I go to Melbourne a couple times a year, for work. It’s where our HQ is, and it’s good to have time in person with my colleagues. It used to be that most of this time was spent at big tables or in front of whiteboards. There’s still quite a lot of that, but the past two or three times I was in Australia, I spent a much larger chunk of time at a desk, programming. Surely not the majority of my time, but enough time that I cared about the ergonomics. So, last time I was there, I dug through the spare hardware cupboard and put together the best workstation I could. It was… not great. Fortunately for me (in one sense, anyway), one of my colleagues was on leave. I boldly appropriated his desk, which was much better hardware than my scavenging had gotten me. The thing that I ended up grumbling about, though, was the mouse and keyboard.

Let’s be clear: This was all on me! I don’t need the Australian office to stock all my favorite hardware for the 7% of the year I spend there. On the other hand, I did feel like I wanted to plan ahead for next time. I keep a bag of stuff in the Melbourne office to make the trip easier. This is mostly cables, adapters, and toiletries. It’s much nicer to have my favorite Merkur safety razor waiting for me than to spend two weeks using disposables. My plan was to put a keyboard and mouse in that bag. Maybe a little USB hub. Simple, right? Well…

I’m fussy about my keyboards. I’m not a keyboard wonk, I think. I know just a little bit about mechanical keyboards, and I know what I like. Mostly, what I like is full size (with numeric keypad) keyboards, in the traditional layout, with clicky switches. When I started thinking about taking a keyboard to Australia, I owned three mechanical keyboards. All Ducky brand, all with Cherry MX blue switches. Surely, I could just go order one of these, right? Well, it didn’t seem like it. They were backordered everywhere I looked. The most likely-seeming one was the Ducky One 3, which looked about right. I almost just ordered it, but then I remembered: a lot of keyboards are now configurable via software. That sounded interesting, so I did some more digging.

The short version is that there’s an open-source firmware for keyboards called QMK, and lots of keyboards use it. It lets you remap keys, program macros, and do that sort of thing. A coworker asked, “Why is that better than just updating your settings in macOS?” The answer is, basically: If you tell your keyboard that its caps lock key should act like a control key, it will do that on every computer you attach it to, with no configuration required. The longer form answer is that you can do all sorts of weird stuff that macOS would never allow.

Ducky doesn’t support QMK (or other reprogramming) on most of their keyboards. The one I did find with QMK is the “Ducky One X ‘Inductive Keyboard’”. They bill it as “the world’s first inductive keyboard”. I don’t really understand what an inductive switch is. I looked into it a little. I do know that it’s not a clicky blue switch, though, and I know that it costs a lot more than my usual keyboards. Pass.

Now I was sort of in open territory where I didn’t want to be: picking a new kind of keyboard. This was agony. I was trying to remember what other models I’d used. I looked into one in the US office (where most of the keyboards are mechanical, with brown switches), and was reminded how much I dislike clamped-in stabilizer bars. (More on that later, maybe.) Figuring out just what I wanted seemed like it was going to be a pain. Also, the news kept telling me about massive impending tariffs, which were surely going to punish me for delaying on ordering hardware from abroad.

Keyboard 1

Eventually, I found myself looking at Keychron. I knew of them only because a few years ago I bought a four-pack of Keychron C1 mechanical keyboards for the office for $50. In my mind, they were some sort of Johnny-come-lately cheap-o brand. On the other hand, their site had an enormous variety of keyboards, and I couldn’t find anything online that backed my view. I decided to order a K10 Max QMK, which ticked a couple key boxes: it’s programmable with QMK and it’s wired (but also works over Bluetooth or with its own transceiver)

The problem was that it didn’t have a blue switch option. Red, Brown, or (I’m not kidding) Super Banana. Reds and browns, I knew, were no good for me. Super banana, I was not sure, but I didn’t want to commit to something I might not like. The good news is that the K10 is hot-swappable. That means that after you pull the keycap off of the switch, you can pull the switch out, too, and replace it. I gather that some gamers put different switches in for different keys. I don’t really know why, but it’s something like “I want a really low activation force for my movement keys but a really quick reset for my trigger keys”. I didn’t care enough to look into it. My goal was to put in one hundred blue switches and dump all the originals into a box.

I ordered the K10 along with a tube of 110 Cherry MX blue switches. When it arrived, I played around for a bit, but quickly got to work pulling off all the keycaps and pulling out all the switches. This was easy, although the switch-pulling tool that came with the keyboard was a bit rough on my fingers. With all the (red) switches pulled, it was time to put in the blues. Inserting is not as simple as pulling, sadly. At the bottom of each switch are two stiff wires that slide into receivers in the keyboard. The upper part of the switch has two little arms that snap into place when the switch is seated. If the wires aren’t perfectly lined up, or aren’t straight, they will buckle or bend, and then the switch won’t form a circuit with the PCB.

This means that for each switch you insert, you first need to look carefuly at the leads to make sure that they’re straight and whole. It’s a little slow-down, but not so bad.

