Back to Rio

We had to be up early to pack up and check out of our hostel to make the 9:00am ferry back to Rio. The guy who owned the hostel was there to say goodbye to us which was very sweet. We grabbed coffee and some breakfast at the cafe and then hurried to meet Matilda at the ferry since I had the ticket voucher for all three of us. It was an hour long ferry, during which I blogged the whole time in an attempt to get caught up before I got back to Rio so I could upload them before my flight to New Zealand.

Once we landed, we piled into a big van with 15 other people and began the drive back to Rio. What had taken us only three hours on the way there took close to five on the way back due to some horrible traffic. It was really hot out and with the lack of airflow in the car I was about ready to kill someone. We had pre-booked a room at the El Misti hostel thinking that they only had one Copacabana location, but as I looked at the address on our reservation slip, I realized that they must have another location because the address was different from where we'd stayed before. Turns out they have four locations just in Copacabana! I was annoyed because I was having my credit card mailed to the other location, but luckily it was just down the street. We checked in and got our room assignments, once again in the three story bunk beds. Matilda was staying in our room as well as a gay couple. One of the gay boys was from the US and made it clear right from the start that he was gay so that "we would be comfortable sleeping in the same room as him". That made me laugh, since we've stayed in countless rooms with random men, but it was nice that he thought that might make us feel better. Come to find out, Alyssa says she does sleep better in female dorms. I, on the other hand, could care less who is in there as long as they are quiet.

We decided the first order of business would be to get some lunch. We walked down toward the beach and showed Matilda around a bit so she could get her bearings since she had never been to Rio. We ate lunch at a cafe chain we had tried before which was good but a little overpriced.

After lunch, we headed back to the hostel to do some research on New Zealand. There was so much to plan and we really had not done anything yet. We also needed to buy our tickets for our flight from Australia to Vietnam to meet Jessica for Christmas, which we should have done months before. That took forever since all of the flights that we had originally looked up were no longer available. This El Misti was more of a bed and breakfast, so they provided us with a coffee and cake hour which aligned itself perfectly with our research time.

Alyssa had made plans to have drinks with a guy we had met a few nights before but I was content to stay in, skype some friends and family and work on my blog. I did venture out with Matilda to an Asian restaurant for dinner at around 10:00pm, since neither of us had eaten. She is a really wonderful girl and was great to talk to. After we got back, I continued working until around 2:00am, determined to finish everything before I left. It was good timing because Alyssa got back just as I finished up and I didn't want to go to sleep before she was back anyways. Sadly we didn't get much sleep though because the guys staying in our room had gone out drinking and were very loud when they came in to the room, turning on the lights and banging around. Maybe staying in a room with women is better...they are generally more respectful and don't snore.

Posted with Blogsy