadly I have no picture proof as I literally ran from two blocks inland to the beach just in time to see the pope drive by.
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| Walking to Copacabana beach from my neighborhood (Botafogo) along with thousands of pilgrims who would randomly break into the chant "¡ESTA ES, LA JUVENTUD DEL PAPA!." The entire neighborhood of Copa was restricted to pedestrian access only. |
So this is how I saw the pope: I was grabbing a snack with three friends at a juice bar, then went to buy postcards at a news stand but as I was doing so my friends told me to hurry up because a TV at a nearby bar was showing the popemobile starting to make its way down the beach. Since we were right near where the pope was starting his trajectory along the beach to the main WYD stage, I quickly paid for the postcards and we SPRINTED to the beach where the popemobile zoomed by right as we arrived! I found myself screaming like a fangirl (along with hundreds of people around me) because it was so exciting and the timing was so perfect hahaha! For the record, Papa Francisco is AWESOME! He has such a friendly demeanor, and he was totally working the crowds from his popemobile, kissing babies and throwing up thumbs-ups and huge smiles to everyone he passed by. My host mom joked that he has already performed his first miracle----to make Brazilians love an Argentine!
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| The three story media tent for the 4,000 journalists that came to Rio to track World Youth Day. The man in front with the plastic bag is a vendor for the ubiquitious Bisocoitos Globo, fried chip-like biscuits that Brazilians eat on the beach. |
I think everyone in Rio (myself included) is relieved that World Youth Day is ending after a crazy week of interrupted transports, protests, frantic last-minute changes (the original site for the WYD Vigil that was brand new and cost more than 6 million Reais to build, was ditched the day before the intended pilgrimage there because of the rain this week that made it completely muddy and unusable) and especially the hundreds of thousands of people everywhere. And I mean EVERYWHERE!! I have never seen so many people in my entire life...The Globo newspaper estimated that 3 million pilgrims came to Copacabana beach for World Youth Day, making it the biggest public ever seen at a single event in Rio.
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| I wasn't able to find the huge group of Filipino pilgrims that I heard was in Copa but I found a small group right here in front of Copacabana palace! I also met some pilipino priests picking up pasalubong (tagalog word for souvenirs) at the grocery store later that day haha! |
When I went to the Botafogo mall yesterday to watch a Brazilian movie called
O Concurso, hundreds of poor pilgrims had taken over the mall for one last moment in "civilization" before continuing on to Copacabana to set up camp on the beach for the night. What a scene... lines out the bathroom were 50 people deep on every floor of the 8 (!) floor mall and every spare space on the floor of the food court was taken by pilgrims hurriedly scarfing down their last warm meal for who knows how long. Also, the stench in the mall was horrendous...sadly, many foreigners don't realize that toilet paper can't be flushed down the toilet here... so you can only imagine the state of the bathrooms...
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| Excited to walk into the tunnel to get to Copa with pilgrims from all over! |
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| Claustrophobes beware...The crowd was this thick pretty much along the whole beach (4 KM!) |
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| Only in Rio--skater beach boy cruises by nuns and it's totally normal. Haha! |
Anyway I could go on forever but I think I've already rambled on too much!! Thanks for reading everyone!!
Beijos
Marie
Omg soooo many people x_x! Definitely wouldn't want to be in the middle of this crowd:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/07/28/206316615/millions-gather-on-rio-beach-to-hear-pope-deliver-sunday-mass
And danggg the pope was really workin it!! Can't believe you saw him!!! And although it's totally unfortunate that they couldn't use Campus Fidei, having it at Copacabana kind of makes it all the more awesome! Only in Brazil.. :)
Ya the pictures of the masses on the beach were definitely more epic than the closing mass had been at the Campus Fidei. But the crowds were insane, and the worst part was that these pilgrims had to sleep out there in the cold (yes it is actually cold at night in rio haha at least this week) with just a few port-o-potties as facilities. They weren't even allowed to use tents...and I can't even imagine the trash that was accumulated!! But ya pope Francisco is the man, he's adored here and the press loves him too because he doesn't avoid even the hard questions:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/30/world/europe/pope-francis-gay-priests.html?hp&_r=0
DeleteTeam Francisco!! :P