Riolly good.

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Hola...

First off, weather has been shite. Got here on tuesday after monster journey that started in Quito (after watching spiderman 3, not very good), and just got taxi straight to airport around 6, flew at 9 to Lima, then time went a bit funny and after a 4 hour flight to Sao Paulo, it was about 8am, so went forward 3 hours, which meant i had a very short nights sleep. bad. was already tired as had had shite nights sleep the night before. Once id arrived in Sao Paulo airport, i then had to use my newfound (or indeed slightly nonexistent) portuguese to get a bus to the main bus station, then a bus to rio, which took first an hour, then 6 to rio. was dull, as, ive noticed, the beginning of this entry has been. this is becasue im knackered, and not feeling very enthusiastic about things!

Turns out i went to bed after that, and its now about a week or so later. Essentially (havent done much)

Tuesday As above. not very exciting, hostel a bit random, however i didnt care about this as i just went to eat some food next door at a place where you help yourself to food, then pay per 100g. this turned out to be expensive for me. good though. had a big sleep.

Wednesday. Woke up. went to beach (ipanema), drank a coconut. sunbathed, read book, bought flip flops. Afternoon, wasnt very sunny, walked to copocabana, looked similar to ipanema. sat on it for a while, read my book. achieved little. there isnt very much to do on wednesday nights,just watched some rubbish TV with a few people in the hostel, nothing very exciting, although i did now have the four bed dorm to myself, which was nice. think i went to bed early again.

Thursday followed a similar pattern, sat on beach, was offered lots of acai, which is a frozen blueberry thing, quite good. bought a surrong. sat on it. drank a water. read some book. In the afternoon i resumed sitting on the beach, however weather was pissy again, so had to move my lounging to inside, and more of the Warner Bros Channel (a constant stream of the OC, friends, superman etc). That night went out for all you could eat sushi, which was one of the best meals ive ever eaten in my life. Was really really good food, and I ate it until i felt sick, but because its quite light, i wasnt. genius. Had quite a lot of saki to drink, however didnt go out as was very full (was with two english and two aussies by the way, whose names i forget). Went for beer after then bed. Good day

Friday morning started with me needing to get cash out. Was supposed to be going on city tour with the english people, however card wasnt working in one machine, so tried another one, didnt work. other one didnt work. panicked a little bit. thought id run out of money. bad. went in to have very difficult conversation with portuguese speaking woman in HSBC, which didnt help. phoned bank, theyd cut off card again as had moved country. annoying, however success. this took most of the morning. sat on beach for the rest of the day till weather went poo again. retired to sofa in hostel. That night was decided to go out, mostly because the woman who worked in our hostels pretty friend wanted me to meet her in a club with her and her (presumably very pretty) friends. Ended up however just having a few beers in a cool bar, then discovering that we had no idea where this place was, or what it was called. this was annoying. got drunk on caphirinias instead.

Next morning i had a bit of a sugary hangover, however went on city tour with scottish liam, as well as two aussies (different ones). saw all the appropriate stuff (including favela, which is a slum that the police dont go into, see City of God). Saw favela from a distance. Inside is bad. Took obligatory silly photo of me pretending to be jesus. its hilarious, honestly. Saw three monkeys. And some famous (i had never heard of them) steps made of tiles. there was the man there who did it, so i bought some stuff from him to add to my ridiculously large pile of tacky souveniers. saw cathedral, was dull.

Weather then wasnt too bad, so went to beach for a bit again, then back to hostel when weather was bad. met a guy from sao paulo whose name was something like chicago, and his two girl mates. both quite pretty but not so hot on the old english. also met an isreali guy called raphael, who was annoying. The group of us ended up going out for dinner in a place that did all you can eat meat, where the waiters come round with big skewers from the kitchen and keep topping up your plate. I sweated a lot and felt sick. Good though.

After this killed time until we went to a club called Bungalow, which was aptly, if unimaginatively named. Women were amazing, if difficult to approach because they didnt speak any freaking english. Fun though.

Next morning was very tired, however struggled down to the beach for a bit, then came back to get the bus to the macarana stadium (biggest football one in world) to watch Flamengo play some team from sao paulo. was quite good, got a bit drunk. Continued drinking when i got home in my new (slightly fake) Flamenco shirt. Went for dinner with some people i didnt really know, including a slightly (very) fat annoying girl, who was later to keep turning up in places where i was, which was annoying. Decided to go to Favela funk party (big club in favela) which turned out to be a bit mental, and much fun, as a beer there cost 25p. Dangerous.

Got back about 6am. was a bit tired.

Monday involved doing little, in fact literally nothing in the morning, and the beach in the afternoon with Liam (new scottish friend, and the whitest man in the world). that night involved a mcdonalds and a very early night. good.

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