Two days in Rio de Janeiro

It's now January 21, and in a year I will just have spent two days in Rio de Janeiro. I will have walked along the black and white wave pattern of the promenade along the Copacabana beach, staring in awe at the beauty and elegance of the people sunning themselves. I will have looked up at the statue of Christ the Redeemer and maybe ridden the car up to Sugar Loaf. Lent will be a month off, so I won't have had to fight Mardi Gras crowds, but I won't get to see the parades and costumes either. It will be mid-summer, temperature around 90 F., humidity in the mid-70s. And I can imagine all I like, but it's like an innocent from the provinces imagining her first trip to New York City. Only for me it's the whole world, about which I can at present only poke around in Wikipedia and pore over the itinerary and pretend to myself that I have any idea what the trip will actually be like. In a year I will have been in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and will be on my way to Buenos Aires, Argentina, as in "Don't Cry for Me". Maybe I'll sign up for a tango tour.

This is going to be terminally cool. I won't be, of course. I will be gawking wide-eyed, barely past picking straw out from behind my ears.