I put on some music and got to work. Pretty soon, I’d replaced all the switches and put the keycaps back on. I opened the Keychron Launcher to begin phase two. The Keychron Launcher is a web interface for managing the keyboard’s settings. It amazes me, because it uses a web API called WebHID, which gives your browser access to your HID devices per se. I had to use Chrome, but when I did, let let me flash my keyboard’s firmware and update its keymap. It also had a key tester that let me test every single key. When one or two didn’t work, I pulled the switches and replaced them with spares. Pretty soon, the whole keyboard worked and had a mapping I liked. I was delighted. Sure, it was expensive, but it has a great weight, it has the switches I like, and I could keep tweaking the keyboard layout until I was perfectly happy.

Keyboard 2

It was good enough that I went right ahead and ordered another one, that one for my office. In the week since my first order, the price had gone up $20 — almost certainly tariff-related. This was just the first problem.

I ordered that second keyboard on April 6th, and I had it in my hands on the 10th. I stuck around a little late after work to swap out the switches. Pretty soon I had a keyboard that worked great… except for eleven keys, as seen here.

Many of the keys worked if I replaced my aftermarket blue switches with the original reds that were included, so my first theory was that I had quite a lot of busted blue switches. I know the failure rate on switches is high, so I went with that theory and ordered more. Unfortunately, when they arrived, it didn’t help. The reds still worked and the blues didn’t. Except, sometimes the reds didn’t. Mostly it was centered around one part of the board, and if I pressed hard, they would start or stop working. I called on my friend Jesse, established member of the keyboard-industrial complex. He worked with me for a while, prompting me to do stuff I never would’ve done, like close circuits with a wire lead. Eventually, he was having me send close-up photos of the printed circuit board that all the keys slot into. He said, “Oh, look at those sockets! They’re at a bit too much of an angle, you’re not going to get good connections with those at all, they need re-soldering correctly.”

Here’s a photo from around that time. Is it a bad socket? I’m not sure, I had a hard time seeing it, but Jesse seemed convinced, and I believe him. But this might be an unrelated photo. My point is, this is what I was stuck thinking about!

Friends, I did not spent $190 on a pre-assembled keyboard just to be stripping things down to the PCB and re-soldering them! I’m not that kind of computer nerd! Frustrated, I wrote in to Keychron, who said they’d send me another PCB. Not as good as another keyboard, but I could do this. Eventually, the package came. I carefully disassembled my keyboard: I removed the keycaps, then the switches, then the top case, then the plate, then then PCB. I attached the new PCB, put on the top case, and put in the switches. I was not bold enough to put on all the keycaps, though. I fired up the Keychron Launcher and entered key test mode. Almost perfect. Everything worked except for one key that I’d hardly need: t.

Probably I could key in a whole paragraph, using only such glyphs as remained available. I mean, I had a double dozen symbols under my fingers, plus one! Only one member of our language’s ABCs was missing. Sadly, my keyboard was here for work, and my job is hardly one focused on producing source code lipogram. If I was gonna use my new device, I would need all 101 keys working.

I took the keyboard apart again to see how things looked. They didn’t look good.

Look at this a little while and you’ll see one of those black shapes isn’t in line with the others. It’s not just bent, it’s totally disconnected. It had fallen off the PCB and was sitting under it inside the keyboard. That’s the socket, and it’s how the keyswitch connects to the circuit so that, when pressed, the switch closes the circuit. If the socket falls off, the key absolutely will not work.

“What do I do now?” I asked Jesse.

“You solder it,” he said. “Good luck.”

Fortunately, I had a soldering iron, never used. I got in the 2023 Bag of Crap from Jesse’s company. He reported its original price as $2.60. After trying to use it, I’m sorry to say that it was closer to $0 in value. Mine did not heat up at all when plugged in. It probably could’ve been used as an awl, but what I needed was a very hot metal point, and I didn’t want to heat it up on coals. I moaned and wailed in the office, and my coworker Kurt said he’d bring in a proper soldering iron for me to use. I was still pretty frustrated at being in this position, but if it was going to get my keyboard working, fine.

He brought in a soldering iron and magnifiers, and I got to work. Five or six times, on three or four distinct days, I tried to solder that socket back on. I couldn’t get it done. On one hand, it’d been decades since I last soldered anything. On the other hand, I felt sort of incompetent.

I emailed Keychron again: Look, I said, the new PCB is at least as bad off as the old one. I tried hard to not ask you for more, because I’m sure the tariffs are a problem, but at this point I think I’ve done enough. Can you just ship me a new complete keyboard so I am not forced to perform work on yet another replacement part?

“No problem,” they said. “We’ll send you a new printed circuit board.”

Steam came from my ears, and Kurt pitied me. “Let’s fix that,” he said.

