where were we going to stay?
Vlad probably knew this in the back of his mind that he was going to ask
if we could crash at his house for a couple night but me? i had some anxiety about it because i didnt know what the plan was. This, i realize now, it one thing i love about vlad- he does not plan too far ahead and lets the universe guide him.
I looked at the map and there was actually a very sick-looking skatepark not far from his part of town. On the map it was called Vans Skatepark so maybe they helped build it.
We were close enough that we could just skate to the skatepark. @Vaiparonde had a few longboard to choose from and knew the best path we should take. He led us to a cool boulevard path with super smooth ground that led us all the way to the giant public park that the skatepark was somewhere inside.
We found some spots along the way:
| spot1 | spot2 |
|---|---|
We skated this spot for a good 30 minutes just because we thought it looked like a spot. it wasnt a very fun spot because the ground was shitty and the ledges were too high to warm up on. but look at that cantilevered overhang. pretty cool.
In the video edit, i included some footage of us skating this spot that
We wandered around the park and eventually found the skatepark.
the skatepark was decorated with a very cool pattern-work. this inspired me because this is kind of what i have been assigned to do at a spohn ranch skatepark coming up in august. even though the lettering looks graffiti it gave the park a very classy touch.
there was a huge bowl section too that none of us touched. the street park was so much fun. it was seriously one of the best skateparks i've ever been to. it was so well built and the obstacles were all varied and unique and big.
A repeated motif was used throughout the park.
when you paint a skatepark you have to account for how huge it is and how much time its going to take so you kinda need to do something that you can apply to a large amount of surface area pretty quick but that still interests the eye from far away.
i wanted to take a picture of this guy filling up his water bottle at the fountain here at the park because you can see the water filter that is attached to it. i think this is awesome and i wish they filtered water fountains in the US and used exposed water filters so that we knew the water was filtered. obviously they are filtering out bacteria here in a brazil probably but in the US it would be nice to filter out chorine and fluoride.
We didn't work too hard at the park but we did handle some shit. I went ape on the double kink before we left.
venture trucks i do think help you lock in to grinds, especially 5050's i've never been so on point with my rail grinds than i have recently and i think its because of venture trucks but i've never thought about it before 
A lot of the footage is in slow motion and i wasn't able to speed it up due to how it was transfered to me from vlads phone.
At the end of the edit is footage from the next day when we were skating to get something to eat and found a spot at a car dealership that was closed.
After we got home that night i really had my first breakthrough vibe coding the skatehive 3.0 website that is my.skatehive.app.
vaipraonde is a professional software engineer and being in his presence elevated my skills.
the next day we had to catch our flight to new york city. our flight was in the evening so i got to get my last dose of the glorious brazilian sun outside in the courtyard.
ill include this photo cuz its kinda funny
before heading to the airport i got my last brazilian meal and vlad made it epic by going to a high end brazilian steakhouse.
brazil has the best food on the planet and is for sure one of the greatest counties in the world that i had the pleasure of being able to visit. great people, food, and culture. after this meal we headed to the airport to extend the skatehive tour more than i could have imagined, into the great metropolis of new york city.