Today, we had a full day with our private guide Katia and her driver Paolo, so we took advantage of all the things this could do for us: a windy drive all the way up to the Tijuca forest, the largest urban (rain)forest in the world, covering almost 12.5 square miles within the city of Rio de Janeiro. Here, we saw the incredible views of Rio, Cristo Redentor, Sugar Loaf mountain, and the beaches from the Vista Chinesa. We also visited the Rocinha favela, a shanty town that just two years ago finally got recognized by the local government. We saw quieter, more pristine beaches along the coast that made the Ipanema and Copacabana beaches seem overcrowded and loud. Interesting events happened along the way. And the day ended with one of the most stunning sunsets I’ve ever seen in my life at the top of Sugar Loaf mountain.

Because I like to photograph and view photos, I am jaded most of the time because I know how much editing goes into professional photography. A book I read written by a well-known photographer said that even on his most tact-sharp photos, he will still use software to sharpen the image even further. So when I saw images of sunsets from Sugar Loaf, I thought that they were probably too good to be true, like the sunrises in all those photos I saw of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. When my friends and I did wake up at 4am for the sunrise in Siem Reap to see this famous temple, though what we saw was beautiful, it wasn’t anything like what I imagined based on the postcards and online images.

Sugar Loaf mountain’s sunset renders me speechless, though. It’s every bit as spectacular in person as it is in those photos, if not more so. The sky really does turn multiple shades of orange and red and even purple and pink at times, and the endless mountains of Rio, which is all at once a beach paradise, a tropical jungle, and a fast-paced urban craze, makes for one of the best backdrops for this sight. It’s like the Christ statue is enabling the best sunsets right here in Rio.

Today was one of those days for me that was just non-stop fun and joy. It was filled with sights and experiences and tastes that make me wish now more than ever that Ed were still with us, and that I could share with him just one more time why living is such an amazing feeling.

Today, we explored Rio on our own and walked through Lapa, saw the Arcs do Lapa, the old aqueduct of the neighborhood, and also walked up the Escadaria Selaron, or the Selaron staircase, which were designed and out together by Jorge Selaron, a Chilean-born artist who created these beautiful and eclectically tiled steps as a personal tribute to Brazil. He worked incessantly on these steps and their tiles until the day he was found dead on them with burn marks.

As with major tourist attractions anywhere, the stairs were filled with lots of people, even locals just standing around it, chatting and smoking. As we reached the top, Chris wanted to take my picture right by a mosaic tiled image of the Brazilian flag when we suddenly heard a British man shout out and tumble down the top of the stairs. He looks to have hurt his leg with the fall, and a few men, presumably his friends, run down after him and carry him to a flat spot. We heard him say that he saw someone with a gun at the top of the stairs, so everyone immediately started walking down, including us. No one else ran down the stairs, though, except him, so it was hard to judge what really happened at the top. Either way, we never got up there.

After our morning trip up to Corcovado Mountain to see the Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer – he’s about 130 feet tall!) statue, we rushed onto the subway to get to Estadio Maracana, where the Belgium vs. Russia World Cup game was held. We found out that on game days, if you have game tickets, all you have to do is show your tickets to the train station workers, and they’d let you in free of charge four hours before the game, and four hours after.

I’ve never been in a stadium so full of energy before. I’ve been to one professional hockey game and about four or five baseball games in the States, but I’ve never seen chaos, cheering, and pride in the way I saw it today. Thousands of people were dressed up in either Belgium or Russia’s colors, with their faces painted and tall elaborate hats on. The Belgians wore their red devil hats and horns, while the Russians carried in big flags to represent their country. And the “waves” were real waves, not like the boring ones I’ve seen at other games where they half-happen maybe once or twice. I was sitting in an area where there were mostly Belgians with a sprinkling of Russians and their fans here and there.

At the end of the game, Belgium won, and they showed a count of how many spectators were at Maracana for this game today. Over 73,000 people came for this game; I was in a crowd of over 73,000 screaming football (soccer) fans today. And I actually watched the game and enjoyed it. Amazing.

We arrived in Rio this morning and took a cab from the airport to our apartment in Copacabana. During the drive, we immediately noticed the massive police presence all over the city, from the immediate vicinity of the airport, to along the highways, around the beaches — everywhere. And it wasn’t just local police, either; we saw military police and municipal police in big groups pretty much every 20 to 30 feet along Copacabana beach during our walk to the FIFA fest. I guess the country really is doing a lot to ensure the safety of its international guests during this massive sporting event.

