One of the good things the language school I am at in Rio organises is afternoon excursions to some of the city's more interesting places that aren't necessarily on the main tourist hit-list. 'Professor Rurik' is this old retired guy who runs the trips out to museums and other historic spots; there is very little this bloke doesn't know about Rio and Brazil. He's been able to provide an interesting commentary to visits to the museum of contempory art (designed by the famous Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer), the Copacabana fort (big guns built to defend south Rio, although never used in anger), the Museu da Republica (the house of former presidents, including Presidente Vargas who famously shot himself there as a parting gift to his people), and the folklore museum (a rubbish place full of old baskets and looms). During these visits I've quickly become knowledgeable of Brazil's history; from the first landing of the portuguese in 1500, through the fights the Portuguese had with the Frenchies and Dutchies to keep them out, right up to the goings on in the 20th century. Professor Rurik did almost engineer a rather embarrassing moment for me the other day at the fort when describing the transition from empire to republic in the late 1880's. The Emperor Dom Pedro was getting old and going a bit mental with pressure in the country building for change to a republic. Dom P had not managed to have any son's during his time and as such there was nobody to take over from him. His only daughter had married but her husband was deemed unsuitable because, according to Rurik, he was 'an arrogant French Count'. It was a miracle I managed to avoid outward laughter.

Back at the school itself last week got a bit tough in the Portuguese lessons. We had two new guys join our beginners class, 'Anatole' a english doctor with floppy hair reminiscent of the early 1990's and 'Mathias' a german english teacher from Hamburg. Both could speak decent spanish which is a distinct advantage when attempting portuguese as they are 90% similar. This meant myself and my fellow true beginners and Brits Alice and Robin (amusingly pronounced 'Hobin' by the brazilians) were left languishing when the teachers started introducing newspaper articles on not the most straightforward topics like the Catholic church's view on various issues, racial predudices etc for us to understand and comment on. This isn't what you want when you still haven't grapsed how to say 'seventy eight' or how to ask for 'one baguette and two slices of ham please'. Luckily this week they have rejigged the classes to group together myself and other less competants so that we can concentrate on such phrases. One thing that was also getting on my wick was having not yet covered the past tense, vital at the dinner table back at your host family in the evening when conversation inevitably turns to 'what did you do today?'. Now that this is this is done and dusted, and increased use of a rule I made up when translating from english*, things are getting easier. On Monday in the newly arranged group we went back to basics and covered names again. Interestingly though we discussed nicknames, apparently very common in Brazil. This usually means just adding a 'inho' for men and a 'inha' for women to the end of their first name and explains why all the brazilian footballers only go by one name. I also discovered that the word 'pele' means 'skin' in english and the well known footballer was given this as a nickname due to the darkness (and presumably strangeness at the time) of his skin.

On sunday I went to the famous football stadium the Maracana to watch a brasilian club match between Flamengo and Boa Vista with Martin my Swiss flatmate and Mathias ze german from my class. I had already adopted Flamengo as my team prior to the game having liked the colour of their shirt (and bought one in a sports shop in Copacabana) which has just dawned on me makes me a bit of a girl. I didn't wear the shirt to the game through fear of being killed to death by rival fans but as it turned out Boa Vista is a small town in the extreme north of the country and were outnumbered about 13,000 to 1 by flamengo supporters (almost all of which were decked out in their team's colours). In fact the whole experience was disappointingly safe, passing by without any weapons or men with tatoos on their face to be seen. 'We' ended up winning 2-0 but my favourite player (Ibsilon, squad number 100) didn't score. When I got back I waxed lyrical to my host mum Teresa about the tasty meat kebabs the three of us enjoyed before the game outside the stadium only for her to explain that they were the infamous 'charruscinho de gato' (gato=cat), lovely.

Back at the flat Martin's sense of style is showing no signs of improvement. The succession of sleeveless shirts has not abated and with yesterday's torquoise 'MALLORCA' shirt with a lace up collar I'm resigned to thinking this boy's a lost cause. Also Martin has found an admirer in the shape of Fafy the poodle, who incessantly attempts to mate with his leg whenever he passes. If this wasn't funny enough already, Martin shakes the dog off and pretends its not happening and I try to look oblivious to it.

At the weekend it will be time to bid farewell to Martin and his musty Swiss armpits as he heads back to Zurich and his cows. Teresa explained to me in portuguese that a american girl will be Martin's replacement at the flat but during this conversation I nodded and smiled a lot without ever really understanding whether she is due to arrive this weekend or next - will just wait and see. It will in any case be good to finally have a native english speaker to ask what the hell Teresa was banging on about over dinner.

I've got a few more photos to add and a short video of the flat (starring Martin, Teresa, and Fafy) which I'll try and upload in the next few days.

PS - sorry Nanny, I've had my head shaved (it's too hot here for hair) and I look like a bit of a yobo.

* - Take the english word and adding exotic sounding syllables, pronouncing any e's like 'ay', and adding an e or an o on the end of the word e.g. definitely - definitivamente, exact - exato... etc