At the copa.. copacabana..

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  Rio de Janeiro, State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Wednesday, June 4, 2008

OK, so I've had a pretty busy past week - finishing my placement with IBM, moving out of 154, sorting out all sorts of stuff here there and everywhere... but now here I am in the marvelous city, Rio De Janiero. Now the fact I'm travelling feels pretty real, the 16 hour flight went quickly and I finally was getting excited about what's ahead. I sat between this Brazillian woman, Elizabeth, and this Glaswiegan called Jim. Elizabeth had a 3 month old baby called Anna Gabriella which sat in some cot in front me, and luckily she wasn't any nuisance. Elizabeth was helpful in telling me stuff about Brazil, like where to go, what to see etc. Apparently there are two roads that span Rio, and on some parts of the road there are hills on either side, which house many poor people. Each hill is run by a drug gang and sometimes there are shootouts between the hills, so that's something to watch out for... sounds quite like Walthamstow these days if you ask me.
When I got to the airport I decided to take the public bus to my hostel, using maps etc. to save money. It took about an hour and a half, for R$6.50 as opposed to a R$70 taxi, so I'm quite chuffed, despite getting off a stop too early and having to walk about a mile with that heavy backpack on my back... I saw lots of things from the bus, all the shanty towns and their half-built homes, urban football pitches, and some really artistic graff art around too. I guess that bus was a good tour, it was an experience in itself finding the bus stop and having to get away from all the taxi cab drivers trying to make me get a taxi and other people hussling all the tourists. So anyway, the Walk On the Beach hostel seems decent, bit hard to find and not obvious from the street, but Bo - the Danish guy who works there and checked me in seems like a friendly guy and speaks good english.
I really need to brush up on my portuguese - it's quite difficult with my limited vocabulary stretching as far as Olá! It's raining here at the moment - seems like I chose the wrong time of year to come, hopefully it will brighten up before I go. I plan to stay here till Sunday, where I will get a bus to Sâo Paulo. In that time I hope to go paragliding, see a football match in the massive maracana stadium, see the usual sites, hit the beach, maybe get an hour private lesson in BJJ, check out the vibe after dark.. so expect another post toward the end of the week saying what i've been up to! My internet time is running out so I'd better go off to explore rio...

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