Granted, I have noticed far fewer people carrying DSLR cameras around their necks or on their phones crossing the streets, but I am aware that a lot of these people are not locals (“cariocas”) and are visitors here for the World Cup games. During beach walk, I think I only saw three other people with DSLR cameras. I kept mine in a bag unless I was taking it out for a specific photo.

Since we’re leaving for Brazil in 11 days, I figured I would try to learn some basic Portuguese for our time there. My first time repetitively hearing Portuguese on a loud speaker was while I was waiting for our turn at the Brazilian consulate, and that, needless to say, was quite aggravating. Now that I am listening to it more, It sounds a lot more flowing and mellow than Spanish does to me. It’s confusing because some words sound very similar (the number three), while other words have absolutely nothing in common (thank you = gracias = obrigado(a)).

I was telling someone today that I was practicing and learning basic phrases, and he asked me if I was using Rosetta Stone. No, I responded. I’m actually just using YouTube! It’s amazing all the things you can learn just by going to YouTube. No wonder so many people waste so much time on it. All I need are three minutes per video, and I already can learn 2-4 different phrases. I don’t think my accent is terrible, either…

I’m down in Atlanta for client meetings for the next two and a half days. It’s partly exciting and partly stressful. Everything was planned really last minute since we were trying to coordinate schedules while also getting finance’s approval.

Work travel, to those who don’t do it, for some reason seems very glamorous. I guess I can understand why; you generally get to stay at 4- or 5-star hotels for some ridiculous amount of money that you would never normally pay for yourself, eat indulgent (or at least, “different”) meals, and get to break out of your normal day-to-day work routine at the usual office – all at the expense of your company. It’s nice to travel for work every now and then, but I have heard of people who have left jobs that have been 90%+ travel – they’re all consultants. Their biggest complaint despite accruing lifetime platinum status at hotels and on airlines and enough miles across airlines to get free flights and hotel rooms for the next five years of their lives – they were tired of living out of suitcase and just wanted some semblance of a routine and “normal” life.

I’m happy to get out of my day-to-day routine and finally meet my clients, who I’ve been working with for three months now without ever having met them. I wonder if there will be enough time to get some Georgian barbeque and see the World of Coca-Cola?

We just came back from our New Zealand trip last night, and though I miss the terrain and the greenery and the shapes of the clouds, I realized that I don’t think I could ever live somewhere like that – at least, not in this stage of my life. It’s a great place to go for a holiday or have a wedding, but living wise, I think I would get quite bored after a while. I’ve been told that even in the North Island, which has the bigger cities Wellington and Auckland, things never get as bustling as they do in cities like Melbourne or Sydney, so eventually the idyllic beauty that is New Zealand would cause me to miss city life and run back to it. The population of New Zealand is just under 4.5 million people… and about 60 million sheep. While the sheep are cute to look at when driving by in a car once a while, I would likely start getting annoyed by them, even if they are quite tasty.

Now that I’ve been to New Zealand, maybe I will finally watch Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit especially now that I know what New Zealand looks like, and I know that this beauty has not been enhanced by clicks on a computer. .

Recently, I decided that cemeteries are a waste of space. That sounds very disrespectful, but this is how I look at it: the earth is for the living, and the dead – well, their time on earth has passed (I’d like to think they’d be remembered). The world population keeps growing, so if we keep building cemeteries, where will all the living live? Tonight, we took a ghost tour (in a hearse that was actively used for 15 years) in Savannah, GA, and learned that a considerable portion of the city is built on top of an old cemetery. About 600 graves are at Colonial Park Cemetery, yet 11,000 graves were originally in the area about four times as large. This is what I think will happen one day once we run out of space for the living everywhere else.

In New York, there is always a wait for everything – bars, restaurants, Philharmonic or Shakespeare in the Park, etc. Every Independence Day, New Yorkers wait from the early morning to camp out just to see the mediocre fireworks over the East River or the Hudson. In Charleston today, we walked to the Waterfront Park to prepare to watch the fireworks at 9pm tonight and saw no one else there waiting. In fact, no one really started coming to set up their lawn chairs until around 6 or 7pm! It suddenly made me realize how much more laid back the rest of the country is and how they realize it’s not worth spending hours on end waiting for any single event to happen. New Yorkers seem to think it’s the “in” thing to wait their entire life. There’s too much waiting and not enough doing.