Cultured Liz?!

Ola!! We have been staying in a lovely little colonial town due north of Rio since Tuesday- we arrived at 6am in the morning, checked into a hostel and slept all day-amazing!! Hehe!! It´s a very sweet little town with cobbled streets and a church on every corner, so far we´ve been in 2 of them and 1 museum- which is more than enough for me to be honest!! I feel far too cultured! The town is called Ouro Preto (shown in the map above) which means Black Gold and I´ve learnt lots about the gold mining in the 18th century and a dentist poet dude called Tridentes-check me out!! I´ve drunk lots of beer too.

We are getting the night bus back to Rio tonight and I can´t wait to get back- very excited about carnival which starts tomorrow- they are celebrating here already and there was a drumming parade going on through the town all night last night. Also quite excited to sit on Copacabana beach with a beer.

I´d like to sign out saying ´goodbye´ in Portuguese but I have no idea what it is- portuguese is sooo hard!! Chow?!!

Frango?

Before travelling to Brazil I made a big list of things to do. These included:
- Sorting out a way to access money abroad
- Ordering a year supply of contact lenses
- Having a load of needles stuck in my arm so I don´t get any weird and not-so-wonderful diseases.
- and other such essentials...
My list however, did not contain any mention of learning Portuguese. In fact, until last week, I´m pretty sure I didn´t know how to spell "Portuguese".

Let me tell you now - Portuguese is like no other language on earth. It is complete gibberish. We have learnt a couple of stock phrases to say to people, but cannot understand a word of their replies. Even Spranglesi has, so far, been ineffective (Spranglesi, for those not in the know, is a creative blend of Spanish, Italian, English and French, spoken with a ridiculous accent, that served myself and others well during our travels in Central America).

An example of our communication problems:

On our first night in Rio, we went to a juice bar for dinner. With the help of a phrase book (and some pointing) we managed to order an orange juice and a mango juice (both tasty-gorgeous). Then it was time to order food. I had noticed a picture of a succulent roast chicken with the word “Frango” underneath it, so “Frango!” I said. Liz went for the “Salade Atum” – a tuna salad we reckoned. This prompted a lot of shouting and hand waving, to which we just nodded and said “OK” lots. 5 minutes later we received an egg sandwich. It was disgusting. We´re now mainly living off fruit juice.

Other stuff we´ve done: Got sunburnt, been to the cinema, drunk Skol beer, got scared traveling through dodgy areas by bus, enjoyed walking through non-dodgy areas in sun and rain, got a night bus to Ouro Preto, looked at lots of churches…

Back to Rio tonight and Carnival!

The Big Farewell at Heathrow

Ahhhhh its today!!

Well its Friday 25th Jan which means its time to leave the country! I have been slightly more organised than Chirs (who spent 7 hours last night looking for his passport- I am so worried to be travelling with him- it means I have to be the responsible one and we all know that is slightly out of character!) I am all packed and pretty much ready to go!

Had a first attempt of packing last night and found I had loads of room left in bag which made me VERY happy so I've packed lots more clothes-but now I can hardly pick it up-but I do think that extra hoody and 3 tops will come in useful ?!!!

We've put a few pics from the leaving party up on the slideshow- thanks everyone for coming- was great to see everyone before we go!!

Leaving for Heathrow in 2 hours and arriving in sunny Rio tomorrow morning- we'll try and update this as much as possible and add as many pics as possible too to make everyone jealous!!

Bon Voyage!!

Leaving Tomorrow

So it's a little after 1am and we're going to South America in ... er ... 44 hours or something. Anyway - officially - we're going tomorrow. And I've yet to start packing. Just spent the last few hours sorting this blog out, playing on my new game boy advance, and ripping music to my ipod. All very important activities granted - but probably not as important as actually packing.

Still - not as bad as when I went on Trekforce. Back then I lost the kit list and had to pack my equipment for the jungle based on memory and guesswork. Ended up having to "borrow" various items from other Trekkers. I can still hear Jason shouting "Where's my spoon? Who's stolen my spoon!" Jason - if you're reading this - it was me!

Also I'm hoping not to repeat the whole Passport saga of a few years back. Short version: I was going to New York for a summer working placement. On my way to Heathrow I realised I had forgotten my passport. I called up my Mum who agreed to drive it to the airport for me. She got there just in time for me to hand it over while checking in. It was out of date.

So, compared to those times, the fact I'm even thinking about packing at this stage is a good sign. So best stop writing this, and actually get down to it. Nah ... actually ... I think it's time for bed. I can always do it mañana ...