Kurt sat down and methodically performed about a dozen steps, including the three that I’d performed, plus another nine that probably made any part of the job actually work. With the piece soldered on, I reassembled they keyboard and 99% of the switches worked. I took a deep breath, pressed down on the remainder, and then they all worked. I screwed everything together and put on the keycaps. Everything was going great…

…until the very, very last keycap. Remember at the very beginning, I said I like to get a keyboard with a ten-key numeric keypad? I really do, and I use it! The last key I was putting on was the keypad’s “Enter” key, at the far bottom right. They keycap went on, but it didn’t bounce up when pressed. It stayed down. They Keychron keyboard had the screwed-in stabilizers like I like, but the stabilizers on this key were now partly stuck in place. They’d move if pushed or pulled, but it took more force than the spring in the keyswitch. Here’s a demonstration:

I asked Jesse, but he didn’t have any advice that avoided disassembling the dang thing again. I really, really wanted to avoid that. I’d had this thing for two months, and I just wanted to have it in place and working. I searched the internet, I wiggled at the crossbar of the stabilizer, but nothing helped.

Here’s the thing about stabilizers: the wider or longer the key, the more important the stabilizer is, and the closer to the edge you his the key, the more important the stabilizer is. The keypad’s enter key is pretty short, at 2u, and I’d mostly hit it toward the middle, anyway. I didn’t need a stabilizer! Taking the stabilizer out would be a keyboard-disassembling task. On the other hand, I could mangle the keycap so that it wouldn’t snap onto the stabilizer, and would only connect to the switch. I got a spare keypad enter key, I got a pair of pliers, and I fixed that keyboard.

Now I have working, clicky, programmable, lovely keyboards on my desks at work and at home. I’m pleased with them. On the other hand, this was a stupid amount of work, given the cost of the things. I think I’d be happy to buy another Keychron, and certainly I’d like my next keyboard (if I ever have to buy another) to be programmable with something like QMX. On the other hand, I only wanted hot-swappable keys for the sake of getting blues. I think my next keyboard will have to come preassembled with blue switches, preferably soldered right on by somebody else.

After this was all over, I took Kurt out for some beers as thanks, which came with the bonus of getting me the pleasure of his company for a couple hours. Next time, I’ll also do that without all the soldering.

I’d had four days in Rio so far (and one in Miami, better left unmentioned). I had covered lots of ground for things I wanted to see, and also lots of things I didn’t know I should see. I had eaten so, so much cassava. I had lots of things left unseen, lots of food left uneaten, and just about two days left to fill. I think I made good use of my time, but I definitely left things to do… next time?

Monday

Monday, I was on my own again for most of the day. This is not a complaint. Breno and Barbara were incredibly generous with their time! Also, even though I usually enjoy touring around with people, it can be good to wander alone, with no worry about whether you’re bring a frightful bore to your companion. I had a handful of things on my potential agenda for the day, but I only ended up visiting two of them: Parque Lage and the Botanical Garden.

Many, many times, I had to remind myself that Parque Lage is not Portguese for “Lake Park”. It’s named after Henrique Lage. I don’t know much about him, but he seems to have been a very wealth industrialist in the early 20th century, so I’m okay not knowing more, I think. Now, the land around his mansion is a large public park with lots of tree cover and plenty of interesting features. When I was there, I don’t think the building was open for visiting — or at least I couldn’t find an open entrance. Instead, I walked around the grounds, looked at ponds, hiked through overgrown paths, and took a lot of photos.

I was there for a good two hours, just walking and looking around. It’s a little odd that I don’t have more to say, but I think it’s all in the photos. Once in a while I sat down and read a chapter or two of a book. I took a photo for an older couple walking together. At one point, I accidentally walked the wrong way, left the path, wandered through the woods for a while, and found a surprise view of the city through the trees:

What else is there to say? If I lived nearby, I’d go there often to sit and read and make take a little lunch with me.

Afterward, I had meant to walk a little south to the lagoon and walk south along it to the city’s botanical garden. I forgot, though, and just walked straight down R. Jardim Botânico, which was sort of a boring walk. It wasn’t bad, and I did some people watching, but mostly it was uninteresting. Eventually, though, I came to the garden, which was not uninteresting. I spent four hours walking through the gardens, only partly because I had such a hard time navigating them.

If I ran the botanical garden, I’d be pushing Apple and Google to add a bunch more detail to their maps, because the paper map they handed out did not cut it. I had a hard time finding almost everything, but in the end it all worked out. I’ll try to summarize some of the best things I saw:

There was a “biblical garden”, full of plants mentioned in the Bible. The plaque for each one provided a chapter and verse for where to find them.

There was a primitive hut among a bunch of trees, and all I could think of was the botanical gardens in The Shadow of the Torturer, where the narrator encountered a similar (also seemingly South American) hut.

There was an orchid house with many kinds of orchid in bloom.

There was a garden of only medicinal plants, including notes on what cultures used them, and for what purposes.

There was a big section of cacti, with a surprising amount of diversity.

There were the obligatory Japanese garden and rose garden.

Also, there were monkeys.

Probably there are people who know how to write compelling, detailed, informative notes on a visit to a place like this. I’m not one of them, though. I’ll say this: I enjoyed the place enough that I spent four hours there and might have stayed longer if I didn’t have anywhere to be. Oh, and if the food was better. I had a pretty mediocre salad there, which was absolutely my own fault. I should’ve eaten something on the walk.

