Well it's Thursday night and tomorrow we're going to Rio! Selvia really wanted to go before she left Brazil (she was only going to be here for three months) so we organised to go this weekend and invited everyone. We've ended up with 13 people so it should be great. Tomorrow night we've got a local guy showing us the night life, Saturday afternoon most of us are going hang gliding across the city, Saturday night will be more fun out and about at some recommended locations and Sunday will be sightseeing. Kell and I are staying Sunday night too, then [View Full Entry]

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I don’t have a burning desire to write about any of the other World Cup football matches we observed. Needless to say we were most unhappy with the referee and the whole Italian team after the debacle that was Australia’s match in the round of 16 (and just when our second wave of flags and Aussie supporter gear had arrived). The Brazilians didn’t fair much better and after an uninspiring win against Ghana were knocked out by France in the quarter finals (I didn’t join the party which never eventuated due to being sick and unable to move from the couch). [View Full Entry]

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It certainly has been football, football and more football, but I’m not complaining as the literal translation is party, party and party some more. Australia’s final match of the initial round of the World Cup was against Croatia, not only a great game of football, but also an emblematic example of Brazilian best intentions not quite going to plan. Although this was set to be a fantastic game of football and would ultimately decide which team would qualify for the round of 16 it was to be played at the same time as Brazil vs Japan. That only meant one thing, [View Full Entry]

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We managed to be in our house for 24 hours before we had our first social gathering, albeit consisting only of only a dozen people. It was held Sunday morning, the morning of the greatly anticipated match (or perhaps party) of Brasil vs Australia. The warm up game beginning at 10am was between the other two teams in our group, Japan and Croatia and the ‘reason’ for our little get-together. On Saturday I had taken receipt of 40 t-shirts I’d had printed with the Australian flag and the text “Go Aussies Go!!!” and in smaller print underneath “FIFA World Cup Germany [View Full Entry]

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Six weeks of living in a hotel room and we were very ready to move into our house. Luckily there was the short change of scenery in Argentina when the Belo Horizonte hotel room was replaced by one in Buenos Aires, so I wasn’t quite climbing the walls when it was time to move out. We were taken to look at a few places before we chose the house that we are now living in. We saw a mix of houses and apartments, they were all fully furnished, but none were places we were keen to live in (generally they were [View Full Entry]

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I have come to understand that you can’t possibly be in Brasil and not have your nails done. This is quite novel for me as you could count on one hand the number of times I have had a professional manicure. There is no difficulty finding a salon here to provide this service and it is certainly very affordable. (For a manicure and pedicure it is about A$16 total.) To be honest I have been letting the side down a little as I have only been three times so far, but I’m sure I can set to rectifying this situation. The [View Full Entry]

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I was always excited about the prospect of being in Brasil during the World Cup, but I never imagined the experience would be so amazing. Brasilians are very patriotic people and nothing seems to bring that out more than futebol (I’m sure you can figure out that is soccer). In the weeks leading up to the World Cup the passion and excitement has become more and more evident. It started with every second person wearing “Brasil” clothing around and about (and what an array exists!) and has accelerated from there. “Copa da mundo” is now a staple component of my limited [View Full Entry]

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well, after an interesting and enjoyable, if somewhat unplanned, week in Buenos Aires we're back in BH and back to work. the first day back started with our regular Portuguese lesson. I realised the importance of regular attendence today. After missing three lessons last week I was stuggling! We also got our house keys today... hip hip hooray! we now have two weeks to buy a house load of furniture and move in. this will be well timed with the need for me, and possibly Kell, to return to Asutralia to get a long term visa. What a great plan- get [View Full Entry]

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Arriving in Sao Paulo was a strange feeling. Although we have only been away from Australia for five weeks (and in Argentina for the last one) walking through the airport on Brasilian soil there was a sense of ‘coming home’. Especially strange given ‘home’ is currently a hotel room. At least there are a lot more clothes here than in the one small suitcase we took to Buenos Aires with the intention of staying for the weekend. We left Buenos Aires on Saturday evening after collecting our new visas on Friday afternoon. You have got to love bureaucracy, we applied for [View Full Entry]

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Two days after we were due to depart Buenos Aires and we are still here (unfortunately not through choice, although I did say when I thought we were leaving that I would like to stay for longer!) Moving back in time......we were due to fly back to Brasil on Monday, but there were a few "complications". Fairly large ones really, like our visas were no longer valid. Lesson number 162, when you ask "are you sure you know this is how the visa works, you have checked it out properly?" and the answer is "yes" it probably means you had best [View Full Entry]

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