Ipanema two

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I´ve had a pleasant time so far, although the weather has not been cooperating, exactly.
I ate last night up on the 23rd floor of the sister hotel to the one I´m in and spent most of the meal stumbling around basic Portuguese with an extremely friendly but equally incompetant waiter. After the appalling attempts we made to communicate, it was actually a relief to get back to the sanctity of my little, incredibly expensive room.
I´ve tried the Brazilian beer of choice, Skol, as well as the food, and very pleasant each of them were.
I was back in the hotel by 9:00pm and asleep shortly thereafter.
Amazingly, I had to force myself out of bed close to twelve hours later to catch breakfast. I´ve got to retrain myself to eat like a horse at breakfast then wait until the evening before eating again.
After breakfast, I took off for a monster walk (partially in the drizzle that´s clinging to the day) the length of Ipanema beach then across to Copacobana. I walked back along the city streets for a change, then came back to the beach. I was literally the only human on the beach. No golden tanned hordes for this boy, only sleepy, scraggly pidgeons and a deliciously warm sea into which I paddled and got slightly soaked by an unexpected wave.
Back at the hotel I watched the Euro 2008 semi-final atrocity - global meltdown of TV signal meant that most of the second half was lost as well as the end of the game. I could have kicked the TV. I´ll bet there are going to be some heads rolling at the Austrian broadcasters camp. Turns out it was mother nature in the form of thunderstorms that did it. Comforting to realize that fellow soccer fans from Hong Kong to France, from America to Tibet all suffered the same fate as I.
Small world, eh?
But here am I half a small world away, and that´s still pretty far. Time to go and commit more language travesties in my forlorn attempt to distinguish Portuguese from Spanish. I´m sure I´ll be fine in about seven weeks or so!
See you on the flypaper,
mike

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Comments

[ontheroadEandS]

travelblog.org
jeez reading the blog on this particular site does remind me of another trip...once upon a time.