I was looking out the window at the rain falling on the city and didn't notice what she was peddling, but I liked the sound of what she kept repeating. Outside, strings of broken down orange brick houses and graffiti-ed buildings passed in that pleasant train riding blur. Sometimes the facade of an old abandoned building gave me a hint of how beautiful Rio must have been when the Portuguese first arrived. Even under layers of peeling paint, the crumbling concrete statues of women or fruit bowls, and the black scars sprayed by the taggers, there was beauty in the decay of these cafes and hardware stores.
Emee-m-ee! I heard again as I turned to notice what the old woman was selling. Oh! M&Ms! That's what she's saying! Another peddler shouted, try this chocolate, you'll love it or your money back! A few minutes later, another peddler selling mints, and another with a hook lined with potato chips which he hung on the overhead railing as he gave a lady her change.
Wow, I told my husband, if I was a commuter on this train, I would be so fat!
At least it's not like before when you'd be accosted constantly by the religious folks trying to convince you of their version of the Lord's way, he pointed out. Listen, there's an announcement reminding everyone to keep your religion quiet on the train. He wasn't kidding.
Our station was next. We were on our way to the Rio Train Museum! A perfect place to go on a rainy day. We grabbed a bite to eat to kill time and crossed over the tracks. It looked promising as I took a picture of a beautiful old building from the train platform.
We ran as fast as we could with a kid in our arms, giant puddles and a tiny umbrella to the entrance of the museum which was locked. We yelled through the crack as we could see an opened door, a light on and our hopes were still up. A security guard wandered over and pointed to the sign which said that they are only open during the week. Our hearts sank for a second, but we quickly shook it off. We're getting used to being disappointed in this way and we didn't even bother to tell the guard that the website says it's supposed to be open! At least we got to ride the commuter train! Though it was probably not as exciting for my husband who spent the better part of his school years on it being converted into a new faith, but our boy was excited to get back on track (pun intended), so we headed home.
At the station, there's was a loud speaker blasting an instrumental version of..... I'm hummed along to remember what it was....the ear splitting loudness and the echo messed me up and I couldn't quite place it. I gave up when the tune was interrupted by an even louder announcement I couldn't make out. Thank goodness the train pulled up quicker than I thought it would.
Finally back at the parking lot where we left the car, our train adventure seemed to perk up; a children's train was waiting for us, right there, out of the blue, all painted in bright yellow waiting for us in the rain. There were kids on board holding balloons and we decided to run for it. Yay! This would surely make up for the museum being closed!
I don't know if it was the fumes from the bio-diesel run "locomotive" which I soon realized was a jeep made to look like a locomotive or the super loud kids' music blasting in our ears that started to make me sick, but when the train stopped for a break half way around the tour I had to get off. And not get back on.
The kid didn't put up a fuss. I think he knew it was a lame train in the rain. The kid and I walked over to a park bench, sat on our backpack to keep our bums from getting wet, opened the umbrella to stop the rain and the almonds from falling on our heads, and told each other stories while my husband ran back to get the car.
We were due for some coffee and some cake. On our way home, we ducked into Parque Lage which is this beautiful park surrounding an old mansion. The mansion now serves as an art school and has a very popular cafe overlooking a pool, but we figured since it was pouring rain, we'd have no problem getting a table. Oh, wrong. Again. To kill the 20 minute wait for a table, I played cars with the kid while admiring the architecture. My husband forcefully stationed himself near the kitchen, gently pressured the staff to prepare our order and joined us with a smile. Success! We made do, a picnic with some stools squeezed out of the rain, 3 spoons, a piece of orange cake, and two hot coffees. A pretty good day after all!
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