After the garden, I headed back to my apartment, cooled off a little, and did a quick bout of shopping. My plan was to meet Breno nearby for dinner and drinks. We went to Boteco Belmonte and hung out for a good while, trying small plates and having a few drinks. The food was good, and the company was better. Despite my small lunch and all my walking, I wasn’t terribly hungry, or I would’ve kept exploring the menu. I had my last caipirinha of the trip, but I also decided to try their Moscow Mule. It was a strange one, with the ginger added as a sort of creamy foam on top. I’m not sure I’d order it often, but it was fun as a weird surprise.

I had meant to see some other things on Monday, but I was pretty happy with the hours spent just looking at the outdoors. In retrospect, I just wish I’d gotten one more caipirinha, to go. Or maybe on the way back to my apartment.

Tuesday

Tuesday was my last day! My flight out of Rio was at 23:00, and I had to leave my apartment around eleven. Barbara and Breno graciously invited me to come by, leave my bags, and spend the day. I spent the morning packing, running a few more errands, and finishing off most of my groceries.

On my way to their place, my phone ran out of data. I’d bought an eSIM with Airalo, which was mostly just fine. (Actually, the service I got in Brazil was not as good as what I’d gotten elsewhere, but it was totally adequate.) I’d even topped it off the previous day, but I think that all my roaming in the parks had me using more data than I thought. As my Uber got me closer to their place, I realized that the map wasn’t updating, and Discord was offline. I knew their address, and I thought I remembered how to contact them, but once I was out of the car, I was stumped. Eventually, I received an SMS from Breno, and I went back to his place and got in. I had misremembered how to ring him from the front gate!

Inside, I bought more data. More importantly, I got a tour of their place, had some chit chat, and then it was time for lunch. Lunch was homemade vegan moqeueca, with plantains replacing the fish. It was delicious. I’m pretty sure that my grandmother sometimes made a similar fish stew, but I haven’t yet confirmed this with my siblings. Anyway, it was great, and was followed by a dessert of passionfruit and condensed milk. Yum!

After lunch, Breno and I dropped his daughter at school and stopped into Casa Roberto Marinho, a large house that’s been converted into a gallery space. It was good, and was the nth place I’ve seen in the past few years featuring art depicting Laocoön. Weird? I don’t know.

From there, the plan was to see the one absolute must-see thing in Rio: the giant Christ the Redeemer statue. The statue is 98’ tall, atop a 26’ pedestal, atop a 2,300’ mountain. You can see it from all sorts of places in the city. I saw it from Sugarloaf. I saw it from the beach. I saw it from the highway while the police searched my bags. It was everywhere! Also, it was going to have an incredible view of the city.

The problem is… the weather was absolutely miserable. Every day until Tuesday had been sunny and clear, but Tuesday it was cloudy, windy, and raining. We hoped it would clear up before we went up, but it didn’t. I wasn’t too fussed, really. From up close, I knew I’d see the whole statue. Still, it was not the ideal weather for it. Breno was a sport and drove us up the mountain, where we caught a train to the top.

Here’s a view of the weather taken near where we caught the train:

An aside: I had called this train a “funicular” when talking to friends, but further research tells me that it isn’t one. It is a “rack railway”, where the train is driven by a cog along a toothed rail. This allows for much steeper gradients than a normal rail line. It was pretty cool, and from inside the train, you could definitely see and feel the slope at which the train was traveling. This particular railway is the Corcovado Rack Railway, and I will definitely be reading more about it later.

Once we got to the top, the situation was both better and worse than I’d imagined. In some directions, we could see quite a ways, and I could recognize places I’d been or had heard of. In others, there was just a dense fog. It was pretty obvious that on a good day, you’d be able to see forever, and that the view of the city would be absolutely gorgeous. I wasn’t even disappointed, though. The view was still great, and the statue was really impressive. I was also delighted to find out the pedestal on which the Christ stands house a tiny, tiny church. We stepped inside briefly to get out of the wind, but we didn’t stay long, and I didn’t get a photo. It seemed a little uncouth to do so.

The weather up there wasn’t great. It was probably 55 or 60ºF, rainy, and windy. Breno was clearly miserable, and also seemed sort of baffled that I wasn’t. What can I say? Back here in Philly, we get way down below freezing, so 55ºF and windy is merely annoying. If the view had been better, I might’ve stuck around while he got out of the rain and off to pick up his kid. As it was, I saw everything there was to see pretty quickly, and we both got out of there and onto the train.

Back at their place, we had good while to sit around, talk, and have dinner. “We’ll order pizza,” they said, “but it’s going to be terrible compared to anything in the states.” I didn’t lie and say it wouldn’t be. I’ve had pizza outside the states, I know how it goes. (It was actually tasty, it just wasn’t good pizza.) After that, it was time to finally leave Rio. I got an Uber, got to the airport, and eventually flew home with no difficulty. I had plenty of things left in Rio that I could’ve stayed to do, but as always, it was really good to get home to my people.

