Patrick took a field trip with colleagues from BG to NE Brazil. The area was much flatter than Rio and we saw many fields of sugar around Aracaju and Maceio. We went to a number of large cement quarries to look at carbonates. It was an interesting trip involving a 2hr flight and a 3hr bus ride between the two cities. Good to get some samples to work on! Friday evening we went to the birthday of a new Dutch friend of Kate's and chatted with Dutch, French, Swedes ...

This is going to be a just-Kate entry as Patrick is on a 3 day field trip up near Salvador - more on that when he returns I'm sure. So here's a resume of what we've been up to. We had a lovely walk last weekend along a different part of the beach in Rio. We started at Cinelandia in the downtown area to catch the Yann Arthus Bertrand exhibition that has been installed in the square there as part of Rio+20. (Probably the least that's said about what that's likely ...

A day on the beach and a good swim in the sea - after 3 weekends of rain - very pleasant change! Unfortunately, I then watched Liverpool v Chelsea which wasn't a happy FA Cup Final for us! After that we we to see the free concert along the beach at Arpoador. We heard 2 bands called Mulheres do Chico & Samba n Roll if anyone's interested. Ol? No, we hadn't heard of them either but they were very well received by the audience of Cariocas of all ages on the bea...

Cover image is the hummingbird that visits our neighbour's terrace most mornings. We are slowly overcoming (getting used to?) the challenges of Rio. Today a selection of joss sticks - useful that we live by the hippy fair - are combatting the kitchen smells from down below. With a home made caipirinha for company, this blog will be rather short as the successes - buying two crystal glasses so we can enjoy the S American wine - are rather modest ones. We also bou...

We we have moved into a flat on Visconde de Piraja in Ipanema this week. Thanks to lots of hard work by various parties, we seem to have done this in record time so we can now get on with life! Also secured a cpf number for Pat - needed even to buy a kettle in this country! Next weeks domestic agenda is to secure cpf for Kate and to open a bank account! Tonight we are due to meet up with Kate and Greg Stewart and next week see Kirsty Morton. Greg and Kirsty w...