We had asked Maria (through Sylvia) to have breakfast ready at 9:00.

After enduring several rounds of Blackberry Roulette and losing to Jean, I finally got out of bed and trudged up the stairs. I smelled coffee. Jean stayed behind to perform those pesky morning tasks. By the time I got upstairs, the breakfast had been out for a while. Well, hell, it was 9:30 and we asked for 9:00 breakfast. Subtract 0 from 30. We were that late.

Robo and Pettus had just gotten up there themselves, though they were both bathed, scrubbed and pumped full of vigor. Pettus had just come in from the balcony where she was listening to Robson sing. He writes religious music, and was singing to her about the poverty. Pettus said he had a beautiful voice. Robo kicked in immediately with “I don’t trust him.”

We all marveled at the breakfast: fried eggs on a platter, toast, bacon, those little cheese biscuit ball things, two kinds of juice (though slightly watery), coffee, chocolate cake (!), three kinds of melon, pineapple, cigar-rolled ham and cheese slices, regular biscuits, hot water, cocoa powder, and a blap bag for me.

The massive amount of food ordinarily would have sent me over the edge, but I was STILL ever so slightly touchy in the appetite. Lucky for Pettus. She was able to eat the cheese biscuit things like popcorn, because I was absolutely no competition, Robo was diverted with some of the other food and Jean wasn’t up there yet. The fried eggs were cooked for 9:00 consumption, so they were kind of cold-ish, and beginning to get that Dorian Gray’s portrait look about them. But I love eggs more than anything, and ate two. They went down pretty well with an acidophilus chaser. The bacon was a no-brainer. I could be in a coma and still be able to eat bacon.

Overall, breakfast was a success for me, and I could feel myself climbing out of the abdominal abyss. Once again, however, Robo ratted out the cook. He told me (after the dern trip) that Maria was making the coffee with tap water. Hmmmm. And I don’t think there’s a coffeemaker in Brazil that gets hot enough to sterilize the bad juju out of coffee water.

Jean finally arrived to a half eaten breakfast, though we had saved her the good parts. She popped a Diet Coke, got us both a Danactiv out of the refrigerator (an earlier habit we had taken up courtesy of Jim Klopman. Why, oh WHY didn’t I listen to him about the acidophilus at the get-go?) and came back in to report that Robson had told her that Maria was appalled that the food had been sitting there so long and felt responsible for the cold breakfast. We all decided at that moment to schedule tomorrow’s for 9:30. “I don’t trust him,” Robo said.

There were heavy clouds outside and it was kind of misting. What the HELL? This was RIO! What was up? Excuse me sir, there’s a collect call from a Miss E. Ahmanjah. Will you accept the charges?

Jean called Sylvia. Sylvia was going to call Marcelo. We hung around waiting for the deal to  go down, everybody checking email in rotation, me alternately standing in front of the fans and walking out on the balcony to see if the weather had changed. We heard a horn, grabbed our stuff, (my camera in relaxed duffel position 2, Jean’s myriad envelopes and massive purse, along with super-travel-sized Ziplocs of only about one-tenth of the medicine inventory, Robo with his little bitty video camera, and Pettus unencumbered as always) and rushed out to meet Marcelo.

We all assumed our positions, greeted our new pal warmly, and headed down and out. I began to understand why we had been told of the glories of Niterói. The beach at the bottom of our hill was nice, though not necessarily for swimming, inhabited by what appeared to be a very reputable bunch of folks, and the vibe was very relaxed. Not quite Bahian, because they were still touched by the urbanity of Rio, but more laid back than Rio, possibly because of their fishing heritage. There was a row of great restaurants all fronting the bay, all probably a result of the modern booming of Niterói. Just like in America, I imagine the people in Rio discovered that Niterói was ONLY ACROSS THE BAY, and more the kind of place you’d want to raise your children, with wooded, hilly, winding streets and charm everywhere.

But wait! There’s also the modern art museum AND a ferry terminal, both designed by the world-revered Oscar Niemeyer. Ooh la LAH! How incredible can you GET? How about incredible enough to also be the birthplace of Sergio Mendes?! If that doesn’t cap it off, nothing can.