Rio!!!

Beaches line the eastern and southern parts of the city. Even better is a bike lane that runs along the beaches. Between Flamenco Beach and Leblon are 12 beaches, but essentially are three different areas that are connected by bikes lanes. 

Nightlife can be had anywhere. My hostel was a convenient walk down the road to the Lapa street party. A couple sections of road are blocked off and live Brazilian music of all types can be heard from the streets. 

the aquaduct acts as a transport to the neighborhood up the hill, bus also acts as the gateway to Lapa's festa.

Losta food can be the found.  First meal was an all-u-can-eat pizza festa. While that sounds like heaven to me, I was disappointed on one level because the crust was always soft. This is a South American trait I have noticed.  Everyone bakes the pizza just before the dough has a chance to finish baking and the crust is soggy.

However, I must give thumbs up for the inclusion of dessert pizza. On the left is banana pizza, middle is chocolate on chocolate pizza, the left was white chocolate pizza. Once again the dough was undercooked, but it works for this because it had a crepe-like quality.

Philadelphia roll cone... not really good and I paid the price later

Ostrich in bordorlaise sauce... pretty good!  tasted more like veal than chicken

salt cod au grautin... really salty

Took a bike ride up to the Jesus statue to get some solid views of the city.

this is a church

I walked up the hill from party central and into Santa Theresa neighborhood...

At the top of the hill is Parque Ruinas, located

a bowl of Ramen at Aska in Libertade, São Paulo