January 2, 2015

First thing this morning we go to the eye institute recommended by Romulo to get my eye pressure checked. It was up before Christmas and my doctor back home prescribed drops that have caused me pain and extreme light sensitivity since my arrival. I called him before the new year and stopped the drops but he wanted me to have the pressure checked. So today I do and it is miraculously down to normal– hooray! We are near the metro so head downtown to buy tickets for a concert next week, but we are 3 hours early for the box office to open. So we end up at the Bibliotec Nacional, reopened since my last visit but still without its archives online, where I do a brief stint of research though I have to come back next week when the head is in to get permission to photograph the manuscripts. They are no longer making xerox copies, as they luckily were when I was first down in 2007 to do my first “pesquisas”. Pictured on the right is Carlos Gomes, an opera composer whose statue is outside the Teatro Municipal. We continue on to Rua Carioca, the street of music stores, where some are open, some not because of the holiday. And we stop for lunch, and juice. The day is so hot and humid that we just can’t seem to drink enough. Pictured on the left, the machine that makes “caldo da cana” sugarcane juice. The man in blue feeds the stalks into the machine and catches the juice in the pitcher to pour into my glass. Yes, it’s sweet, but also earthy and very refreshing. We finally make it back to our room and play a little music to end the day.