Not a huge amount to report in this blog as we haven't done any exciting travelling but if we leave too long a gap between blogs, it's hard to remember what we have been doing so here's a short one.
Patrick's been on a couple of courses/conferences here in Rio, one with a field trip to the red lagoon that he got quite inspired about and this week he's on a conference run by the Brazilian Geophysical Society. I think he feels encouraged by how many people he knows working out here now.
Last week he was away visiting universities in Sao Paulo state with 2 colleagues who came over from Heriot Watt and progress seems to have been made in terms of getting some new links made. Just before they arrived he managed to reach the end of a large pile of HWU marking which had been fun for both of us as it took up a lot of his free time.
We did manage to get to a cello concert together which was raising funds for a charity out here that we've become very interested in and which has a UK arm called Children's Aid. We went to the concert last year and were slightly bemused that the programme seemed pretty much the same this year as last!
We also got to an exhibition of Sebastian Salgado photos at the Botanical Gardens and were in that area of town again last weekend as part of the Circuito das Artes whereby various workshops and studios open their doors to the public. While not over impressed by the artwork, it was a great chance to get inside some of the beautiful houses and admire some lovely plant-filled interior courtyards.
I'm at ReFazer on my own this month as Tanya is in the UK on holiday and our other helper, a 50 year old Belgian guy, had a bike accident and ended up in a public hospital as he had no health insurance. Other than the fact that he had to wait 10 days until they operated and had to find 5 people to give blood on his behalf before they would (that's another story I can explain to anyone who's interested), he left hospital reasonably impressed with the Brazilian public health system. Incidentally, you may have read that, following the riots of a few months ago, the government has acknowledged that there are not enough doctors working in public hospitals and a contingent of over 600 doctors arrived from Cuba this week saying that for them being a doctor is a vocation and not about the money! Brasilian doctors tend to want to do private practice!
The public hospital was basic and the other patients on his ward had generally either had work accidents, often resulting in amputations or had got caught in cross fire in favela shoot-outs but they did a good job on his leg when his turn finally came and they'd even managed to find vegan food for him while he was an inpatient.
The weather's been unusually chilly (by Brazilian standards!) out here recently. Today it's sunny again but there's a coolish breeze if you're in the shade and we definitely need blankets on the bed at night. I just keep remembering how incredibly hot some nights out here can be and equally how cold some nights in Edinburgh can be so how we've got it now is quite pleasant really!
We're still watching DVD's we brought back with us from the UK. We were sorry to get to the end of the final series of The Killing and are now watching Broadchurch - for its Dorset connections of course! Only a couple of episodes of that left and then it'll be back to the video shop across the road...