Bathing Suit Please

You know it's true what they say about Brazilian bathing suits being virtually non-existent. In my time at Buzios and on the beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema in Rio, I saw a lot of flimsy suits on both men and women. Now I've been to European beaches where the women go topless and the men haven't quite gotten the concept of board shorts yet, preferring the age-old speedo, but Brazil was an entirely different animal.

It was almost like a contest to see who could wear the least amount on the beach without actually being naked. For all intents and purposes they should have just been naked. Nothing was really left to the imagination anyway. And this goes for the men and women. And unfortunately it went for all shapes, sizes and ages. I am all for showing what you got and being proud of it, but I really don't need to see 80-year-old grandma and grandpa in g-strings.

More power to them for body security, and shame on me and my American modesty (is there such a thing in a country that gave the world "Girls Gone Wild"?), but it was a little much for me to handle. On the opposite end of the spectrum there were some seriously hot bodies flaunting their assets, which my gay travel companion seemed to rather enjoy. But then again he himself was wearing a Burberry speedo.

I might not be on the next flight out to Brazil anytime soon, but it has nothing to do with my misadventures in bathing suit fashion, but rather the shit (literally) I encountered in the street one nasty evening. Stay tuned…

Losing Things

In my brother's first trip across the ocean I had planned a two week whirlwind tour of Europe. He was meeting up with me in Paris after I had been traveling the continent for 2 weeks with a friend. We didn't plan a long stay in Paris because we were making a loop and were planning all the Paris sights at the end of the trip.

I find him passed out in the hotel when I get there and we have a quick dinner and get to bed to make our early train for Amsterdam. We take the Thalys to Brussels where we have to switch to another train headed for Amsterdam. We've navigated the station and found our new train without incident.

After settling in to our seats I hear him say "Oh shit" and he starts looking in all his pockets. This isn't something someone wants to hear from their traveling companion, so I ask what's wrong, and he says, "I think I left my passport on the other train". I'm of course thinking you have to be kidding me. I tell him to go back to the train and look (hoping it's still there after 10 minutes) and I start unloading our stuff off the train.

Now from my brother's account of things: He runs to the track where we came in and luckily the train is still there, but when he finds our seats there is no sign of the passport. He just happens to see a conductor and asks if they saw a passport. The conductor says no, but to check the lost and found. So he runs to the lost and found and sees and enormous line. Looking at the clock and realizing that our train is leaving in less than 5 minutes, so he just goes to the front and asks the person behind the glass if they have an American passport. She looks at something, looks at him and hands him the passport. In what world do things really work out that easily? It was his lucky freakin' day, but meanwhile he just perpetuated the idea that American's are cocky asses that do what they want.

With a minute to go I see him running down the platform and telling me to get back on the train. We jump on the train and it literally starts moving out of the station. Talk about cutting it close.

It would have been a real treat had he lost his passport a day after landing, well actually he did lose it momentarily. That really would have made the trip oh so great.