Sunday 15th March (Loid´s birthday, wooohoooo!)

Howdi all, or Oi in Portugese. Bloody Portugese - i was just getting the hang of Spanish and felt fairly competent getting about and conversing and now here in Brazil the language barrier is back with sincere vengeance! Spanish and Portugese both look similar written down but sound completely different and not many Brazilians speak English so its all a bit trickey...........add to that the fact that the trip finishes for me tomorrow morning so i am officially back on my todd. s***ting my pants gives you a fairly good indication of how im feeling today!

So, arrived Rio just this afternoon, only about an hour ago actually and it´s only 29degrees which makes a refreshing change from the extreme sweatiness of the past week since arriving at Iguazu/in Brazil where temperatures have reached at least 38 - always a pleasure when your sitting on a non air-conditioned public bus full of bodies squeezed into every available space, with various strangers arses, crotches, armpits, boobs, you name it in your face or practically on your lap. This was our 2/3 hour journey from Paraty (coast of Brazil, north of S.P. and south of Rio) to the port to get over to Ilhe Grande (where we left today). Managed to survive to sweaty ordeal however as i escaped into the glamorous world of Vogue (American edition which i swiped from our hostel in Paraty - it has been my saving grace since the faithful Ipod died).

Brazil so far, apart from being exceptionally sweaty, has been so much fun. Our first stop was Iguazu where i spent my birthday. We visited the Brazilian side of the falls on the first day there which was breathtaking......until we visited the Argentinian side 2days later which just surpassed everything we had seen on the first day; it was beyond beautiful. Will post pictures, though undoubtedly they will fail to do justice to how incredible it was. Brazilian side was on the 7th and Argentinean on 9th; on the 8th i was on a whole different planet. The planet of intoxication you might call it! I didnt leave the hotel until that evening when we went for birthday dinner, which was amazing by the way - a lovely sushi place and then a massive chocolate cake afterwards - and helped me finally shake off the hangover. Turning 23 was exhausting im telling you; just about getting used to the feeling of responsibility and maturity (hahaha, pigs might fly?!) which comes with it, but it´s taken some time and several days of, like i said, exhaustion. Have had several beach stops since Iguazu so i have been taking it easy on the beach with, of course, a Caipirina in hand. Oi, it´s a hard life! Getting home will be a nice relaxation change.......OR a slap in the face and a hard knock back to reality!!!

Monday 23rd March

Home sweet home!I've been back now for 4days and it almost feels as if I never went away; all the memories and stories feel so distant already, it seems inconceivable that this time last week I was in Rio!As everybody told me before I left and while I was away; you get home and nothing has changed.Nice in a sense, but when you return feeling like a different person (having spent however long soul searching and becoming worldly wise……hmmmm, well in between drinking sessions anyway!) it's quite bizarre.Bizarre because it feels so normal!I guess the familiarity that comes with living and breathing one place your whole life (especially hamlet-esque Edgcott) is something that nothing, not even 9months traipsing the globe, can erase or even temporarily replace.

I treated myself (because as I have been telling you all along these past 9months has been anything but a breeze; HARD hard work I am telling you!) this weekend to some chill out, Kay catch up time, and now that Monday has come around I am setting down to the heavy tasks of primarily getting my financial mess into order and finding a job.Thumbs up already as I am due to pop into…………wait for it………….Pizza Express, to meet the manager this afternoon!I've definitely become a more ambitious person since going away!

I wanted to put some pictures from our Kay girl/Mothers Day excursion to Blenheim Palace on Sunday because I realised strolling around the gardens with my faithful camera in hand that there's actually some pretty beautiful spots right on our doorstep…so for the meantime at least I might stick around here just to appreciate them!

Thursday 26th March

So much for my plan of posting my final blog as soon as I got home!I am sure there was more I wanted to say about the final leg of the trip through Brazil and about beautiful Rio (probably one of my favourite spots of the whole 9 months) but it wouldn't be the same recalling it all now so I will let the pictures do the work for me.

It seems insane to think that this time last week I was sitting on my bus from Rio to Sao Paulo en route to catching my flight home.Rio was so incredible and really had me falling for it's charm that that journey was so hard.I don't know what I expected from this final stop, but what I saw and experienced wasn't it!For a start I didn't expect it to be nearly so beautiful; a city nestled into the hills, climbing up them and stretching right onto on the beaches and secondly I imagined it, for some reason, to be much more chaotic and fast-paced.Down on Copacabana and in the centre this was more the case but areas like Ipanema beach and Santa Theresa were so much more laid back, Santa Theresa could have you thinking you were miles from a major city…were it not for the fact that you could see the city skyline extending out from the base of the hill below you!

Ahhhh, memories…..they feel so distant already!

Well, that's it from me then.Thank you so much for keeping up with my ranting and raving, tangents and bizarre tales on this…it's been so much fun to write and share my experiences and pictures with you.I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Ciao for now…until the next episode of Lone Pommie/Gringo wherever she may end up!