Have Bag, Will Travel: Rio de Janeiro

I've grown up loving soccer and watching it every four years. Whenever the World Cup comes around, my family disconnects from society and spends all their time avidly glued to the TV screen. This is in part due to half of my family is Brazilian. My dad grew up in São Paulo, and my family's history with the Brazilian culture has played a part in my upbringing.

During my senior year of high school while on spring break, my Brazilian grandmother took me on a two-week long tour of her native country. She was going to show me all the sights and where she grew up, where she met my grandfather, where my dad went to school, etc. After spending 18 years observing a culture so closely and hearing all the stories, I was anxious to actually get to be a part of it.

Word of advice: see São Paulo for a day and then leave. It is a very very convoluted city. The traffic there is so bad that they have laws about who can drive at what times and on what days. There are simply too many people living in the city to have all of them on the roads. Even with these laws, if you get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, you might be stuck in traffic for about four hours.

Yet if there was any city I could retire in, it would be Rio de Janeiro. It's where people go to live, party, relax, enjoy life and then die. The beaches are gorgeous. The food is amazing. The Corcovado or Christ the Redeemer statue is breathtaking. But what makes Rio so interesting is that there's a clear distinction between work and play. There is the residential area and then there is the work district. You can clearly see when you've crossed the line. There are less highrises of apartments and more office buildings. There are less funky side street cafes and less parks.

Now I know my stint in Brazil is vastly different than their current problems. Brazil ranks in the top 10 of the countries with the most wealth inequality. The U.S. ranked number 7 last year. Now that seems suprising to me, but I think it's because in Brazil it's more apparent. You'll see tall, towering skyscrappers of penthouse apartments on one side of the street, with clean beaches dotting the horizon and on the other side of the street, you'll see rows and rows of favelas.

The country struggles with corruption and that in turn affects society, but it is still a wonderful country full of an incredible culture. Rio is a highlight. I recommend it as one of my favorite cities in the world for it's culture, the people and of course the beaches.