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  Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Wednesday, December 19, 2007

I rent a bike at this local bicycle shop and I cruise around Rio for most of the day.  I look like the biggest tool on this thing.  The seat is super low and because of ingenious Brazilian engineering a method for raising the seat higher does not exist.  My knees come up to my fucking chin and they may have as well just given me a big wheel.  The handle bars flare out which make them wider than need be.  If you put a basket on this sucking thing and a lil dog in that basket I would more or less resemble Dorothy except in color.  I lean back as far as possible in the seat which enables my legs to stretch a bit farther on the pedals.  But still, all in all, I look like a complete douchebag.  I ride around the lake and I go check out the botanical gardens (the bike came with a lock which seems unneccesary as I don`t think even Winona Ryder would steal this piece of crap).  The botanical gardens are about 28 times better than I expected.  It`s like hooking up with a nasty chick at a bar who has been dancing all night and you just know her vag is gonna reek to high heaven, but then you are pleasantly surprised when you smell your finger the next day and it contains no superfluous odors.  There is a path there that is lined by Venzuelean palm trees which are very cool as they grow much higher than typical palms and their trunks are white in color.  And in the middle of this path is a large fountain sculpted with Eastern Asian decor in mind.  Walking down this path was like something out of Raiders of the Lost Ark.  I later saw some monkeys darting about in the trees above.  Very nice.  I dig seeing animals in their natural habitats.  A safari to Africa would be awesome one day.  I leave here and try to find the mansion (which is very close by, or so my book says) where Snoop shot his "Beautiful" video but I basically just cycle around in a loop for half n hour and I never do find it.  I ride along the bike path which lines the beaches of Leblon, Ipanema and Copacabana to the amusement of all who see me on what can only be described as a girl`s bike. 

I end up in Copa and meet Mel at our kiosk for a couple of beers.  She ends up buying us food as well and I can almost not afford to hang out with this chick, I`m saving money by the buttloads.  I head back to the hostel and meet a new roomate who is French and a chick.  She`s cool for a French person and she actually likes Americans which shocks me.  She even tells me, "I don`t care what people say about Americans, sure they are rude and tactless and unrefined (not her exact words probably, but close enough) but if you want to have fun and a good time hang with Americans".  So true.  We head up to the bar and I end up sitting down with 3 Irish chicks who are a great time.  The one is named Ursula and is cute but she`s Irish so she`s ugly (I could be wrong, and correct me if I am Barry, but I have yet to meet a smoking Irish chick and I`m not sure one exists, maybe it`s just my taste in women).  This is their last night abroad and will be returning home tomorrow after being away for 8 months.  This hits me like Danny Tartabull hitting a baseball or Peter North hitting a pussy, very hard.  Whoa, 8 months and then that`s it, back to what they call the real world.  I have yet to think about that day when I return and for a few minutes I contemplate this unavoidable scenario.  I mean how can I possibly go home and work behind a desk for 8+ hours a day after everything I have been exposed to?  Humans weren`t meant to sit behind a computer in a little cubicle for 90,000 hours of their lives.  My worldview has definitely been enhanced on this trip and I don`t want to say this trip has ruined me in terms of a boshit career I could care less about as it has more like opened my eyes just a bit wider.  I definitely see more and know more concerning what is important in life than ever before.  I can`t even imagine my last day here knowing I have to return home the next.  Corporate boshit and money has to be the number one cause of stress and anxiety in humans today.  I think about how so many people`s goal in life is to obtain material possessions in order to look successful to others.  They don`t really care about the pessessions in and of themselves, they care about the implied significance that they believe (and more importantly what they believe other`s believe) a certain possession represents (status, success, a better life compared to someone else`s etc etc).  I need to rid my biological self of such insignificant behavorial patterns.  I look at my parents in this context as they are the epitome of living a life without caring what other`s think based on what you have or what you own.  My parent`s never had much money and never tried to act otherwise.  They don`t care about having a bigger house (sure, they would like a bigger house, doesn`t everyone but they know they don`t need one and I think they know a bigger house wouldn`t increase their happiness) or driving BMW`s or wearing designer clothes or trying to show off to neighbors by buying a car they can`t afford.  All that really matters in this life is how much fun you have and how happy you are, not only at the end of the day but from each moment to the next.  Anyways, this is the first time I think of what I will do when I return home.  As of now I think I will take the summer off to paint and attempt to get a gallery showing.  If I can paint without interruption (5 days a week) I should be able to knock out a painting every two weeks more or less which will be about 20x faster than I would finish a painting before I left.  Of course it`s probably stupid and it`s a 1000 to 1 that anything will pop off, but it`s what I enjoy and if I don`t take a shot now then I never will.  If you don`t try you will never know.  I must remember though, if I didn`t work at a white collar job for the last 10 years I probably would never have been able to take this trip in the first place.  No matter what, no matter how much it sucks and no matter how much you wish things were different, money does matter, to a certain point. 

Ok enough of my cotemplating irrelevant shit.  Back to the night.  The Irish girls are so awesome that I wish they weren`t leaving the next day.  Irish people + beer = good times.  Oh and one more thing, man, if I get a real job that means I have to remove all my piercings, I have grown accustomed to these things (in case you didn`t know I have one piercing in my right ear, one in my left, and then two more in my left ear but higher up in the cartiledge).  The girls basically convince me to go to Bolivia.  I have already expanded my trip to Peru because I have to see Machu Pinchu before they close it to the public forever.  I have heard from several people now that the salt plains in Bolivia are one of the coolest things they have seen on their route through SA.  The one girl also tells me you can swim with dolphins in a river there, which seems odd but I suppose she has no reason to lie.  I guess they are called pink dolphins and they maintain the same habitat as piranhas and alligators but these creatures stay away as the dolphins are complete badasses and can fuck em up.  Seeing dolphins in a river in the middle of Bolivia would be like seeing a hot chick in Hanna`s apartment or speakers in Beethoven`s (he was deaf in case you didn`t know, not at birth, but later on).  And like I said before I want to mountain bike down Death Road.  You need a yellow fever shot and depending on where you go in Bolivia you need to take malaria tablets.  The girls tell me they will give me a syringe (as you don`t want to trust Bolivia when it comes to supplying a syringe) and the rest of their malaria tablets which they tell me are the best you can buy as they cause no side effects.  One tablet alone costs $4 euros which is not quite $6 amd they say they have like 20 or so left.  So cool of them, to just give me like $125 worth of necessary supplies.  We have a great time but I have to go meet Mel and they tell me when I get back that since their room is right next to mine, not to feel bad if I accidentally walk into theirs and fall into one of their beds.  They tell me they occupy the bottom bunks and that they won`t be wearing panties, so I can just slide right in (it would be like humping a big stack of pancakes).  Hah, so easy, too bad they are pale and freckly.  When I get back at who knows what time in the morning I see that one of them wrote on the dry erase board hanging on my door "Shawn love (heart symbol) me".   Awwwwwwww.

Fin

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