Rio Encouters

The botanical garden was magical. Stopping in for 3hrs was not enough. However, our time was limited. We found Rio to be beautiful, exciting, diverse, but also to our understanding very different in some of the local ways of living. Some things that appeared different from our perspective, were the cross walks, supermarket aisles and even the metro. Rio appears to have a very disciplined set of rules, that can easily confuse foreigners. For example, riding on the metro from 8am-10am is a little different from any other times of the day. There is a separate metro cart for women for their safety, and no men are allowed in this specified cart.
It was really interesting to see different parts of the City Rio de Janeiro. Our next visit was Niteroi, a town where many people chose to live, because it was more affordable. Our destination was to see world known Oscar Nieyemeyer's museum of contemporary art. Here this public space in itself was great. Not only did it have great views as it rested at the edge of Niteroi facing Rio, but it also had a large public space in the entrance with great sketching opportunities. We entered the museum to inspire our sketching abilities. Within the museum, a lot of the contemporary pieces also included stadiums and plazas that were upcomming projects for the next world cup and the olympics. It was great to see the detail of the scaled models constructed. After observing these pieces, we decided to sketch some of the beautiful views outside the museum. I decided to also sketch my interpretation of the view from within the museum.

One of the great experiences of sketching in a public area is the interaction with other people who learn to see how you are interpreting a sense of place. Some people stop and admire and complement the work. Others are curious, as to who we are and what we are doing and become interested in more of our work. It was great to meet people and be able to understand what other people are saying despite our cultural differences. For instance, a lady approached me and asked me if I was a disenadora, and I could understand very little with some of my background in Spanish. I had to explain to her that i spoke Spanish because of my family background, but that I was a student in the United States. People were very friendly and glad to meet a foreign student. Some children were inspired to draw and observe what we were doing. It was great experience to interact with people from other languages and cultures.