And a child is born for our sins

It feels really strange that Christmas has come and gone already. I think it's because it's the first time I've been in a hot country for it; it just doesn't feel like that time of year at all, despite the abundance of Christmas trees and Papai Noels all over the place. I also think it's because it fell on a weekend this year, and people don't get days off in lieu for it. So Hugo didn't get any time off work at all, which was annoying.

We stayed at Hugo's mother's apartment on Friday night (pushing single beds together after dark - I think Jesus spun on the mountain to glare at us, Sauron style), and I got to have my traditional Christmas ham. This pleased me.

On Christmas Day we went over to his Aunty's penthouse apartment by the beach. Quite a place. It had a waterfall jacuzzi on the balcony overlooking the sea, for fuck's sake. Dinner was good, and they bought me some fancy chocolates and stuff, which was cool. It became a little tiring trying to keep up with the conversations after a while though, the languages alternating between Portuguese, English and Farsi. I have a command of none. Twas a good day, though.

This week shall be mostly spent sorting out the apartment and unpacking the piles of boxes that are littering the place. Once it looks respectable enough I'll stick some photos up.

At the weekend we'll be going to Copacabana beach to see the New Years Eve fireworks show. It should be pretty spectacular, from what I've heard. One and a half million people, apparently. That's, like, loads of people. We even had to buy allotted underground tickets for it in advance. We can only travel between 8pm and 9pm, otherwise our tickets won't work. They just won't work, I tells ya.

May God have mercy on us all.

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