Well I'm writing this on Easter Sunday back in the hotel on Copacabana & for a catholic country we've been surprised at how few signs we've seen of this important day in the church calendar. There may be more shops closed than usual but that's all we've noticed here or on our way back from Teresopolis this morning. Patrick's colleague at UFRJ, Leo Borghi, had very kindly invited us to spend a couple of days with him, his parents & his sister and her fa...

Happy Birthday Will!! Your birthday always makes us think about who we were, what were our thoughts, what were our concerns and what we were doing 27 years ago! In Holland parents get equal billing on their offsprings' birthdays. Whilst it is definitely YOUR birthday - it's a very special day 'ook voor ons'! This should be our last weekend in hotels so we're spending today by the pool on the rooftop. This morning there's been a swimming race across the bay from...

Well here we are back in another Hotel with a beautiful view of the beach - this time Copacabana! What did we do in the last two weeks? Pat flew to Tomsk for 5 teaching days and then to Edinburgh for two days. It was a great time to bring colleagues up to speed on Brazil and to find out about their latest work. We had two great evenings in London with family and saw a number of great friends in Edinburgh. Thanks for all the hospitality! Kate spent the week I ...

Well, Carnaval is over now and the crowds of partygoers & crossdressers have gone home. Everything's much calmer, quieter and cleaner. It's also enabled us to change rooms at the Mercure & life has improved as a result! Instead of a window looking onto a blank wall 6 feet away, we now have the 'rear window' type view in the photo with a favela (which has its own lift access) on the hill behind. And we don't need to have the light on in the room during the...

The evening and night at the Sambodromo will be memorable for the heat , the noise, the intense interest, the staying power, the cultural references. When we arived at 9pm the terraces where we had our tickets were already packed with Brazilians in party mood. When each Samba School fill the length of the Sambadromo there must be 2000 dancers all dancing hypnotically to the Samba . We stayed for 6 of the 7 schools - each one takes 90mins, we got home at 5am - e...