Max Mednik
  • Home
  • About
  • Interests
    • Angel investing
    • Magic
    • Scuba Diving
  • Blog
  • Contact

Readings and musings

10 things I learned from South America, Malibu, and Mexico

8/22/2011

0 Comments

 
Picture
I've been lucky enough this year to take two trips out of the country (and one hyper-local "stay-cation" for my anniversary organized by my wife). I enjoyed them all and learned many things, including checking off many items from my "do-before-I-die" list. Below are some of my favorite lessons and memories from these travels. (I also just saw Rio, which I really liked, and which reminded me of all the wonderful experiences I had in South America. I'm also reading Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, and apparently the famous physicist also loved visiting Brazil and even played the frigideira for a winning samba school.)
Picture
1. Rio is sort of like the movie. The samba is loud (got to see a samba show with good music but slightly cheesy/touristy dancing), the people are crazy about Carnival, and the sights are beautiful. (The movie's Rio is definitely cleaner and has prettier birds, though.)

Picture
2. The cable car ride up to the Sugarloaf mountain is wild -- such a nice view!

3. The Christ statue at the top of Corcovado is much bigger than it looks. You can take some really fun perspective photos from up there, though.

4. Spanish and Portuguese are close enough. I found Portuguese to be like a melodic version of Spanish; I could get by just turning some ción's into ção's and talking about samba and Carnival (though clearly I'm kidding and there's a lot more to the language). It would definitely be fun to learn it more closely some day.

5. The beaches are beautiful, and they are the spot to be seen during the Christmas holidays. My favorite beach for swimming was in Buzios, a sleepy, less developed part of Brazil (the original home, apparently, of some pirrrrrrates). The busiest beach I've ever seen was in Santos on Christmas Day; it was no less than 10,000 people literally walking up and down the miles-long coastline, sporting their wares (some better than others). It was truly a cultural moment to experience that.

6. Doing tango in a century-old tango studio in Buenos Aires was epic. The creaking wood floor, the raspy Argentine tango record playing in the background with melancholy... it was like I was in a movie. (Having some yummy parilla afterwards is what's required to hit the spot.)

7. Flying is everything I thought it would be. I always dreamed of becoming a commercial airline pilot when I was little, and I got to start towards fulfilling that dream in July. I flew a Cessna from Santa Monica to Point Dume and back with Justice Aviation for a one-hour demo flight (my instructor was named Max too!), and it was truly awesome.

8. Be appreciative for every raspberry you eat; picking them by hand is quite a difficult undertaking. I know: I tried to do it at Underwood Farms, and got so annoyed with it after 20 minutes. Each raspberry has to be picked off by hand, and it has to be ripened just so in order to taste good. I no longer take these little berries for granted. (Another fun thing at Underwood is feeding carrots to the horses and trapeze-artist goats -- no joke!)

9. Biking on July 4th at the beach can be fun and dangerous. We did a bike ride from Venice to Manhattan Beach, which was really enjoyable, except for when the bike path was filled with barbecuing, boombox-toting pedestrians. There was even a section that featured a row of parked Chevy '64s with various "interesting" decorative elements. It was all cool; talk about LA diversity!

Other fun stuff from the weekend included seeing the Houdini exhibit (and learning about the history of magic) and eating yummy food at Larchmont Bungalow, Red O, and Geoffrey's.

10. Manatees are the sweetest marine animal weighing close to a ton, and they're in extreme risk of extinction. (Turtles are the sweetest marine animal weighing closer to tens or hundreds of pounds.) I had the pleasure of swimming with (and kissing on the lips!) a manatee, dolphin, and sea lion in Mexico, and it was amazing. Learning about these creatures and watching how smart they can be was really inspiring. It was very sad to learn that 60% of manatee deaths are due to human causes like pollution or plastic bags getting eaten by them and poisoning them (they're dying less from natural deaths than from us!). I also learned manatees don't really have teeth and don't really bite; their color, size, and demeanor reminded me of my previous Neapolitan Mastiff, Marcello. (I also got the chance to swim with stingrays and a nurse shark with apparently no teeth as well -- not sure I believe all these "no teeth" tourist stories, but I'm thankful to have gotten out of there alive.)
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    November 2023
    August 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    January 2022
    October 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    April 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010

    Categories

    All
    Angel Investing
    Cacti
    Cars
    China
    Community Service
    Culture
    Design
    Djing
    Dogs
    Education
    Entertainment
    Entrepreneurship
    Family
    Finance
    Food
    Google
    Happiness
    Incentives
    Investment Banking
    Judaism
    Law
    Lighting
    Magic
    Marketing
    Medicine
    Networking
    Nolabound
    Philosophy
    Professionalism
    Psychology
    Reading
    Real Estate
    Religion
    Romance
    Sales
    Science
    Shangri-La
    Social Entrepreneurship
    Social Media
    Sports
    Teams
    Technology
    Travel
    Turtles
    Ucla
    Venture Capital
    Web Services
    Weddings
    Zen

    Subscribe

    RSS Feed

Picture
Picture
  • Home
  • About
  • Interests
    • Angel investing
    • Magic
    • Scuba Diving
  • Blog
  • Contact