What do we do on weekends in Rio? Last one - August Bank Holiday in the UK, was rather quiet. On Saturday we went into Centro and the Banco de Brasil for the Anthony Gormley retrospective. Seeing his work here is like having an old friend turning up unannounced at the party - Angel of the North, Event Horizon, Hayward Gallery, Stavanger Beach - and now Rio. The appearance of building-top metal mannekins signalled we had come to the right place. The interior - ...

After our successful weekend in Salvador we had a good and bad start to the week in Rio. The 'luxury' airport bus back to Zona Sul had provided a classic example of Brazil's lack of organisational skills that we mentioned in our last blog. Chaos at the bus stop with people getting onto the bus with big suitcases and seating themselves at the back only to have to carry them to the front when they wanted to get off and negotiate not just the people standing in the ...

I thought this week's blog should have an Olympics photo - this is of Tom and Ruth's 3 girls, Lilian(16), Leah(15) & Molly(12). They live & go to school in Hackney, close to the Olympic site and are lucky enough to have been to several events. Lilian was chosen from her school to be a 'young ambassador' for the games (I think thats what it's called) and I'm sure all 3 girls will remember this summer for the rest of their lives. Having everything we get t...

This photo is of a flower that sprouted from a tree in today's rain. An interesting observation is that Brazilians don't appear to mind or to do/wear/own raincoats. The fact that we do makes us stick out more than ever. It's actually been ok as we know we're here to stay and it's enabled us to acclimatise and today we went and explored some alternative barrios we could live in. We walked miles through some rather rundown but previously grand neighbourhoods - if ...