OK. So technology better not let me down tonight! It's been a full day of adventure including a long bus ride to the mountains to tour the Anglican school at Araras and the Imperial Summer Palace at Petropolis. Rio sounds still abound daily (including what was either a tugboat horn--my guess--or a call to morning prayer--Noelle's guess;!the sound of the two resident dogs' ears flapping ouside his hotel door--Richard likes--and the whisper of a fine rain misting the city tonight. Amazing sights were everywhere today (including green and yellow parrots sighted flitting from tree to tree during our morning prayer, green and yellow streamers blowing in the breeze awaiting Friday's World Cup victory, and mountainsides alive with tropical greenery, wild orchids, rocks and houses seemingly hanging there). Today, though, is the day for smells.
So as to avoid another computer crash and instant loss of this blog, I'm just going to list a few of my "sense of smell" experiences that will forevermore help define Rio for me: at breakfast, Brazilian coffee with warm milk, just-baked cheese balls and sliced fresh local fruits; the fresh morning air in our hotel's al fresco dining area; big city smells of gas and smoke ouside our street-level bedroom window; an occasional whiff of a presumed (hopefully non-threatening) gas leak immediately outside our hotel's gates; beans at lunch; green basil and other herbs growing in the church-sponsored organic garden side-by-side with the earthy smells of the garden compost and the dump immediately outside the garden's walled perimeter; the musty, welcoming, comforting scent of the Cathedral of Sao Paulo; homebaked bread; aromatic smoke up in the mountains; odors that are a result of people living on the streets; the food fare of street vendors; new paint covering the walls of the soon-to-be opened crèche for infants; many limes sliced and served in my tasty every-evening caipirinhas; mouthwatering smell of chocolate at the 1913 chocolate store in Petropolis.... Thus concludes my attempt to identify a few of the rich daily smells that make Rio Rio for me.
