Rio Beyond the Obvious

A huge win for Rio in my book was our accommodations. We spent a large amount of time there, escaping the 'Feels Like 114 degrees' weather and being lazy bums, no longer able to blame jet lag for late, groggy mornings. I blame the hot pocket street food. And this view:

It's hard to move when you've got a big screen shot of mountains and greenery in shades and proximity we don't even have in Seattle, almost the full width of the wall.

The owners are not my picture of average Brazilians, but rather the Brazilian incarnation of the truest of hipsters- the writer and the singer. Myle is refined, even with her sleeve tattoos, and spoke with great diction, even with her round, dramatic-sounding Rio accent. It's kind of how Maria talks, also a singer- in full control of vowel sounds and inflection. Walter is disheveled, with an unironic mustache and scraggly hair and a wall full of books, classic and otherwise. The decor around the house has the feel of design show-rooms, but given personality with things like a repurposed Singer sewing table and a wall of hanging classic Brazilian records. I have no idea how they afford the house, the constant renovations, or their matching Macbooks (where we caught them working in swim trunks and bikini on the hottest day), but they must be doing just fine.

The house, Porter pointed out, is like that MC Escher drawing of endless stairs. Stairs leading up to the gate, stairs to the patio, stairs to the kitchen, down to the pool, down to the landlord's space, a different view on every level. This is how you get buns worth showing off with a barely there bikini.

The walls are teal and coral, and fuchsia. The furniture is solid wood, or wicker with an iron base. The doorknobs are probably salvaged from mansion. There are at least four different lounging patio terrace areas with different perks (proximity, shade, pool, view). Nothing was over the top fancy, it was just done well. That's how real hipsters do it.