oi!

I'm wondering if maybe everyone back home's sick of reading this by now (enduring as they are the worst winter in however many years), but believe me, if we could've sent some of the heat from over here your way, we definitely would've!! For a few days it was ridiculous - up to 43 degrees at one point, which really isn't conducive to doing very much of anything. Going to the Jardim Botanico to hide under 30-metre high palm trees, taking refuge in some air-conditioned museums, or just sitting in our room under a fan, seemed the only sensible options...

The rain finally came last night with a massive electrical storm that knocked out the electricity in the whole street, so we cooked and dined in the dark - we got lucky and got power back that night (apparently it often takes three to four days!), so headed out for a humid and steamy night out at one of our favourite local haunts (seen below).

After the post-storm night out, I managed to get involved in a row with a taxi driver (there's something new for me!) who let us into his cab only to refuse to take us to our address, whining on about how we might lead him into a favela or something, and then feigning ignorance of the area altogether. Didn't really understand what he shouted at me after I'd slammed the door after getting out in disgust, but it didn't seem especially complimentary. To be fair to him, we have also heard what sounds alarmingly like machine-gun fire (in fact, it sounded like an actual gunfight), from around here, although this could be our over-active imaginations. Rio can do that to you.

That said, we're pretty sure it wasn't our imagination the other night, when a friendly barman started steering the conversation towards how long we'd been going out together, whether we were married, and so on... Then explaining about clubs that couples in relationships can go to (all the while making frequent references to his teenage wife and how attractive she was) for aventura, and how in Brazil things were diferente. Our minds boggling, we told him it was too much aventura for us, and politely declined. I thought this kind of thing was the preserve of bored fortysomethings in Croydon, not (fairly handsome, it has to be said) carioca barmen in their twenties! Did I mention that he also informed us that his wife had had a baby two months previously? Did they not have other things on their mind at the moment?!

Oh yeah, we were going to explain about the local kombis! You grow to love them around Santa Teresa. Basically, they're white VW minivans, which are cheap and can pick you up and drop you off wherever you like, but the door may fly open, you may have to sit on a local's lap, and you may even have to stand up. Seriously, whoever thought up the concept of health and safety was definitely not a Brazilian. The bonde (local tram) which flies over the Lapa arches while various maniacs hang off the sides, sometimes actually performing stunts or hanging upside down, was another experience - they definitely would've been banned in Britain many years ago.

I've decided that Vasco da Gama are the team I'll be supporting in Brazil (for various reasons, I can bore anyone who really wants to know separately as to why) and am endeavouring to catch them in action tomorrow at their home stadium - sadly, no matches are on at the Maracana while we're here. Anyway, their website gave an address to buy tickets, quite local to here, so we wandered over and found the address to be the stadium for Fluminense (local rivals)!! Some kind of practical joke?? I swallowed hard and asked them if they were, by any chance, selling tickets for the Vasco match this weekend (imagine trying to buy tickets to a Spurs match at the Emirates)... naturally enough, they weren't. Oh well, try my luck tomorrow I guess!

PS For any of our work colleagues reading, I can report that TV subtitles are alive and well over here (even live ones). They're frequently on when the TVs are on in the bars, and they seem fairly good as well (though with my sketchy Portuguese, that's probably a bit of a bold claim)...