My last post was a little down on Rio. What can I say? My brother’s plane was canceled because drug dealers invaded a hotel and I ran out of peanut butter.
Today, I had a delicious lunch while sitting outside on a beautiful afternoon. Spring has come to Rio and the temperature is perfect, warm enough to wear a tank top without a jacket but not hot enough to make you sweat. Plus, I saw a monkey this morning and fuzzy monkeys are one thing Rio has going for it. All that is to say, today I like Rio.
Because Rio and I are on good terms today, I thought I’d return to my Great Things About Rio series. The spectacular weather has highlighted a common practice here, which I intend to continue whenever I return to the US. Here in Rio, people open their windows.
Growing up, if a window in my house was opened, an adult always raced to it, vaulting over the coffee table, while shouting “The air! Don’t let the air out!” and then slammed the window shut crushing the bluebird that had landed on the sill. Air was apparently a very precious commodity as we suburbanites moved from one hermetically sealed environment to another. Heated or cooled, the air could not get out. Thus, the windows remained shut.
I guess there is an abundance of air in Rio because people just leave the windows open. While the air inside the apartment does escape, it is replaced by air from the outside and the outside air brings all sort of wonderful things with it. The sounds of birds, the shouts of kids playing soccer, the smell of beans and fish being prepared, the occasional chill before a storm hits. It’s only been in Rio that I’ve discovered a breeze blowing through your home is a marvelous thing. How wonderful to be simultaneously cozy in your apartment and still connected to the outside world. If I were a therapist, I would regularly prescribe opening windows.
True, an open window can let in the seasonal swarm of termites or strains of the drunken, karaoke contest from the nearby college campus, but dealing with the occasional plague does not detract from the daily calming effects of a curtain gently drifting into the room. Besides, an open window can always be closed when it’s amateur night on the quad.
