After Susana and Javier left to go back to Spain, María and I went to Niterói as the following day we were attending Ambra and Rafael's wedding.
Ambra is Italian and we had already attended the civilian ceremony in Italy a few months back and now they were having the religious ceremony in Brazil where Rafael is from.
The wedding was in the afternoon so María and I had the chance to go for a walk and visit Niterói.
As you can see on the background, the weather wasn't great. Bear in mind this was the Summer in Brazil.
After a long walk along the coast we decided to visit The Niterói Contemporary Art Museum. This is a contemporary art museum as its name seems to indicate focused primarily on sculpture, textiles and painting but perhaps the best thing about this museum is the museum itself. It was created by a famous Brazilian architect called Oscar Niemeyer's and there is an area dedicated exclusively at all of his work. It was quite interesting.
Have a look at the building:
Good views from the museum too
And then came the wedding. :-)
Outside was raining like there was no tomorrow. Imagine that! The Italian wedding in the winter in Italy with a sunny and perfect day. The Brazilian ceremony was in Brazil in the summer and it was raining!
But that didn't prevent all the guest from having a great time. :-)
María and I were sitting with the best man and his parents.
Which turned out to be great not just for the company and the laughs but also because the father was an expert in Rodizio and was kind enough to share his knowledge with me. I never ate so much in my entire life!
The Bride throwing her bouquet
and some random photos from the restaurant
It was a great wedding and the following day María and I had some spare time before catching our respective flights, mine to the UK, María's to Spain so we decided to go and visit the botanic gardens in Rio.
Let me start by saying that it was quite an impressive place, more than what we had anticipated since being in the middle of town didn't make us think it would be so large and would have such an amazing variety.
We even found María's favourite tree in the whole world! The cinnamon tree!
You may not know this but as I had the opportunity to learn in this excursion, they do sell cinnamon flavoured chewing gums and as it turned out, María and Susana are both addicted to this particular flavour and sometimes talking to them was like sniffing cinnamon powder directly from a canister.
With all the travelling and the lack of sleep we both fell asleep on a bench. It was quiet, we were surrounded by trees, no city sounds... perfect spot for a good nap. Unfortunately, we weren't the only ones in the area as the many mosquito bites we got in that place can prove, so in other words, if you go and visit the botanic gardens do not fall sleep on a bench or you'll become supper for the hundreds of mosquitoes in the area.
When it was time, we caught a taxi and made our way to the airport concluding this way our first trip to Brazil which wasn't the last one as we enjoyed Brazil so much that the following year we decided to go back, although to a different area, but that's another story for another time. :-)
