hi guys

last day of my world trip, tomorrow i'm heading back home to good old vienna :) .. spent the last 10 days in brazil, was a great finish of my journey, had a lot fun here ...

first 4 days i spent in florianopolis, a nice island in the southern part of brazil ... in summer a famous tourist spot but now only very few tourists are there as it is quite cold there ... my hostel was nearly empty (slept 2 nights in an 8 bed dorm alone!) but i luckily met a guy from south tyrol the first evening ... he spent a long time here in floripa (as forianopolis is called by the locasl) and spoke good portuguese so i had a perfect tourist guide for the next days :) ... weather was really nice but quite cold, so i decided not to surf or dive there ...

on thursday i jumped on the bus to get to sao paulo where i arrived on friday morning ... sao paulo is a huge city, in greater sao paulo there live about 20 million people ... when i arrived i heared that the metro staff was on strike so i caught a train to got to the centre and then walked about 30 minutes with my big rucksack through one of the most dangerous cities in brazil (the travel book says that) .. i didn't have this feeling, but maybe because it was in the early morning :) so i arrived safely in my hotel and got sorted and in the evening i visited vivian ... i met her 6 years ago in london, visited her 4.5 years ago in brazil (so this is my second time here) ... her brother (diego) and her other sister (marina) also joined this meeting ... was great to see them again and diego took me then with some friends of him to a posh night club :) ... was great fun, nearly everybody could speak english (this is not common here in brazil, but sao paulo is different as there are lots of universities and this is also the business centre of brazil) so i had a good night in this club ... but jesus, the prices were f***ing steep (some drinks were even more expensive than in an austrian disco) ... so i spent a fortune there, as you get a kind of credit card and pay when you leave ... i don't want to think about it again :)

next day i met vivians boyfriend (or better fiance ... they will marry next year) and we all 5 had a nice lunch and talked a lot about .... everthing :) was quite a long time between my visits :) ... unfortunately their parents had no time, as they were in the family's beach apartment :)

on sunday i arrived in rio de janeiro and shortly after my check in i went to the maracana stadium to watch a brazilean league football game (flumines -palmeirs 0:1) ... unfortunately they were only about 10.000 people there and the capacity is over 100.000 ... but despite a nearly empty stadium the atmosphere was quite noisy, as the brazilean football fans sing the whole game and have a lot of drums with them ... the game itsself was not that good, but at least green white of the brazilean league won :) the stadium is massive, and surprisingly clean and modern (i think they did renovate it, because last month there were the panamerican games ... like a european championship in nearly every kind of sport)

the next day i had a reunion with john whom i met in australia ... he and his mate paul just arrived in rio and will spend about 4.5 months in south and central and north america :) ... was great to see him again, walked through rio and in the evening we had dinner (2 irish girls joined us) ... after dinner we had a little scary walk through the city, i think tourists don't go there often ... as we looked around and there were only strange looking guys we decided to take a cab and go back :) the english-irish connection spent some more time in a bar, i prefered my bed in my hostel ... which is pretty awful ... the first time i sleep in a triple bunk bed and i sleep in the middle bed ... also the rest of the hostel is quite s***, one of the worst places i stayed the last 6 months ... but anyway, just one more night :)

so, today was my last day, was really sunny and warm here and we went up the sugar mountain (i was there 4,5 years ago too and i also visited the christ statue the last time) ... but as i had no other plans i joined the 2 guys and the view over rio was fantastic ... was a nice finish of my trip :)

tomorrow all is over, but i'm looking forward to go home not only because of my babe and my family and friends, but also as i'm looking forward to put my rucksack away, have my own bathroom and toilet, and can put the toilet paper into the toilet :) .. all these small little things, that are common for us in austria (or europe) ... but anyway, this travel was my best decision and i enjoyed it every minute ... but there are still some more places to visit which i left this time :))))))))))))))))

so, thank you everybody who kept contact with me the last months, i will soon see you again

christoph