Post Carnaval Normality

Well, we survived the Carnaval.

Twas a crazy couple of weeks, but an awful lot of fun. The whole city is just one massive street party for an entire week. And everybody is wearing fancy dress, which I wasn't expecting. EVERYBODY. We were all distinctly underdressed for the whole party. At least I know for any future Carnavals that I need to drag up and strut/wobble my beautiful European body around the shop. If only I still had my Tootsie outfit. Sigh.

The apartment coped with the five guests as well, which was a relief. Our place is perfect for the two of us - there's plenty of room for us to dance, write poetry and read magazines, but for seven people? I'm just glad no one fell out of the windows, or that the new fans didn't fall down and decapitate everyone. They all seemed to have a good time though, and I liked showing off my new city. It really is a fantastic place. Sometimes the scenery can be a little overwhelming at times though - particularly on the day that we went on a road trip through Tijuca forest. Seven hours of consistently amazing panoramic city vistas can be draining on the senses.

Even though Louise, Claire and David were only here for a week, we still managed to squeeze in most of the touristy bits for everyone, including a few I hadn't been to before (Tijuca forest, and Pão de açucar).

So anyway, I won't go into any details about Carnaval itself because of the rule: What goes on in Carnaval stays in Carnaval, but I would definitely recommend anyone to make the trip over for it. We could probably hold the same amount of people in the apartment again, but I don't think any more could comfortably fit, so get your bed requests in early.

So after all the hullaballoo of the biggest party on earth this side of my underpants, things have quietened down back to normal. I'm starting to make some inroads with the teaching. I've been going to observe Hugo's friend as she teaches a few classes in the city centre, and she's been really helpful with advice, contacts and recommendations for materials and things like that. I'm making contact with a few companies and will hopefully set up some meetings in the next week or two to see about taking on some students. I've ordered some coursebooks and have been scouring the internet for resources too and there seems to be a lot out there. I'm obviously shitting myself as I haven't done any actual teaching yet, but I guess that's natural for the beginning. I'm sure it'll all click into place eventually. Maybe. Hopefully. We'll see what happens. What's the worse that could happen? Apart from the fan falling down and decapitating everyone, of course.

MATCH REPORT


Ok, I know you've all been waiting on this week's match report, especially since it's been a few weeks since I've played. Last week I sacked off at the last minute due to...well, mainly laziness, so this week I was particularly concerned that I would die of a heart attack after about five minutes of running around.

Apparently we might have some trouble with numbers from now on, since schools and colleges are back, so last night we had exactly 12 players. Hopefully it doesn't start dwindling to the extent it's 4 a side or anything, although I expect they won't let that happen. It's Brasil for fox sake. There's always people on standby to play football.

Anyways, having bought a practice ball to use downstairs to try and improve my shooting which has completely gone to cock recently (even more so that usual), last night I managed to miss about 5 decent chances to score, and then afterwards was incredibly unlucky with about 5 chances, hitting the bar a couple of times, decent saves, etc. I did twat my right foot at the beginning of the game though and it's still really sore, so I'm using that as an excuse. Hopefully I haven't done any damage by playing on THROUGH THE PAIN. I still didn't go back into nets though. I'd carry on playing outfield with no legs rather than go into goal. Man I hate going in goal.

BUS REPORT

Anyway I wasn't too bothered about not playing that well, since I was mainly delighted to have made it to the pitch in one piece after yet another ridiculously scary bus journey. These are seriously getting on my tits now - I honestly fear for my life getting on some of these buses. The one yesterday not only took the biscuit, but ate the biscuit in front of me, and then twatted the biscuit tin off my face as it laughed and walked away, all crumbly. It was one of the small mini buses, and I was squeezed into a gap at the front. There were about 10 children standing beside the driver, blocking the front mirror and the rear view mirror, and the door was open because people were hanging from it and there was no room to close it. So with approximately 400% more people on the bus than there should have been, it speeds off on our twisty mountain pass. Every corner I thought it was going to tip over, to the extent that I was seriously hoping it would tip on a right turn so I could land on a pile of soft bodies, rather than having it go on a left bend and have 30 people land on me and squeeze me into juice. I know I'm probably being over-stressed about this, but it's going to take a while to get used to.

And on that note (B-flat minor), I bid you farewell for now. I've got to go and donate some money to Joseph Kony so he can help raise awareness of International Women's Day or something like that.