Not sure how many UK papers featured pictures of Ipanema beach under a sea of umbrellas at the weekend (thanks Gwil!) but today's photo shows the same beach looking slightly less busy..
It certainly was crowded - and very hot - on both saturday and sunday & we retreated indoors after a few hours. It's also very noisy with a constant stream of vendors shouting their wares.
One nice feature of staying so close to
the beach is that Patrick can
go down for a swim after work and we've discovered that on weekday evenings the firm sand at the water's edge is taken over by groups of young people (male & female) in their swimming things playing keepy-uppy and some of them are seriously good. With a climate like this and such an outdoor lifestyle, it's no wonder the Brazilian football team is such a force to be reckoned with.
I should mention that it always comes as quite a shock just how cold the sea is but it is the Atlantic not the Med and it's great to be able to cool down with the weather being so hot.
We've had a few evenings out with BG people & former students of Patrick's (he's even found a bar and companions to watch football with) but there's a bit of a feeling that normal life is on hold until after Carnaval. Quite a few people seem to take advantage of the bank holidays to go away and leave Rio to the serious party animals and on Saturday evening we got caught up in a bloco or street party on the beach road and got a sense of what's to come. Next year we may make sure we're away!
Patrick's getting into more of a routine with working though travel arrangements are still not sorted. We'd prefer not to have a car but the location of the university may make this impractical.
As far as we know progress is being made on negotiations for the flat we're interested in - fingers crossed!