I had meant to bring something for Barbara and Breno. I didn’t know they’d be such exemplary hosts, but either way it would’ve been gracious. I at least remembered to bring something for their daughter: Gritty. What better thing to bring as an ambassador from Philadelphia? Fortunately, he was well received, and I felt some civic pride at Gritty’s continued ability to make life a little better.

Anyway, if I go again, I’ll remember to bring a bottle of Malört or something!

As for whether I’ll go again… it’s hard to know. I’m surprised I went at all, honestly. There isn’t much natural pressure to visit South America. Work doesn’t send me there, conferences haven’t tried to entice me. It’s expensive to get to, even if it’s cheap to spend time there. Now that I’ve been, I could imagine spending more time there and enjoying it. On the other hand, there is a lot of the planet left that I haven’t even seen once. I think I’ll have to play it by ear.

In the meantime, I’ll be looking for the best caipirinha in Philadelphia. Wish me luck.

After a rocky start, I had two great days in Rio, leaving me about four days of vacation. This meant lots more walking around, a little more beach, a bunch more food (70% cassava, 20% pork, 10% other), more forró music, and not enough caipirinhas. If you didn’t read “rjbs in Rio, part ⅰ”, you should start there.

Saturday

Friday, I ended my day by watching the sunset, having a beer, and listening to two different bands on the way back to my apartment. How would I top that?

Fortunately, I had help. Breno and Barbara were back on the scene to show me around to cool things I would never have done on my own. I had a lazy morning of scrambed eggs and orange juice, and some amount of walking around the neighborhood. By this point, I’d decided that all the fearmongering around getting mugged in Rio was wildly overblown, but it did seem like I should pay attention to where I wandered, so I didn’t head too far in unknown directions. I did see a bunch more shops, including things that I probably should’ve tried eating, but didn’t. A little after ten, though, I headed to the farmer’s market at General Glicério street. I was interested in lots of the things, but stuck to the suggestions: a pastel (sort of like an empanada), a tapioca (like a taco or crêpe made with cassava), and caldo de cana (sugarcane juice). I posted a lot of photos in Flickr, but I’ll highlight this one, the tapioca:

It doesn’t look like much, but it was delicious. Breno and his daughter had one with nutella and banana — a classic pairing to stuff into anything. I had the more traditional cheese and coconut, which seemed weird but tasted great. I was also simultaneously pleased and weirded out by the shell. It was soft and chewy, and had a subtle flavor that I can’t describe. I would eat many more, with many different fillings.

We ran into a bunch of their friends and their friends’ kids, which made for a good farmer’s market experience. Who doesn’t like watching little kids play in a crowded but basically safe space? Eventually, though, we headed out toward Tacaca do Norte. I don’t know anything about this place other than it was billed as the place to get açai. Also, Brazil had already been billed as the place to get açai, so this was meant to be the best of the best. I had actually never had the stuff, although it’s definitely been sort of everywhere here. It just seemed like it would be some boring fruity health food.

There was some debate over whether I should get a huge order or a tiny order. We settled on tiny (I was so full already!), but what we got seemed pretty big to me! If you haven’t had an açai bowl (or maybe if you’ve only had whatever it is we serve in the US), I guess I’d say it’s a bit like frozen yogurt or mashed frozen bananas, like a cold, sweet, stiff pudding. It came with two little pots, one of tapioca beads and one of granola. I love putting granola into goo, so that was great. Even so, I couldn’t eat more than half of it. Even if I’d been very hungry, I’m not sure I could’ve. Meanwhile, people all around me were eating it by the liter.

After that, we split up. Breno and I continued on alone to CRAB, a museum of local and indigenous crafts. This was very cool, and had both traditional-style objects and contemporary reinterpretations. I’m pretty sure that a few of the things I saw were also in my grandmother’s house. Did she ever visit Brazil? I have no idea.

Rather than any photos of CRAB, though, here’s one of Central do Biscoito (Biscuit Central), a cookie store with a weirdly compelling mascot:

After that, I think there was some sort of general walking around, but it led us toward the Candelária Church, a beautiful (but slightly dilapidated) church. Across the street, there were June Festival celebrations, and that’s where we were headed. One of Breno’s friends was going to be part of the celebration, as a stilt walker. This event was good value. We watched a bunch of stilt walking, heard a bunch of music, saw some unexpected Capoeira, and even ran into Breno’s brother and family! We saw the thing that had been the Olympic torch when Rio hosted. Also, critically, we got caipirinhas.

We lingered a good long while, but eventually we were pretty beat (or maybe I was beat and Breno was polite) and we headed out. I think this was my first time riding the Rio Metrô, the subway. I picked up a subway pass as a souvenir. These are great souvenirs: they’re cheap, they don’t take up space, and they’re unambiguously associated with the place you went. This one was even better. It’s called a RioCard, which is an anagram of Ricardo.

The subway was clean, easy to ride, and felt safe. I rode it again alone a couple times, and have no complaints. Breno and I chatted the whole time, even as he overshot his stop by accident and accompanied me to mine on purpose. When I got back to my apartment, I took off my shoes, called home, and zoned out until it was time to sleep.

Also, here’s a picture of Breno’s niece wearing my hat.

