Sunday, revisited

It was my last day in Rio, and I feel really satisfied about how it ended.

After an early night on Saturday (we had all you can eat pizza and were too full and tired to do anything) it was easy to get up in the morning. Dani, Lucy and I met up and headed to the Ipanema street market, where I made my first ever 'big' art purchase. I was fairly nervous, spending a significant amount of money on a piece of art - I'm so glad I went through with it though. It depicts the favelas and it holds a lot of meaning for me. The vibrant colours, and textures - the emotions and complexity of life in the slums.

I'm standing next to the artist in the picture from yesterday's post.

After the market we sat in a picturesque little coffee shop and people watched for about an hour, until it was time to go Gabriel's house (Dani's Brazilian friend). We had planned to watch the World Cup soccer, and were pleasantly surprised when it turned out that Gabriel and his friends had prepared us a huge home cooked pasta meal. Food, wine, soccer, and some new Brazilian friends for the afternoon felt like a fitting way to end my adventure.

At 5:30 pm I rushed home, quickly packed and said my goodbyes to the people living at my guesthouse. I will really miss them...

I don't want to bore you with flight details, so I'll just say that my flights were great, and I actually managed to sleep for about 7 hours. The best part of the flights were the people I sat next to. For my journey to Houston, I sat next to Rosemary, a Catholic nun who was visting her sisters in South America. It was fascinating getting to hear the work that she and her sisters are doing around the world. Beautiful and sacrificial is the only way I can explain it.

Then, on my way home to Vancouver, I sat next to a psychologist who specializes in post traumatic stress disorder. He is currently working on a new theoretical model of treatment and I felt a little proud to be able to help him with some suggestions and ideas as we talked about the model. Hey, my psychology degree wasn't completely useless for once! : )

Finally, after travelling for almost 24 hours, I arrived at YVR. It was great to see my family. Isn't it funny how some things can change so much in the span of a month, and yet other things remain exactly the same?

Anyways, I'll stop now before I launch into a philosophical post : )

Thank God for a safe trip and a safe month spent in Brazil.

I'll post some more pics and a summary of my thoughts tomorrow....