Adventures in Rio

That's how Wagner described last night. It began with B and I calling a cab to pick us up at his parents' house in order to take us to Wagner's place downtown. Now of course, nothing with the cab was easy and that alone caused lots of frustration -- what with the Brazilian's relaxed sense of punctuality and all. Then of course the cabby wanted to tell us all sorts of stories the whole drive. At one point he was asking us to take a look at his face (so he turned on the dome light in the cab) so we could guess how old he was. Weren't we surprised to find out that no, he wasn't 45... he was 55! He just looked so young because he lived a stress-free life. But no, that wasn't enough, then he whipped out his cell phone, scrolled through various menus (all the while still driving through the crazy streets of Rio) to show us pictures of his hot girlfriend. LOL. What a riot!

Because of all this, we were at least 30 minutes late heading out towards Wagner's, so the second we got there we had to jump into his car to drive to the airport to pick up his new wife, Livia. We waited about 30 minutes there until she called us to let us know that because of the bad weather they had redirected her flight to a different airport on the other side of town. She was off the plane and waiting for us. Yikes! So we had to jump back into the car and head over to the other airport. Mind you, none of these car rides were really pleasant because I was in the back seat, without a seat belt, bumping and bouncing over every pot hole. My butt was starting to hurt! Fortunately, we were finally able to pick her up and head back to their place to relax for a bit.

It was my first time meeting Livia, and she was so friendly and hospitable (not that I expected any less -- Wagner did marry her afterall!) We stayed a long time and got home at about 2am. Good times!

PS: I took a photo of the elevator in Wagner and Livia's building so that you might better appreciate why I freaked out a bit the time I got stuck in one. We had crammed about 10 people into an elevator meant for 8. Take a look at what it means when the elevator capacity is "8"...