Or, a snowman was built by me, a few hours ago.
Either way, it’s Christmas time.
I would like to believe that the cold material I harvested from the sides of our broken, bronze ooze-spewing freezer was real snow.
But it was ice shingles pried and hacked off a broken freezer.
I didn’t began wailing on the ice with the intention of constructing anything, much less a pleasant symbol of the holiday season that I find increasingly impossible to get in the spirit of. I was merely trying to open the door to a frozen-shut freezer.
The build up to my Rio Christmas has been odd.
I’m accustomed to an influx of family, decornaments tossed to and fro, cold temperatures, big trees, mad grub, presenting, purchasing, wrapping, gingerbread stacking, grab bagging, the Grinch/Christmas story on repeat, etc.
Call this tropical Christmas whatever it may be but from the summer-mall-décor onset it’s been strange.
For starters, the hostel we stayed at for our first 3 weeks in the city invited us to participate in something they call “amigo oculto.” Disgusted by the imagined initiation processes of this “friend cult” I was halfway to anywhere-but-there when I found out it was a gift exchange, thing.
So, we drew names and were set to deliver our $R 10-20 gift to our cult pal on the 16th. Among the dozen names, was the adorable 15-year-old, boyfriend of the hostel’s 22-year-old hostel manager (the cult consisted of hostel employees, their significant others and close friends of the hostel).
The boy doesn’t speak English and I hadn’t seen much of him since we moved to the Jungle house in October. His eyebrow raising relationship with our Hostel-manager-friend, also male, put a “Keepin’ It almost too Rio” spin on the gift exchange scouring.
In short, I did what any respectable hip-hop enthusiast would do and I bought him Jay-Z’s “Fade To Black” DVD with Portuguese subtitles.
The gift exchanging went well enough and I wont go into Cheesy details, aside from this Vasco towel I got.
Now, adding to the holidoddity is the trip we are embarking on tomorrow.
We are joining our Brazilian friend, codename Luiz, to his “beach house” in Cabo Frio, a weekend get-a-way spot for upper class Cariocas.
First of all, this “beach house” has 40 beds in 10 rooms and was supposed to be a hostel. Now, it’s just used by three gringos and a three toed sloth looking Brazilian dude.
****Watch video of the aforementioned sloth here. Indeed they are hilarious in their slowness and also a Presidential declared official animal of Brazil.
As curiously as those Sloths dangle, so does my mind at the reasons our overly-nice friend is driving us to such a location on such a family specialized occasion in such a seemingly strong family based country (ain’t no one live out they house until they hitched). Other friends are set to meet up with us during our Dec. 23,24,25,26 stay, pushing my pondering to the brink.
So, Cabo Frio is a quaint community where the rich migrate to in order to talk about how much better life is without street dwelling/pick-pocketing/ public defecating/ beach mobbing/ favelados are. Or at least, that’s what they tell me.
They also tell me the beaches are nice, so as long as the thunderstorms remain as isolated as the weather websites tell me — I might get a Christmas tan.
Weird. What the hell is a Christmas tan? The only skin shade change I’m used to during the holidays comes through loss of feeling in my cheeks, during Utah blizzards.
Maybe that was the feeling I was building towards when I constructed the freezer iceman who I tried to pass off as a snowman.
Either way, to all those enjoying any sort of regular Christmas traditions, I envy you a tad.
Stop reading the Rio blog and chug a few glasses of eggnog for the both of us.
Feliz Natal
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