Back dating the blog

It has come to my attention that our adventures in Brazil have not been fully documented. This is, perhaps, because I left the story after my near-death experience with an umbrella and was in shock after such a frightening incident. Or maybe I’m lazy.

BRAZIL DAYS 3,4 and 5

After the harrowing events of the previous night/morning, a good nights (mornings) sleep was needed by all. Unfortunately the girl in our room had a friend in another room which had bed bugs. So the friend insisted on opening our door constantly to see if the girl was awake yet. I don’t know why the girl didn’t wake up, our door made so much noise. Damn stupid girl with bedbugs. Damn handyman for putting the doorknob back on our door.
I thought of following my new found friends, Roger and Tom’s advice and running up stairs all day, but instead we decided that we should do some touristy things. So we went to see the big jesus. He was big and jesus-y. A weird monk seemed to be following us at the jesus site, which was creepy. But other than that, theres not a lot to the Jesus except he is enormous.
Deciding a big Jesus wasn’t enough excitement for one day, we headed to Sugar Loaf. Whilst the view was delightful, my hangover overcame the beauty and I wanted bed. We were almost there for sun set, which would have made for nice photos, however we thought it was best that two girls, obviously tourists, were not out after dark on public transport.
The thought of Capihirina’s and fun times at the hostel bar was considered, so we went to bed for power naps. Which lasted until the next day.
Our last full day was meant to involve a booze cruise with the hostel. This was cancelled due to bad weather (wtf? Bad weather in Rio? Never). So we decided to spend the day at the beach instead. On the way to the beach we stopped for Manicures, Pedicures, Massages and Coffee with cakes. All of this added up to less than about $AU20. May I just reiterate how much I love coffee. And beaches. And Rio in general.
A final dip in the ocean was required before we went back to the hostel for another amazing bbq and drinks. One of the guys, Brent, was leaving that night. However he had buried his Mastercard in the sand at the beach and never found it. He was sure it would be fine (he tried to explain some high class bank thing to me about how noone else could use it) and was mainly worried about having enough money for taxis and airport tax. Bo, being the kind gentleman that she is, shared her bbq dinner with him (well it was all you can eat). The rest of the night was spent in the bar, drinking capihirina’s (which now tasted nice, not vial) and guarana with vodka. Yum.
I got up in time to go have a tutti frutti at the nearby juice bar and cry because I wanted greasey’s and Bob’s wasn’t open. We meet some people from the hostel on the same flight as us, so we all got a taxi together. For the record, 4 large backpacks, multiple small bags and 4 people don’t fit well into a taxi. Especiallly if the traffic is bad and everyone is uncomfortable.
We checked in and went thru customs, receiving the best feel up that we had had yet. Then we tried to find out where we were meant to pay the $R100 tax we had been told so much about. Turns out it was included in our tickets. And we couldn’t exchange or use Real’s once we had gone thru customs. Which seemed like the stupidest thing we had ever heard and I still don’t understand why. So all four of us were left with $R100 that were useless until we got to England to get them changed.
British Airways were great. Except the inflight music was crap. The only bareable part was a small Tom Waits tribute thing. Other than that it was incredibly bad. But we got some Vicar of Dibley, Wedding Crashes, and that Christmas animated one about the train with Tom Hanks (why isn’t he dead) to keep us occupied.
That is our time in Brazil. Theres possibly a lot of detail left out, mainly due to alcohol abuse. But that’s what I remember at the moment.

ENGLAND, the mother country

What I’ve written about England is kind choppy and all over the place. Probably best if you all ask Grim what we’ve been doing, he’d probably make more sense. I met up with my Uncle the 3 day we were in London and he generally took us around the city. Then we met up with the Sherwin’s for a Christmas Carols concert at the Royal Albert Hall. Brilliant. For the record, I have no idea how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.
Christmas dinner was Grim’s family, us and his aunt, uncle and cousin. It was lovely, until they started using the word ‘Sprog’ at the dinner table and didn’t understand the Australian meaning of the word. Then they set the pudding on fire. Strange. We stopped to listen to the Queen, bless her, then continued on eating and drinking. I think I may have been slightly (rather) drunk. Everyone opened some presents (including us. Hurrah. I’m still a bit confused as to why Santa brought me Bocketts Farm merchandise, but anyway..) and we continued drinking and eating. Then, when we thought it was all over (it was about 10pm) there were more presents, this time from the Christmas tree (????). Over all, it was a great day.
Grim, Bo and I did a whistle stop tour of London, taking photos of all the important sights (most of which Grim had never done). While I was walking along the Thames to Southwark, Grim appeared to be walking along the Tems to Sutthick. The English should learn to speak their own language properly!
We also went down to Dorest, to the Sherwin’s other house. We stopped at Stonehenge on the way. It had been snowing when we left Surrey, but now it was raingin heavily. The ticket guy told me I could have a free 35 min tour thing, but said he didn’t think I would last that long. I was initially determined too, but it was way to boring and cold. After Stonehenge, we stopped at a country pub, complete with low, thatched roof and open fire, for lunch. Then we went to the house to watch a classic Agatha Christie film, followed by the pub.
Next day we went to visit the family’s horse. I feed it a carrot. Hurrah. Then we went to the beach, where we decided to have a bit of a paddle in the English Channel (it was no more than about 5 degrees outside and the water was FREEZING). Then we had to head home for a New Year’s Party and Five go to the Beach was concluded.
New Years was at Grim’s mate Chris’s new house. I drank 2 bottles of wine and resisted the temptation to vomit in someone elses bed (Guess I have a better stomach than you Lez - or maybe it was because it was white wine). I made Nachos, swung on a swing in the park and got awfully confused because Big Ben was chiming with 30 seconds to go. How was I to know it finishes chimming at midnight??

I’m gonna leave it there for now. Some quick messages for people:
Ugs - Your comments about Marsie were exactly what I was going to say, but I expected a comeback along the lines of ‘You inherited everything from me’ so I refrained.
BV - You know timtams are bad for you. Stick to the nachos.
Frenchy - Relationships suck and it sucks to have relationships and it sucks to know people who have relationships - wait, was that relationships or the plague? Both are similar.
Lez - I remember you being after that girl since Boosh’s 21st. Are you sure she’s real? Or is she the 35 yr old and you are just pretending she isn’t.

That’s it from me for a while. Must find work.

CAT

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