An excitable excursion!

Halfway across the world that is! After a rather bleak and dreary November in England, there was finally a hope that I would once again see sunshine, but that was not to be.

Quick to the bullet pointed list!

Day 1

After waking up at around 3.30 in the morning with a suicidal outlook on life, who ever said I was a morning person was sadly wrong, the ball began rollig. A quick mad dash around the house finding things which 'need' to be packed, and never used, I was set and ready for a whole exciting day of travel. A complete and utter lie who would ever want to be sat for over 24 hours? How ridiculous!

Anyhow, everything was fine, we were on time with time to spare (!) until we reached the roads leading to London. It was like watching a snail race, the pace that we were going was completely and utterly ridiculous how people can cope with doing it every day is beyond me! We did 4 miles in an hour, using up the spare hour that Papabear had caculated we would be using, queue maddash round airport. Once we actually GOT to the airport we did all of the normal airport things, giving up bags, getting security checked (I had to be specially searched, silly duck jumper!), passport control.. We finally made it to the gate we realised we had plenty of time to spare, not so good seeing as this would require more sitting down and waiting and so on and so forth.. When we did manage to get on the plane we realised that our seats were infact behind each other, not in a row, which in a way was good as Mamabear couldn't bully me to get to sleep. By this point it's already 12.30pm incase anyone's interested.

The flight was just as a flight is, cramped spaces, crappy food, babies crying... Lots and lots of movies, and a friendship (!), later we arrived in Rio de Janeiro! It's now around 11.30pm and I'm stood in this stiffling hot Baggage Arrivals area with a horribly thick jumper on waiting for our suitcases to circulate round the band. It doesn't take long for us to notice the rather weathered duffle bag and battered suitcase that belonged to us, and off we went to find the taxi man that was to take us to our hotel. After another, at least, 2 hours of waiting we FINALLY left the airport with 3 families and a bus in tow, we didn't know that the taxi man took everyone going to the same city crazy! The bus nearly broke down on the way to Buzios, where we were staying, which was terrible seeing as I hadn't slept in at least 26 hours and was pining for a bed to lay in. An hour after the heartstopping minor breakdown, we eventually arrived in Buzios, success! When the bus pulled up to our hotel, at around 2.30am, I couldn't believe what I was looking at. I had been promised a swimming pool, jacuzzi and mini bar and where were they?! The man in reception wasn't too friendly either seeing as he had been expecting us for about 6 hours, silly really seeing as we were still flying then! Either way we had made it and it was time for a good, long rest.

Day 2

After a rather short sleep, the excitement of seeing the sunshine was too much to handle, I was ready to start exploring the place that we would be staying in for the next however long that we were there for. It wasn't until we decided to go out on foot that I realised that we were actually staying on the side of this unbelievabley steep hill, the heighest one around at that, which meant that my plastic sandals left alot to be desired. Walking around in the cloud and mild rain I started to get disappointed, was this the holiday that I had signed up for? I think not. However once we had walked around the beach and the small area that was around us, we decided to go further afield and find the center of Buzios. This was infact quite a far way away from where we were staying, which in it's own way was good as at least two massive cruise liners ported every day so masses of excitable tourists in plastic binliners roamed the streets looking at the ridiculously over priced things in the shops. The place itself was really nice with lots of quirky back allies that were not to be ventured into on your own due to the odd looks you got, pale skin and light air make you stick out like a sore thumb! We did however buy a pair of Havainna's, Brazilian made flipflops that everyone wore, those were then the footwear for the rest of the trip.

To cut a long story short, we walked round the center, had an icecream than ambled back to the hotel going up the mountain the OTHER way around which was infact much steeper. By the time we got back to the hotel the rest of the wedding party had arrived so we went and we said our hello's and went to go find Florian.

Back again we walked to the center, or nearish to the center, this time in the pouring down rain. This unleashed a torrent of mud and sand that had originally been dry meaning that my shoes were officially ruined, for the time being anyhow. We found the groom and the blushing bride at our 'soon to be' new hang out, The Captains Table. 50 beers later, on our friends behalf, we were off to find dinner in a taxi! No more walking for this drunken crew, which was fab seeing as it was STILL pouring down with rain.

Dinner, bed.

Day 3

The big day!

We went to the center again and hung about there for most of the afternoon just simply ambling about trying to find the rest of the party, we never did but we did find lots of pretty things to but that were to expensive and were never bought. Also there was a vintage car show, so of course we had to go see all of those which was no problem at all nope!

Once the wedding came along it was already 5.30pm, it was still raining lightly, everything was still damp after the heavy downpour that came and went at around lunchtime. We got there incredibly early thanks to the crazy taxi driving, no need to slow down when you can go faster! It was scary, plus the seat belts didn't work which wasn't much of a comfort to anybody.

To cut another long story short, the bride was half an hour late, a hair problem we were told, the wedding was short and to the point, there was ALOT of food and drink, Gary (Papabears work friend) got heavily drunk, Joanna (some random Brazilian woman) kept telling me I looked like her daughter and a film star and she wanted to take me home scary!, and there was alot of Brazilians trying to teach me how to dance which was a complete and utter failure. Either way it was a brilliantly fun wedding which I enjoyed completely and would do again oohh yes! Also, it was the first time that we got to see the moon and the stars, a good sign for Sunday's events!

