Vacation Mode

Alright, I’m not too hot with this blog maintenance thing. The last few weeks have been mellow as I have slid into vacation mode. It’s been nice, I think I need it.

Part of the vacation mode involved going to Cabo Frio, a beach town about three hours outside Rio de Janeiro. The beaches in Rio are crowded and poluted, not ideal for relaxing by my standards. Tricia and I staid in Posada do Albatroz, which was out of the hub of things and on the beach. It was lovely. For the first night, we were the only ones there aside from the owner and his family vacationing from their native Argentina. I was glad to chat in Spanish and remember that I can indeed pull my weight in a foreign language.

Tricia on the balcony of our room at sunrise.

I did a little beach combing (with my camera). Found a sandal that died
mid-crawl back to the sea. I will spare you the dead blowfish pictures.

This is probably a good time to redirect you to Tricia’s blog. She has been very diligent about posting weekly about the content of the class.

Things have been pretty mellow in Rio despite the Pan American games. There is no longer any reporting in the major press about repression in the favelas. I wonder if things are bad and just not being covered while the foreigners are in town, or if they have actually calmed down.

For the next week, I plan to catch up with friends and establish better contacts with a few organizations for possible projects in the future. When I get back, it’s straight to BootCamp, a training program for the Design and Technology department at Parsons. I was generously granted permission to switch to the department from Photography provided I audit the training program from incoming graduate students. So continues the summer of pretending I am a graduate student. I am looking forward to getting back to New York to ride my bike around Brooklyn, have something of a routine, and see the good people I miss. I leave on Thursday night, arriving Friday morning.

I did make it to Sao Martinho, the organization that helps street children off the street. A few students from the class and I visited a shelter. Here are some pics:

And here’s a shot Tricia took of me on the top of Babalonia, the favela above Leme at the end of Copacabana beach. It is a tradition to have the class end with a hike up Babalonia. Behind me in the bay of Botafogo.