J&J Go South 2023 - Day 3 - The Last Remaining Starbucks
When we originally started to put the itinerary for this year's trip together we were thinking of just doing Rio and Buenos Aires. But as we looked at flights we realized that we’d need to stop in Sao Paulo and so added it on and boy are we glad we did, it was an excellent first stop to the trip. We woke up early this morning for a 6:30 AM pick-up to take us to the airport.
When we arrived at the airport 45 minutes later we went in search of a Starbucks mug. On the way, we stumbled on an Olive Garden (felt a bit random) and came up empty-handed at the first Starbucks. We had some time to kill and knew there was a Starbucks in the other terminal so made the 15-minute walk and wouldn’t you know it after at least a half-dozen Starbucks visits we found a Sao Paulo mug. Jenn was beaming and ran up to the counter to buy it.
Jenn had a hot chocolate before we made our way through security and into the GOG Lounge while we waited for our flight. The trip to Rio is less than an hour and we did upgrade our seats to Premium Economy (the best they had) which just meant the middle seat was empty. The flight was uneventful and by the time we walked to baggage claim our bags were #1 and #2 coming off the conveyer, we grabbed them, met up with our driver, and were off to our hotel, The Copacabana Palace.
We arrived at our hotel around noon and unfortunately, our room wasn’t ready so we dropped off our bags and headed to the pool. We split a burger and fries and Jenn got her first of many Pina coladas here in Rio. It was a perfect day out, we couldn’t have asked for better weather so far on the trip. I ended up falling asleep in the shade while Jenn continued to enjoy her drink and relaxed by the pool.
At 2 PM Jenn went to go check on our room which was fortunately ready now. We were upgraded to a partial ocean view and a stunning room. The old luxury of this hotel is brimming from every corner. It’s not usually our style but there’s something about the charm of this place that has made us both fall in love with it. Everything feels more substantial, and you can feel a bit of the history of the place in every corner.
We spent the rest of the day relaxing, we had nothing planned so we didn’t push it. We ended up ordering room service, Jenn had the spaghetti with meat sauce and I had a club sandwich. We watched a few episodes of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel before we closed the blinds and turn the lights out on our first day in Rio.