Sunday

I have no recollection or photos of Sunday morning. I think that’s when I explored a street market near my apartment. It was pretty cool, and I bought a nice aloha shirt. The seller told me I should go a size smaller, and I didn’t listen, but I think she was right. Gloria suggests it should be easy to have shortened, so I might just do that! I also hit the grocery store (my local Zona Sul) and picked up some soap and shampoo, so I could get cleaner. I felt a little weird about buying so much for my three remaining days, but I felt better about not being gross.

I met Breno and his daughter near Biscuit Central, and we headed to the Metropolitan Cathedral of Saint Sebastian. Coming to Rio, I knew that this was one of my top priorities to see. The photos made it clear that I’d be happy with it. In person, it was even better. It was beautiful. It made great use of the light while still providing a somber space. It felt like it really fit into the place it was, and it was still clearly a cathedral. I have seen many cathedrals, and even the best are often just very well constructed versions of “yet another cathedral”. This wasn’t that. Also, as we approached I could still smell the frankinsence from the morning’s mass.

I want to learn more about the place, including what required aspects of cathedral design it fulfilled in unusual ways. That seems certain to be a thing. Seeing my photos, Mark Dominus said, “A solid refutation of the people who complain about Brutalism.”

The plan had been to take the old fashioned tram from the cathedral to the way-uphill Bohemian neighborhood of Santa Teresa, but the line for the tram was two and a half hours long, which didn’t seem worth it. We got an Uber. Up in Santa Teresa, we looked around shops and watched trams go by, which was a pretty decent substitute for actually riding the thing. Eventually, Barbara met us and we got lunch: feijoada.

Feijoada is (I am told) the national dish of Brazil. It originates in Portugal, but let’s get real: it’s meat, beans, and rice, so it’s something people eat everywhere. It was served with collard greens and tapioca flour, and it was great. Could I have eaten our three person order? Yes, probably, but it’s surely also good that I didn’t try to. (Also, it would’ve been rude.) There is no photographic evidence, but I think I had a caipirinha there. We went to Bar Simplesmente, which apparently is a great place to go for feijoada. It certainly seemed like it to me!

The other notable part of the meal was the fried hunks of cassava. At first I said, “Hey these potatoes are great!” Almost as soon as I said it, I realized it wasn’t potato, and Barbara said, “This is cassava.” I said, “This is just like the yuca fries they used to serve at the Cuban place we liked.” Barbara politely explained that cassava and yuca are the same thing, and my mind was totally blown. I feel like I really should’ve know this, but I didn’t. Then again, I don’t live in a place where every single meal contains cassava!

From there, we walked a bit more and got some coffee. I usually only drink mocha lattes, but these weren’t commonly on offer in Rio, so mostly I just had tea. Here, though, I got a cappucino, which was good! (I’ve had them before and not liked them.) We saw a small exhibit of a fashion designer’s work in a cool gallery space with a great view. Soon, though, we came to the Escadaria Selarón.

The Escadaria Selarón is a (pretty long!) outdoor staircase. If asked, I’d say they led from Santa Teresa “all the way down” to Lapa, but I’m not really sure. At the bottom, we could see the huge, defunct aqueduct that the tram rides across. The point isn’t the destination, though, it’s the stairs themselves. They’re covered in tiles, and the work was done over twenty years by Jorge Selarón, an artist who lived in the area.

The steps were pretty popular, with lots of other tourists there to see, but they weren’t crowded or annoying, and we took our time wandering down and looking at the tiles.

After the steps, Breno and I carried on alone, heading to Glória market and the nearby June Festival celebration. Breno was very keen on me trying a bunch of sweets, so he bought a bag and we sat around drinking beer and eating candy. This was better than it sounds. I think the best thing we had was pé de moleque. As far as I’m concerned this is just shiny peanut brittle (the best kind of peanut brittle), but is weirdly pitched as being a local thing for Brazil. The one we got here was actually soft, sort of like a Pay Day bar, but much nicer. My only photo of the sweets is pretty bad, so I won’t put it in here. Instead, here’s me with Glória station, which made me think of Gloria every time I saw it, of course.

We’d meant to take a bike ride after this, but instead we sat around talking until it was dark and we were beat. This was good! Breno and I (and Barbara, on other occasions) spent a lot of time talking about this and that. Often this was work, sometimes politics, and sometimes movie, TV, and books. Most notably, though, I got a lot of Brazilian history, which was all interesting and valuable as I explored the place. More than once, I saw a monument or building that I understood much better because of a bit of history I’d learned earlier in the week.

From Glória station, Breno went home and I went back to my apartment in Ipanema, where I called home and caught up, then stared at the wall for a while until it was time to sleep.

Every night, I was watching a little Resident Alien. It was good travel TV. Not too stressful, sort of funny, and easy to stop watching when vacation was over. If I couldn’t sleep, I’d watch one more episode. Sunday night, as I wrapped up one last episode, I got a message from my sister that my dad had gone to the hospital. (He’s fine now.) I waited up to get more information, and while doing that decided to floss my teeth again. Doing that, I managed to pop the crown off one of my molars, which led to another hour or so awake, searching the web for “dental adhesive brands Brazil”. Eventually, I just cleaned everything involved and jammed it back in my mouth. It stayed put until I got home, but it meant I avoided peanut brittle until I got back!

