{"id":188,"date":"2011-06-28T17:23:44","date_gmt":"2011-06-28T17:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/guest\/?p=188"},"modified":"2013-05-10T11:11:12","modified_gmt":"2013-05-10T15:11:12","slug":"a-dynamic-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/internshipblogs\/a-dynamic-city\/","title":{"rendered":"A Dynamic City"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Lagoa<\/a>
Lagoa looking toward Botafogo, Ipanema<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mountains and beaches, city and nature, rich and poor. Rio is a city of dynamic contrasts, and bright-looking future.<\/p>\n

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Lagoa looking toward Botafogo, Ipanema<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The most striking thing when you first enter Rio is the massive granite hillsides seemingly dropped randomly throughout the city. \u00a0The lush, green vegetation, untouched by millionaire McMansions, frame every neighborhood in the Zona Sul (southern zone). \u00a0One cannot proceed from Copacabana to Ipanema, or Botafogo to Lagoa without squeezing through a natural, narrow pass, or traveling through a tunnel. \u00a0An urban planner’s dream, the result is well defined neighborhoods ripe with charm and history. \u00a0So I decided to take a little exploratory walk.<\/p>\n
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Walking through the city allows one to enjoy the different neighborhoods. \u00a0Starting at the Jardim Botanico (Botanical Gardens), visitors can wander in the calm of the urban garden. Much like the Portuguese culture that founded Rio, the garden has a combination of geometric Persian design in its center, expanding into a free-form garden on its perimeter.<\/div>\n
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The thick vegetation lets you get lost in the large fronds, and really reminds you that you are in the tropics. \u00a0The garden features meandering streams, secluded park benches, an environmental education center, and monkeys. \u00a0Oh yes, there are monkeys.<\/div>\n
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Leaving the secluded, quiet Jardim hillside neighborhood, one walks along the Lagoa (lake), ringed with swank hi-rises and the sizable Flamengo Sports Club. \u00a0Think of it as a lakeside gym\/resort that sports its own competitive sports teams. \u00a0I stopped for a bit to watch local skateboarders, rollerbladers, and BMX cyclists share a lakeside drained pool. \u00a0Old-timers, moms with kids, and plenty of teenagers are all welcome to watch or skate. \u00a0Everyone cringes when a cyclist flies out of the bowl, over-rotates his landing, and hits the ground, spine first. \u00a0(He was ok).<\/div>\n
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Finally, I arrive in Ipanema, one of the nightlife centers of Rio. \u00a0The opposite of the sleepy Jardim area, Ipanema is lined with shops, a\u00e7ai juice stores, steakhouses and department stores. \u00a0Of course, just two blocks off the glitzy, polished shopping strip is the southwest facing beach, home to dozens of fut\u00e9bol, volleyball, handball, and even pickup American football games. \u00a0Ipanema beach is bookended by two peaks – one at each end (with the famous Copacabana Beach lying one peak to the east), another perfect example of geological features defining urban features. \u00a0The beach at sunset is peaceful, especially in the dead of winter (average temp: 75 degrees).<\/div>\n
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Rio is absolutely a city defined by its natural features, where a busy and bustling metropolis is carved out from between mountains, beaches and lakes. \u00a0The vibrant neighborhoods nestled in valleys and along coastlines exist with, instead of in spite of, the natural features. \u00a0Of course, there is so much more to explore, so come back soon!<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mountains and beaches, city and nature, rich and poor. Rio is a city of dynamic contrasts, and bright-looking future. Lagoa looking toward Botafogo, Ipanema The most striking thing when you first enter Rio is theContinue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":206,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[68,37,72,43,42],"tags":[],"coauthors":[38],"class_list":["post-188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environmental-policy","category-brazil","category-internships","category-students","category-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2reSA-32","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/internshipblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/internshipblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/internshipblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/internshipblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/206"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/internshipblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/internshipblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1425,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/internshipblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions\/1425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/internshipblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/internshipblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/internshipblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/internshipblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}