So, I'm leaving Rio behind... And with a heavy heart.

Yeah, its gorgeous and yes, somewhat dangerous.  Made it through without the joy of getting mugged, but met quite a few people who did.

Here's some tips about how to get the most out of visiting Rio.

If you go during Carnaval:

- Avoid the parties and clubs you have to pay for and stick with the Banda's - the outdoor street parties and parades.  There a lot more fun and you'll meet a lot more

- Definately go to the Sambadromo, though heard a promising report that its well worth it to wait and see the parade of champions rather than the competition.  The Parade of Champions is apparently much cheaper (and a tad shorter).  The food in the stadium is horrible, be sure to eat ahead of time.

I have to say I initially was caught a bit off guard - but I was seriously dissed at Asia Source II by a camp participant who apparently found me to be an arrogant american.   What was fascinating about it all was that it started out as a bit of fun by the Participants in the track I was facilitating.  They decided to prepare a short skit for morning circle that included them imitating the facilitators of the track.  Before the day was through, I found myself being seriously dissed on the camp blog, cries of homophobia being voiced by some of my closer friends at the camp and a series of events occuring that initially had me very troubled but ended up with me becoming very proud of the response by the camp participants.

I was in a gay pub in brighton, england the other night and was introduced to this young chap who looked at me accusatorily when he learned I was an American.

"Wait a minute," he said, turning one eye towards me like he just spotted evil incarnate, "you people teach creationism in your schools!"

Embarrassed doesn't nearly describe what I felt at that particular moment and I did my best to deflect his growing scorn. "No wait, I think you misunderstood," I did my best to defend myself "I'm really from New York City, not America, and we don't teach creationism in our schools there." I tried to dissasociate myself as much as I could. I then started worrying if I'd just damned myself more, I couldn't really remember if New York City schools were required to teach creationism along with everyone else.

Ok, there really isn't much I don't like about being queer. Sure, occasionally there's some fucked up homophobe I have to deal with, particularly when I have a job that takes me to many different lands where I get engulfed in many different cultures. But the cool thing about being gay with this job is that its kind of like belonging to a secret club and you can meet members of this club no matter where you go in the world.

Case in point is this last weekend in Istanbul, which is a pretty typical example of how a gay person can land in a place and get connected pretty quickly to local folks who can give you a very different understanding of what the local life/customs/culture is really like.