My First Day

So today was full on. I only travel with hand luggage - it makes travelling much less stressful, no waiting for bags, watching bags, heaving heavy bags around a strange new country.

Its also a good strategy because it forces you to get out into the community straight away to buy all the basics that you need. Interesting when you don't speak the language!

So with he shopping done I went straight to Copacabana beach:

Which is nice! It's also getting on for 26 degrees already..

I strolled all the way down CopaCabana beach to Ipanema to watch the surfers working the breaks just off the beach;

Then walked up into Leblon for lunch. As it turns out portions in Brazil are gigantic, this is lunch for one person:

Apologies this is on its side - I cant find any way to rotate this picture! By lunchtime it was 32 degrees and the walk back gave me really nice sunburn!

Top Tip: eat out with friends, order one dish and share it, it will be more than enough.

Why Brazil? Why Now?

Welcome to another of my off beat travel journals which I hope will entertain and inform. If you enjoyed 30 Days in Thailand then no doubt you will also (hopefully) enjoy this!

Looking out of my window it's another grey, overcast rainy day in the UK. The temperature is about 8 degrees - and its been like that for about 3 months. Personally I feel like I should be on what my friend Dave cheerfully refers to as "suicide watch."

He's got a point. I think everyone suffers to greater or lesser extent from SAD. It may or may not be a legitimate condition all I can tell you is over winter my mood plummets, my productivity suffers and , well I'm just not as happy! Who would want to be stuck indoors shivering in the half light of a UK winter anyway?

I admit I have a bit of a thing for the Americas and having tried and not fully succeeded in learning Portuguese in the past Brazil is already high on my list. Add the blistering weather, the delicious food and the beautiful people and the question becomes why aren't we all going to Brazil?

So the plan is to go for a month, learn Portuguese, get a tan, hopefully some of the natural beauty will rub off on me. Feel free to subscribe to this blog and I promise I'll try to keep it amusing and educational!

Caio!