True to form, I slept the whole way to Rio. I was initially disappointed that I wasn’t able to change my flights to have a layover in Sao Paolo so I could watch the Matilda’s play Canada. Well I could change my flight for a obscene fee of over $1500, but I guess it was lucky I didn’t, the Matilda’s didn’t fare too well in that match. Landing in Rio was a slightly bizarre event. Exiting the place, I was greeted by Olympic advertising everywhere. Team China must’ve also landed just before my flight, so there were Chinese officials and athletes everywhere. All of whom annoyingly thought they could ignore and bypass all the queues and push their way through to the front. I had some choice words for a few of the athletes who tried to push me out of the way. So yeah, I may have told some Olympic athletes to “get fucked”. Let’s hope they didn’t get a medal either. Anyway, while waiting patiently to get through immigration, I was mildly confused by the shear number of Singaporean accents I heard from the airport staff ushering the crowds. Seemed like Rio airport shipped over a whole bunch of workers from Changi airport to help during the olympics. I will admit, I cringed everytime I heard the accent, I’m just not a fan. Let’s face it, when was the last time you heard the words “Oh my, that’s a sexy Singaporean accent”?

Finishing up with immigration, they offered a special Olympics stamp for your passport along with the standard entry visa stamp. I thought that was pretty cool. Thankfully picking up baggage wasn’t too much of a hassle, but I was then stuck with how to get to the hostel. I was keen to avoid a taxi knowing it’ll probably eat into my budget, which I anticipated would take a fair beating once I met up with the gang. They’re uh, what you’d say has champagne taste on a passion pop budget. Ok, maybe that’s a bit harsh, it’s not like they don’t have the money, it’s more that the money happens to come from credit cards and loans, whereas I prefer not to dig a debt hole. A taxi would’ve been feasible and relatively cheaper had the jerks been nice enough to wait THE HOUR I arrived after them, but no, of course not. That’s just too hard, they were tired after flying from Paris. This would pretty much be the theme for the next 3 or so weeks of travelling with them. So you can expect entries right up to the end of Mexico to be full of whinging, but trust me, much of it was warranted. Anyway, back to the transport issue. V had sent through the hostel confirmation a few days prior, which thankfully included directions on taking a bus, which turned out to be a mildly condesending affair. I trudge over to the information booth and was given vague directions of “go out, turn right”. Great customer service guys, such a wonderful welcome to all the tourists coming for the Olympics. I managed to find some bus “stall” spruiking a “premium bus” service with free wifi (note: wifi was a lie!), again, the chick managing the stall wasn’t exactly helpful. It would’ve been nice if she actually told me which line to wait in for the bus to Ipanema, so instead I stood like a dope in the line for a bus that was definitely NOT going to Ipanema. To top things off, once I finally boarded the right bus, they didn’t have change for a R$50. I get it, the bus only cost R$16, but considering the line started at the international airport, you’d think they’d be prepared for people who’d only have large notes from the ATM or currency exchange. Moving on, I was finally only my way to Ipanema. Thankfully Hannah had shown me the handy map app that didn’t need data, I kept a close eye on when I needed to get off, but clearly not close enough, I ended up about 2 blocks away from where I needed to get off, so armed with an oversized backpack, and a unnessisarily heavy daypack, I slowly made my way to the hostel.

That’s where things went from annoying, to joyfully wonderful! (I hope you can sense the sarcasm here, because I was certainly ready to murder someone when I went to check in). So I can’t quite remember if I had mentioned in an earlier post about the accomodation stuff up for Rio. Long story short, we put off booking accomodation in Rio til the last minute in hopes that hotels would start releasing rooms for super cheap once they weren’t selling as part of a bundle with tickets to the games. It’s pretty much what happened when the FIFA World Cup was held in Rio. That didn’t happen, so I trusted the others to book somewhere since I had patchy internet connection everywhere I went. Turns out my trust was misplaced as I got a proud email detailing the confirmation of where we’d be staying, there was just one problem. The confirmation was for 3 beds. There are 4 of us travelling. See the slight problem? So I shot back a mildly confused email to V asking if it was perhaps an error on the hostel part (see I was nice, I played naive and assumed that the hostel must’ve been the one to make the mistake, even though I knew full well those assholes forgot to book me a bed). I got an reply that he’d fixed the situation, and that it was just a brain freeze on his part. Ok sure, could he send through the new confirmation so I’d know how much I owed upon arrival. Silence. No response from when I arrived in Easter Island. I knew something was up, he was avoiding me. I just didn’t know why. Well I soon found out when I went to check in to the hostel. My booking was a night short. The guy at reception was like “ok so we’ve got you from 3-6th”. Um no, no, 3-7th. Pretty sure we’re all checking out on the 7th. So not only did they forget to book a bed for me to begin with, when they tried to rectify the situation, the place didn’t actually have enough beds for the whole stay. Awesome friends right? And this was all BEFORE I had even seen them. Eventually the hostel was able to find a bed for me on the last night, but it was at an elevated price because I didn’t book it via the website. I mean for fucks sake, I was just over the situation by then. By the time I finally completely check in, I was thankful the hostel had a lift as we were on the 4th floor. 

And guess who I bumped into when I walked out of the lift. V had come down to look for me, assuming I was due to arrive soon. Naturally I yelled at him as soon as I stepped out of the lift. I calmed down and told him that they’d be paying for my dinner that night. The rest of the afternoon went a little better. Once I got settled and had a bit of a rest, we all headed down to the hostel bar for free capirinhas during happy (half) hour. Multiple heavy handed free capirinhas later, I was feeling fine and happily chatting the night away with a Brit and German whom I ended up out for dinner with later that night. I was sad to hear the Brit was leaving the next morning, we got on pretty well. After the pizza dinner, I hung around the hostel bar for a few more drinks before heading back to my dorm, only to be greated by the most bloody annoying people I’d have to share a room with (besides the gang). I can’t even remember their names, the girl had been napping when I arrived, and I hadn’t met the (very clearly gay) guy yet. But they were certainly party animals. I was getting ready for bed and they were just getting ready to go out. Which is fair enough, Rio is meant to be a party town, and there were no judgements. Except when they came back to the dorm at god knows what hour and decided to TURN EVERY FUCKING LIGHT ON, and make a complete racket, and turn the air conditioning off instead of using their blankets. Oh, and the guy snored. Actually, so did V and R. Fuck. My. Life. I barely got any sleep. One of the nights, V had gone out partying, completely ignoring his own stern rules for his partner to never go out by themselves for safety reasons blah blah blah. The very first night after the rest of us went to bed, he continued partying, went to some club, took who knows what, ended jumping into a cab (by himself) and got dropped off on an unknown street because he couldn’t remember exactly where the hostel was. Lucky for him, 2 guys from the hostel had jumped into a cab behind him and made their cab stop when they saw him get out of his cab. They all ended up going to to Ipanema beach to get something to eat. SO he pretty much did what every safety warning tells you not to do. But rules never really apply to V, he’ll make everyone else follow them, but it’s optional for him. Again, this would be a common theme for the rest of the trip.

So yeah, that concluded my first day in Rio. Capirinhas were good though.