So yes as you may have noticed I have been quite behind on my personal blog...I'm sorry to say this is turning into a once a month update kind of blog but I have just been so busy these past couple weeks. Since my last post I've taken midterms for all my classes (2-hour in-class essays in Portuguese woohoo!), started baby-sitting for two expat families in Rio, become a contributor to a new student budget travel blog (you can check it out at www.wanderversity.com), spent the night in the hospital because of a nasty viral infection, went to a traditional afro-brazilian roda de samba club in the north of the city, marched to raise awareness about elephant poaching (they will be extinct in ten years at current poaching rates--it was on the cover of this month's national geographic!), gone to an amazing Seu Jorge concert/beer festival, and taken a walking tour of the historic Rio downtown with my geography of Rio class.
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| Marcha pelos Elefantes on Ipanema beach last week-end. I'm holding the green sign and I marched with my friend from my FUNBIO (Brazilian Biodiversity Fund) internship! |
It's really easy to get wrapped up in the bubble that is the Zona Sul (literally "southern zone") of Rio de Janeiro, the area comprising the beachside neighborhoods of Leblon/Ipanema/Copacabana and the couple neighborhoods just north. However, I had a mandatory field trip two weeks ago to the Historic center of Rio, just north of Zona Sul. Centro is far removed from any beach and, with its wide avenues and imperial style buildings, feels worlds away from the superficial urban paradise of the southern beach strip.
I love my geography of Rio class because I get to learn all about the development of the city around me and then I get to go out and see the developments first hand. We started our tour of Centro in Cinelandia, a square once occupied by a favela but that was torn down after the Portuguese royal family relocated the capital of the Portuguese empire to Rio during the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century. As part of a larger hygienic discourse to "clean up" the city from germs and to supposedly let the air circulate so the city could "breathe" better, city planners decided to tear down two of the original morros or hills that used to originally delineate the city limits of Rio. I had no idea before, but it turns out Rio is one of the most geographically manipulated cities in the world, full of artificial embankments, tearing down of hills, and enlarged ports and beaches.
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| The beautiful Teatro Municipal in Cinelandia, once the site of the Morro de Castelo hill/favela |
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| Another Parisian-style building: The Museu Nacional de Belas Artes. You'd almost think you were in Paris, but the kombi is a giveaway that you're definitely still in Rio haha! |
Centro is one of the areas of the city that changed the most, as hills were torn down, and the area's swamps were filled with dirt to attempt to rid the area of mosquitoes and make it a Parisian-style, sanitized city with minimal indications of its tropical disposition. My favorite building in Centro is the Teatro Municipal, modeled on the Parisian Opera but 3 times smaller. I'm hoping to see a ballet there at some point this month! Other buildings that I saw on the walking tour were the Getulio Vargas era ministry buildings, built in a communist state-centric style in the mid 20th century when Rio was still the capital of the country and Vargas made sweeping efforts to create a strong national Brazilian identity. We finished the tour on one of just 2 hills bordering the original city that is still standing, the Morro da Conceição, a traditionally working-class neighborhood that is becoming more gentrified for its relative peace and quiet and cool breezes despite having the buzz of downtown just a short walk right below it.
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| Street art at the bottom of the Morro da Conceição |
Another great thing about Centro is that it has a lot a free art and other exhibits. Speaking of which, I'm planning on going to the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil in Centro this afternoon to check out a free exhibit of modern Japanese art :-D Tomorrow I head to Ilha Grande for two nights, an island off the coast of Angra dos Reis, a city that's a 2-hour bus ride South of Rio. There's no cellphone signal or cars on the island, so I'm looking forward to some real quiet time in nature! We have a long week-end because the Brazilian vestibular (the major exam high-schoolers here have to take to get into college) is taking place at PUC Monday.
Thanks for reading and until next time amigos!
Marie
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