Monday, I was on my own, so it was no problem to sleep in, and so staying up too late thinking about my teeth was no problem. More on the last two days in another post.

So, I went to Rio de Janeiro! It was great, and it’ll probably take me several entries to sufficiently cover the trip. Here we go!

Background

The background for this trip is worth mentioning. For years, I’ve been seeing my friend Breno at the annual Perl Toolchain Summit. He was also a regular in an online D&D game I ran. All the time, he’d say, “Look, man, you’ve gotta come visit Brazil. It’d be so great!” I would say, “I bet it would, but I really mostly travel where work sends me, and I can’t see a work trip to Brazil happening any time in the near future.”

Then, early last year, I got an email from a frequent flyer program telling me that if I didn’t use my reward miles, I’d lose them. I managed to not lose them immediately, but it seemed like this was a sign. I tried to think of where I might go, and I remembered all of Breno’s exhortations. I looked it up, and I could definitely get to Rio and back on miles. I emailed him and said, “Okay, when would be good?” He wrote back with a long enthusiastic analysis of the year, including this:

The Festas Juninas are probably less known outside Brazil but also very typical and popular, happening all over the country in June/July, usually in the afternoon or at dusk. it’s less crowded and “partyesque” but there is dancing and fire and costumes and very typical food and drinks that are harder to find the rest of the year.

Sounded perfect! I decided to make plans.

Getting there

Over the course of the next year, this went from vague idea to definite plan, and I started to put together a list of things I’d like to see or do. I read a lot of “what you must see in Rio” pages, plus ones that covered more obscure topics. I asked Breno and Barbara (Breno’s wife, also a friend) to tell me whether my list was any good. By the time the trip was upon me, I had what felt like a great set of things to do. Even better, Barbara provided a suggested day-by-day agenda, which would’ve been a pain for me. It included a bunch of “and then we’ll take you to something we think is really worth it.” Who could ask for more?

Meanwhile, though, the articles I read kept saying, “You’re going to love Rio! It’s so wonderful! You are definitely at high risk of getting mugged, though!” Mostly I shrug this stuff off. I live in Philly, and I’m used to people talking about my home like it’s a warzone. Still, I got a little anxious. Breno reassured me, I decided to keep my phone in my purse, and I tried to put aside any fears. Then, on the 18th, I got my bag and headed to the airport. It was going to be a bit of a long trip, but I’m used to going to Australia. This would be no big deal.

Really, it mostly wasn’t. The only complication was that instead of a 6 hour layover between flights, I had a 6 hour layover plus a 16 hour delay. It was mostly overnight, so I didn’t get to tool around Miami. I mostly sat around the lounge and the Holiday Inn and watched TV. It was fine, but I didn’t love losing a day.

Eventually, I landed at GIG. (Did you know that Rio’s international airport is named after the guy who wrote The Girl from Ipanema? It is!). Instead of landing at 8:00 in the morning, I landed around 1:00 in the morning, and then I had to get through immigration and customs and find a cab. Then the cab got pulled over by the police, who ordered me out of the car at gunpoint and searched all my stuff. Honestly, I might have been more nervous if I wasn’t so tired.

Thursday

I feel a bit badly about beginning my trip story this way, but it’s how it began. The good news (spoilers!) is that it was the only remotely worrying event of my trip, and I wan’t even really worried at any point. We were let go pretty quickly, and then I was in my apartment and asleep. The next day, I was on the beach and everything was good.

My first day was supposed to be Wednesday, which I would’ve spent exploring the beaches and maybe finding one of the nearby art museums, but that was shot. It was Thursday, and that meant lunch with Breno and Babs and their daughter. We had “angu”, which I’d describe as something like a polenta-and-offal stew. It was great, right up my alley!

Then it was on to the Museum of Tomorrow (the architecture was great, but we mostly coasted through the exhibits), and then São Cristóvão Fair, which I later described as “what if Philly’s Reading Terminal Market was in Brazil and had three competing live music acts at all times”. It was great, although a little loud. We had a bunch more delicious food (lots of photos on Flickr), and I had my second caipirinha of the day. If I have one regret of the trip, it’s not drinking more of those. I suspect it’ll be hard to find or make a good one at home, but we’ll see.

A caipirinha is a bit like a daquiri. It’s made with cachaça, which is a bit like white rum. Then sugar, lime, and ice. It seems like the drink of Brazil, or at least Rio. (Brazil is huge. If you sort of vaguely agree that Brazil isn’t very small, go look it up. It’s the fifth largest country in the world, smaller than the USA and larger than Australia. I don’t want to get accused of saying something like “the mint julep is the drink of the US”.) Anyway, I had probably four or five across the trip, and I could’ve done with more like eight.