Day 4

With both Mamabear and Papabear in a rather bad way after last night, we decided against doing anything too energetic, so we wandered on down into Buzios again. And there we spent our day, or so I remember seeing as I really have absolutely zero idea of what we did.. Don't know why! Anyhow there you are..

Day 5

It's now Monday and, due to my pestering and the rather sunny outlook, we decided to go on a boat ride! It was infact really, really fun and the sun came out for about half an hour, which left me with an awful lot of sunburn and high hopes of finally being brown! We made friends with this person called Daniella, how exciting we never saw her again! Free drinks during the whole trip and snorkelling round a nature reserve, what an awesome trip! Though it was kinda ruined right, right at the end when my camera broke. Eurgh. Don't know what happened to it, the zoom/focus just wouldn't work anymore so most of my holiday photos are blurry which is an absolute bum cause we went to some really beautiful places after it broke! What a bummer but such is life.

Mamabear wanted to post the postcards that she bought yesterday, so off we went in search of this legendary postoffice, the only one in the whole city! To our horror it was unbelievabley packed with the queue inside doing a sort of odd snake shape, trying to get as many people inside as possible. It provided suitable entertainment for me and Papabear watching the people's faces once they saw the queue inside, we had to wait for 40 minutes! CRAZY! We then went off to find a camera shop to see if they could do something about my camera, they couldn't. We found the rest of the group in a restaurant so we joined them.

The rest of the day we walked back to the hotel, then just stayed there! We'd had lunch around 4pm so there really wasn't much point going back out again for dinner so we just stayed in the hotel, watching the English channel that I found.

Day 6

We went to go visit Dominic, some guy that was at the wedding that lives in Brazil. The taxi was 2 hours late due to a failure of some sort.. Nothing major oh no! The journey there took about 2 hours, which was with the crazy taxi driving and everything, by the time we hot there though we were already 5 hours late ooops!! We went to the beach that was near him which was sooooooooooo pretty, hate that my camera broke! Stole lots and lots of seashells and stunk out my bag with them cause they were pretty, haha! He made a nice ol' barbeque for us and I ate too much, surprise surprise! But it was soo yummy, just meat with seasalt and nothing else it was crazy how nice it was really. Anyhow, 5 hours and a stuffed face later, we were back on the minibus/taxi to go back to the hotel. Happy, happy times.

Day 7

Seeing as it was our last day in Brazil, we decided to amble round Buzios one last time and get rid of all of the Reals that we hadn't spent yet. The others went and rented cars and drove round seeing things, they were staying on for a few extra days mind so they had time to spare!

Nothing much happened, I had a MAJORLY amazing chocolate cake which was three layers with caramel inbetween... mmmmmmmmmmmmmm! It really was the highlight desert of my holiday, probably cause it was the only one hah! There's not much to say about this day really just imagine walking round all of the expensive shops looking and finding lots of things that you like but can't have, heartbreaking! Did however find a little stall by the seaside which sold a wooden bead neckace with a cross on, quickly bought for 10R$ (about a fiver?) It's lovely!

Quickly did all of my holiday/Christmas shop as well seeing as no one ever changed my pounds until then! Crazy times, but I found the gift shop that was amazingly cheaper than any of the others so that was pretty good! Mamabear still wasn't feeling too good so we went back to thet hotel really early and just stayed there, got some grape juice! YAY!! The English channel wasn't working, so I had to watch some kiddy programmes in Portugese cause there was nothing else on, c'est la vie!

Day 8

After sadly saying goodbye to everyone and leaving the hotel, we were off for a day out in Rio, seeing as our flight didn't leave till 11.30pm! It was still raining, it was raining all week with the occasional sun breakthrough. That kinda sucked cause everything in Rio was all clouded in so we couldn't go see Christ the Redeemer (the big Jesus on the hill) so we had loads of time to kill somehow.. The taxi man was eager to get rid of us and get on home! We did go to Ipanema and COPACABANA so I guess it was an alright situation in the end.. Got the airport 6hours before our flight, not a happy bunny at this point. Noticed pretty quickly that the airport was tiny and there were hardly any shops bummer! Me and Mamabear had our nails done for want of a better thing to do, finished some more shopping and then when we went to get through security, disaster! Major queue, it snaked round half the airport 3 times (!!!) and there were people there just quietly waiting, guess it's like that all of the time.. Either way it took us about half an hour till we got through security, not that long regarding but still.. Once we got through that though another major panic, Mamabear had thrown away the white papers saying that we were legaly in Brazil! Oh goodness, she was really worried we wouldn't get through security, I wasn't longer holiday? No complaints there.. We did however manage to get through no problem, Dad told them what happened she didn't understand but just nodded us on through. Half an hour later we're sat in the airplane, this time all in a row, I baggsied window seat so there you are! Long flight later and we end up back in London, which is around 5degrees! Far flung from the rather less festive 30degrees we were now used to!

We were stuck on the motorway on the way home for 7 hours, not even joking there was a delay at every single turnoff that we had to take! Not complaining though I got to catchup with the sleep that I didn't do (again!) on the airplane. And there you have it we were home again!