Rio de Janeiro
Too much to say about this magical place - it's so marvelous as they call it but it can also be surprisingly disenchanting when you live there long enough. But that happens anywhere and everywhere. For me, I first went there over a decade ago when I was an exchange student in grad school on a scholarship. I was supposed to study international relations at PUC and I was signed up for energy economics and the like. My favorite class ended up being art. That and I studied the culture a lot - at the beach and at the gym mainly. I lived in Leblon where I was placed by the program. Years later I went back for work occasionally since I was mostly working in SP. But way before I'd ever even been to Sao Paulo for work and it felt like a tropical New York with green and everyone dressed to the nines wearing black, I was in love with Rio's style which is made up of the individual elements of the greater whole of course - the nature, the beach as the "living room" where you found your friends and met up with them way before there were cell phones, the Carioca attitude and lifestyle - but granted, this is a big city, (like a combination of Los Angeles and Miami as it's described to Americans for a bit of insight and imagination) so there are a variety of enclaves and different people who make up this huge place.
Even several years later I went two years in a row to Rio and stayed around 3 months each time. I'd traveled around the area too. I love the tropical climate, the crumbling beauty, the botanical gardens, the tropical fruit, my favorite foods there, the beauty everywhere to take in and photos never do justice. You can, however, glimpse the magic. You know if you've been there, which a lot of people have. But living there most certainly gets you deeper into the culture. Staying in a hotel on vacation in Ipanema or Copacabana isn't the same as living in Copa or another neighborhood. Botafogo was fun and full of hipster places the last few years. I still love Santa Teresa as much as I always did - the bohemian enclave that always attracted the artists and still does. Zona Norte has beautiful old homes and cobblestones just like the little pockets downtown in Centro where the artists always lived. Seeing Centro and Gamboa gentrify is interesting too. You can even walk around downtown in daylight like we did over ten years ago when young and not really knowing. But then again, now even Vidigal is touristy with the hostel and restaurant at the top. Taking a photography class at the famous photography institute in Leme was fun - even if I didn't know all the technical words in Portuguese. I just listened and followed along, wandering around when we'd go on photo shoots. I learned lots of the carioca ways - what you do and don't do - the customs, the invisible rules of the culture. I had my rituals and favorite places - like Hortifrute. The people though - if you make some Carioca friends, which you always do - are what make the place, just like anywhere. The nature and its stunning and exquisite beauty certainly don't hurt either. I will always have a place in my heart for Rio and many of its people. I never knew nor imagined I'd spend so much time there, but isn't that just how life works.