The music at the fair was foreshadowing. There was lots of live music all over the place, and it didn’t seem like a tourist gimmick. It was always pretty upbeat, and everybody sang along and danced with everything. “Oh, this is a very famous song,” was definitely one of the things Breno said to me the most.

Also notable: the ice cream. Breno pointed at the menu – and I’m sorry to say I didn’t get a photo! “On the right,” he said, “are all the boring flavors you know. Chocolate, vanilla, mint. Who cares? On the left, though, it’s all fruit flavors, and I won’t bother translating, because you don’t have words in English for any of these. They’re all South American fruits.” I had jaboticaba. The ice cream was very good, but the exciting thing was this list of weird fruits that I’d never heard of. Weirder, jaboticaba fruit grow right on the trunk of the tree? Just weird.

There was at least one fruit on the list that I did know: pineapple. I was surprised and pleased to learn, though, that in Brazil they don’t call pineapple ananás, as they do in Portugal and nearly everywhere else. They call it abacaxi. Rejecting the worldwide standard name for that fruit made the people of Brazil seem even more like my brothers and sisters. Too bad they still use the metric system.

After the fair, Breno dropped me off at my apartment. There’s only an hour of time difference from home to Rio, but I was beat. I wasn’t ready to collapse into sleep, but I was no good for any kind of conversation by the end of the night. I zoned out and eventually crashed.

Friday

Friday was my first day on my own, and I had a plan: Sugarloaf! Sugarloaf Mountain is a 1300’ mountain at the mouth of Rio’s bay. It’s called Sugarloaf because it looks like a sugarloaf. A sugarloaf is how sugar was sold for hundreds of years, well until the 19th century, so I guess at one point it was pretty useful to say “it’s that mountain that looks like a sugarloaf!” Now, I think of a sugarloaf as “a compressed hunk of sugar shaped like that mountain in Rio”.

I knew the mountain would have a good view of the city and the bay, but I was mostly in it for the cable car ride. I’m not sure why, since I’m not a huge lover of heights, but it seemed pretty compelling. Before I came down, Breno had said, “the cable car! Like in Moonraker!” I had never watched Moonraker, so I watched it on the flight down. I don’t recommend it. On the other hand, the cable car ride was great. Happily, the mountain was even better than that!

I’d hoped to ride up in the mid-afternoon so that I could ride down during sunset. In retrospect, I think I could’ve made that work, but it wasn’t a clear win at the time. I hadn’t been able to buy tickets online, so I’d have to go out to the mountain and hope to get timed entry tickets for a reasonable time. I didn’t want to get there only to find out that I couldn’t get tickets, so I ended up going early. I wasn’t disappointed, and honestly I’m not sure I’d have been any happier with sunset.

The cable car actually goes to two mountains. First, to Urca Hill, then Sugarloaf Mountain. It’s two separate cable car rides, and you can spend as much time as you want on Urca Hill between them. I spent a few hours, and it was great. There was food (I had corn, a sausage sandwich, ice cream, and later a beer), there were crafts, and there were amazing views in every direction. When I couldn’t appreciate the view any more, I sat down and read a book for ten minutes, then got back to the view. It was excellent.

That view above is actually from Urca Hill. In the distance, you can see Corcovado (“the hunchback”), the mountain on which Rio’s giant Christ the Redeemer statue stands. It was visible from all over the city, and I saw it up close and personal later in the trip. This was one of the cooler views of it, though.

From Urca Hill, I took the second cable car to Sugarloaf. It was very cool, and I think the views were marginally better, but it was much more crowded-feeling in that smaller space, and the food and shops weren’t inviting. I didn’t stay up there half as long as I was on Urca Hill. In fact, when I got back to Urca Hill I spend more time there, getting an ice cream cone and doing some people-watching.

After that, I was ready for a break. I got back to my apartment, zoned out for a little bit, and then hit the grocery. I picked up OJ, eggs, bread, and tea, which meant that I could start every day with a little breakfast. That meant I wouldn’t be hungry until dinner, most days, if I kept busy, which made every day easier. I also picked up a packet of Globo biscuits, which are a sort of flavorless cassava-based Funyun. They were everywhere, in Rio, but also had nothing much to recommend them other than the crunchiness.

I also also picked up some iced mate tea, which I enjoyed drinking most days. I think I’m going to see if I can get any tea leaves for making it at home, but we’ll see.

After I’d relaxed for a while, I headed to Arpoador, the peninsula between the Ipanema and Copacabana beaches. There’s a big rock there (Arpoador Rock), which some people say is the best place in the world to see the sunset. I was skeptical, but it was very good. The rock was swarming with people, but I managed to find a place to watch the sun set. There are lots more photos in my trip album, but here’s one:

After that, I walked slowly back to my apartment. I stopped at two concerts, both of which were great, and I had a Brahma beer, which was good, especially for the weather. I didn’t get to try many Brazilian beers, but I enjoyed this one. Looking back, I wish I’d bought one more beer to drink on the walk. I should try to enjoy “walk with a beer” time when traveling to places where that’s legal.

Eventually, I made it back to my apartment and turned in. More on the rest of the trip in future posts!