It`s Wednesday evening... Saint Sebastian day - a bank holiday, so no work and a day at the beach! :) It´s hot! It´s very hot here and a day at the beach was just the ticket, cool waters, well actually quite warm, with a bit of a current - a fab way to cool and chill out with most of the i-to-i gang who are already here! Unfortunately, the hot sun and cool breeze has led to a rather red looking group of volunteers... some more red than others! :) Whilst I notice the pink in my hair has faded a tad.. probably after spending a couple of hours in the warm salty water! No worries, I have a top up for the hair!! :)

So... its been a few days since I landed in Rio... but boy does it feel much longer! Not sure what day it is and for most days, keep losing track of time! Rio is a chilled city, its at a relaxed pace but a vibrant one! Not so much in the decor, but in its people - evenings especially, the streets are buzzing with the locals! The bars are small as people are on the pavement; usually singing and dancing to samba music! On Monday night we headed to a samba street party! It was buzzing! Live music performing on the street, with a number of gazebos around the square offering chilled beer and grub!

The Brazilians are a friendly bunch, whilst we may not be able to communicate - with a lack of Portugese on my part and a lack of Engilsh on theirs - sign language and lots of smiles make for a good conversation!

So today, we were at Baha beach and were told beaches in Rio would be busy today as it was a national holiday. Beautiful beach and the trip to the town was stunning. Travelling along Ipanema beach before heading on around the coast to Baha, passing a huge Favela built on a hillside on the way! (Favela being shanty towns.... it was amazing to see).

Sunday after our initial meeting, Holley, Jessica and myself headed down to Ipanema beach and the Hippy market. Ipanema is just a metro ride away and again a beautiful beach. Spending a few hours there and watching the sunset.

Bathing topless is illegal here, but what they don~t show off on top, they definitely do below! It is definitely thong country - and that goes for all shapes and sizes!! We have seen a few sights!! :)

We started work on Monday - at the Samba school. What an amazing place! We are preparing for carnival and the work location is at a huge warehouse! All the samba schools are located there, i.e. all the warehouses! They are 4 floors high and the ground floor is taken up by the magnificent floats. The top floor is where I work.... where they carve out the sculptures and create the costumes. It is very much like a factory; everything is done from scratch and as you go around the building you can see how things are put together. From people carving into polysterene, spraying glue on it to make it hard, paint them and then the whole costume procedure. Some are cutting the felt, other sewing it and other sticking items on it!

Our first job was rather a dirty one.... involving fur and glue! Cutting the fur into strips and gluing them onto these wrist cuffs. Fluff got everywhere! We resembled apes by the end of the day! Given its black fur - for a black cat costume! We managed to finish the job by 4pm Tuesday, but with an hour before clocking off time, they found us another little job. Cutting pick feathers into a diamond shape... so by the end of that night - we came home black and pink!

Its all quite serious too... given.... the parade is a competition between the schools! Our school is Mangueira, apparently quite well known and won 2 years ago, though they didnt do so good last year! As for this year, well.... if individual costumes are judged... then I´m afraid they could be relegated next year!! :) Our work is inspected....and as the staff have NO English... the body language says it all.... as you can tell... it wasnt good!! :) But by end of Tuesday - we obviously got the hang of it and the lady was smiling and we did have a ´bon´for good!!

Its back to work tomorrow, but we have a day off on Friday - working only a 4 day week! It may be a trip up to the Christ statue on Friday... we shall see!

Photos will appear soon I am sure... though have refrained from taking it with me... whilst no photography is allowed at the school! The work they do is all secretive!!!

Toodle-oo for now.... I am hoping the skin cools down before its bedtime! Yes... hoping is the word!!! :)