I woke up early, or what would be early anywhere in Europe, and set out to do a little bit of early morning investigating. The second I stepped out from my hostel and looked left I saw the amazing statue of Christ the Redeemer high up on the hillside. Thats right, I saw the Dude himself the second I got outside, what an auspicious start.
I already knew in advance that it would be a hard time to find a bank that accepted European cards, I just didn't realise how hard or how far I had to walk in order to find my nearest citibank branch.
Although this place is big with tourists, and certainly the hostel though almost empty had only Americans and Europeans guests, but nobody around here speaks much English, which means that unless you speak Protuguese I now fully recommend either doing a whole lotta research before you go, book everything up with the internet before you arrive and / or go fully inclusive with a 3 or 4 star hotel and let the tour guide do all the legwork for you.
The place is a mix of modern and falling down, and there are cheap stalls to get food or a drink just about everywhere you look, so you shouldn't have to feel that they will direct you to all the most expensive places in town, and I know that with a local speaking guide around here to keep things honest a person could have a really nice time.
Thing is, that I am finding just like in southern europe only moreson, that south america really has a twin lifestyle that I am still desperately trying to grasp. The day scene is completely different from the night scene and you will have to chose which you want to focus on or face going without sleep in order to get the best of both worlds.
Most day places are closed on a Monday, seem to be dead or closed between 1 and 4 and then close up at 5 or 6 anyway, regardless of how many hours they were actually open, so you can find youtself trying to cram in a lot unless you give yourself enough days to see them all.
Then the day sort of dwindles and nothing can be done in the hours of dusk except a few restaurants and then once it gets to about 9pm then it all starts up again only the night version. This means that if you are meeting friends you have no rush to get home from work to take a shower as its all good bro, take as long as you like, the place wont open up for hours but once it does it will stay open til 2 or 3am.
I guess I never really spent long enough in London as a purist tourist to appreciate all the differences, but I am thinking that 3 days in each city is both too much AND too little, as being alone with no partner or friends I am already spending too much dead time where I can find nothing to do but also when the places are open I have not got enough time to see all or even most of them !
A familiar saying that it is quality not quantity comes back to my mind, and I have to remind myself that I chose to do things this way so that I can get a taste of each place and not become a local anywhere, so I should not really complain about things when it ends up like this.
What I do feel a tiny bit upset about is that, despite having the longest notice period of any of my world wide contacts, so far my native Brazilian contacts are really showing themselves up to be unreliable, and with only a few days left for them to prove otherwise things look pretty much like a complete no show in all three cities!
I would not have changed my route however, as reaching South America is far cheaper via Brazil than jumping to any other country here, and I have enjoyed my stay here so far, just a little more contact could have made all the sweeter.
I already knew in advance that it would be a hard time to find a bank that accepted European cards, I just didn't realise how hard or how far I had to walk in order to find my nearest citibank branch.
Although this place is big with tourists, and certainly the hostel though almost empty had only Americans and Europeans guests, but nobody around here speaks much English, which means that unless you speak Protuguese I now fully recommend either doing a whole lotta research before you go, book everything up with the internet before you arrive and / or go fully inclusive with a 3 or 4 star hotel and let the tour guide do all the legwork for you.
The place is a mix of modern and falling down, and there are cheap stalls to get food or a drink just about everywhere you look, so you shouldn't have to feel that they will direct you to all the most expensive places in town, and I know that with a local speaking guide around here to keep things honest a person could have a really nice time.
Thing is, that I am finding just like in southern europe only moreson, that south america really has a twin lifestyle that I am still desperately trying to grasp. The day scene is completely different from the night scene and you will have to chose which you want to focus on or face going without sleep in order to get the best of both worlds.
Most day places are closed on a Monday, seem to be dead or closed between 1 and 4 and then close up at 5 or 6 anyway, regardless of how many hours they were actually open, so you can find youtself trying to cram in a lot unless you give yourself enough days to see them all.
Then the day sort of dwindles and nothing can be done in the hours of dusk except a few restaurants and then once it gets to about 9pm then it all starts up again only the night version. This means that if you are meeting friends you have no rush to get home from work to take a shower as its all good bro, take as long as you like, the place wont open up for hours but once it does it will stay open til 2 or 3am.
I guess I never really spent long enough in London as a purist tourist to appreciate all the differences, but I am thinking that 3 days in each city is both too much AND too little, as being alone with no partner or friends I am already spending too much dead time where I can find nothing to do but also when the places are open I have not got enough time to see all or even most of them !
A familiar saying that it is quality not quantity comes back to my mind, and I have to remind myself that I chose to do things this way so that I can get a taste of each place and not become a local anywhere, so I should not really complain about things when it ends up like this.
What I do feel a tiny bit upset about is that, despite having the longest notice period of any of my world wide contacts, so far my native Brazilian contacts are really showing themselves up to be unreliable, and with only a few days left for them to prove otherwise things look pretty much like a complete no show in all three cities!
I would not have changed my route however, as reaching South America is far cheaper via Brazil than jumping to any other country here, and I have enjoyed my stay here so far, just a little more contact could have made all the sweeter.
No comments:
Post a Comment