On this day last year I was doing this...
...hang gliding over Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Easily one of the top ten greatest things I've ever done. Rio was the last stop on a 21 day cruise that me and my friend Katherine were lucky enough to experience. I'll just give a super brief summary because it is probably boring to anyone but me and Katherine. We started in Barcelona, Spain where we boarded the 800-passenger Marco Polo (The average age of the passengers was around 65, literally I'm not exaggerating) We stood out like sore thumbs but we really didn't care. We stopped in Malaga and Cadiz, Spain-both beautiful. Then Casablanca (where we saw the 2nd or 3rd largest mosque in the world, Hassan II)and Agadir, Morocco.
Before the cruise we had booked our own excursion in Agadir, and went 4-wheeling in the sub-Saharan, desert. This was my 2nd favorite part of the trip because we stopped in a Berber village and drank tea with the natives. It was just the two of us and our tour guide so the whole thing was really authentic and intimate. Luckily, we made it back to the ship without being killed in traffic, people there literally DO NOT obey traffic lights, signs,and laws in general. The people were really kind but it was such an eye opener to experience a 3rd world country and see the heaps of garbage and ghettos up close as you can see in the picture.
Then we went to the Canary Islands, where we got to ride camels!!! (My third favorite part of the trip)
The island we were on was pretty much all volcanic rock. It was beautiful because all the houses are required by law to be white, rectangular and only 2 stories high max. our next stop was Cape Verde, off the West coast of Africa which had one of the most beautiful beaches. Then we spent four days crossing the Atlantic, finally coming to port in Fortaleza where we road buggies on these huge sand dunes right by the beach.
Our next port was Recife, which some may recognize from shark week specials-it has the most shark attacks than any other city in the world. We stayed out of the water and visited this old military fort that was straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean. Salvador was the last stop before ending in Rio. It was gorgeous, old European architecture from the Portuguese settlers against the poverty of modern Brazil, set in a Rain forest. After the cruise, we stayed in Rio for 3 days and I completely fell in love with it. The city itself is breathtaking, gorgeous white sand beaches, rain forest and jutting mountains with the Christ the Redeemer statue overlooking the entire city. Not to mention that the food is amazing, they put cheese in almost everything, and you can get a huge plate of delicious food for about $2.50.
The whole experience was superb, and totally worth the 33 hour trip home.
Here is a little video I took from inside our taxi in Agadir, complete with Euro/African techno...
I realize this was a few weeks ago, but some of the pictures are just too good to pass up. First, Lacey Lani and I went to Twilight where we kind of heard the movie over the squeals of the pubescent audience members. For some weird reason that theater was way worse than the one on opening night. Then my mom and Lisa joined us to make these little countdown to Christmas advent calendars. It was really fun, and we always have a good time taking fake, ultra-cheesy candids...
This was the finished product
Then on Black Friday McCall, Megan, Sara and I braved Fashion Place mall's midnight opening. The highlight for me was when they first opened the doors and everyone sprinted in. We found some pretty sweet deals and had a blast. Megan was lucky enough to snatch one of these bad boys before they all got sold out (sorry the picture is a little blurry, and if you couldn't catch the sarcasm)
After a few hours of shopping we needed a little R&R at BrookStone where we basked in the glory of there full-body massage chairs.
And perhaps the greatest find of the night...this weird "ab work-out" machine at BrookStone that was as close to a mechanical bull as you can get. amazing.
Then me and Megan went to Best Buy at 5:00 am where I got a couple of blu-rays. I was very impressed with he way Best Buy handled all the crowds. We ended the night/morning at Target at 6:00 am. It was ridiculous. Two lines at both doors, wrapped all the way to the back of the building, and once inside, every single register was open and each had a line of at least 12 people.
We decided we didn't want anything that bad and left. People were being ridiculous, ramming into eachother with there carts, yelling about DVD's and just acting ridiculously animalistic in general. I can now fully understand the term 'mob mentality'.
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