Finally home again. It is both sad and very nice to be back in the apartment with all my things.

The last days In Rio de Janeiro we got to visit the Sambadrome, the 700 m long stadium-like parade ground where the biggest parades take place. It was simply an amazing show. We arrived there at 9:40 about 10-15 minutes after the first Samba school had gotten to our section of the road and watched all 6 Samba schools which were parading that night and until the last one finished at 5:30 am. It was really an amazing show with in total 18.000-30.000 dancers, huge floats and fantastic dancers and singers. For those who have not seen the Carnival the closest equivalent is the opening shows at Olympic Games, only the carnival parades last much longer. My favorite samba school was one called Portela who had chosen the internet and its effects on society as the very ambitious theme for their parade. In the parade there is one figure who is the "Drummers Queen", who according to tradition should be the parades sexiest woman and best dancer so that she could inspire the 200 drummers (who traditionally were all men) to play their best. I loved that the Portela parade had chosen that the drummer's queen should wear a costume symbolizing fiber optics, so I am in the sexiest part of the whole internet industry. It was however clear that the audience favorite was the Mangueira samba school which even after 8 hours could get the whole audience to sing along to their songs and dance in their seats better than any of the earlier parades.

When the parades finished we made our way home to Copacabana where we were just in time to see the sunrise at the beach and get a quick morning bath before finally going home to sleep at 8 am.

The most of the next day went with sleeping but we managed to get up in time to go to sea the sunset from the "Sugar loaf" mountain, a famous costal mountain poking out from the Rio coastline. In the evening we had tickets for the Gay ball at the Scala disco, which is another Carnival highlight. We went there with an English girl which we had seen the Iguaçu falls with and had randomly met in Rio. The ball was really an experience filled with people in great costumes and some really odd characters the most extreme were probably the trans-sexual men who went around topless showing off their large silicone breast. It was a great night with lots of dancing and some very strong drinks so we had to sleep most of the Wednesday after we got home at 7 am. After sleeping the only thing we did Wednesday was to go to the beach, where it was quite obvious that we were not the only people who were recovering from a few days of partying.

Thursday we went and saw some of the Centre of Rio, mainly the churches and the old royal palaces. Friday we went and saw the famous statue above the city of Christ the Redeemer. It has recently been named one of the new 7 wonders of the world, however I do not really think it deserves that honor. After the statue we went and saw the nice botanical gardens of Rio before having a quick swim at the beach at sunset. Saturday we spent most of the time packing and relaxing at the beach before I had to fly home in the evening. Rebecca was only flying home Sunday around noon but since her connection was much better than mine she landed in Denmark only one and a half hour after me.

On my home trip I first had to go to Atlanta, where I had a 10 hour stop, but that actually turned out quite interesting because I decided to take the train into the city centre where I had the chance to see the Olympic Park and city centre on a very quiet cold early February Sunday morning before going to see the impressive Georgia Aquarium. It was actually very impressive and they claimed they were the largest aquarium in the world and their main tank which among many things held several hammer head sharks, 4 whale sharks (the world's biggest fish) and the world's biggest manta in captivity. After that I went back to get my flight to Paris for my connection to Copenhagen. The last flight had to wait 45 minutes in Paris airport in order to get a slot to land in Copenhagen airport which was only operating on limited capacity because of snowfall. Finally I arrived home an hour late to a cold and snow covered Denmark where Rebecca's mother were waiting to receive us and she drove us home to the apartment, where we could finally relax and try to get warm.