Sorry guys its taken so long to write its been a big, busy few days. I have no idea how i am going to be able to relay it all onto paper because each day just seems to get better and better and words just cant sum it up! But ill try for all of you that cant be with me right now....mwahahahahahah!!

Right Thursday 31st- Friday 1st Feb

Left home and had a rather emotional leaving from Henry which involved me blubbing through passport control with everyone looking at me like i was weird. Got to Madrid and was very pleased when i managed to navigate myself to the correct gate and get on the plane. HOWEVER i was sat next to a russian family (which i thought was greek until they got out their passports for their visa. They drunk an entire bottle of vodka on the trip, had their mobiles out playing russian music really loudly and when the stewardess asked them to put theyre seat upright, table up etc because of turbulance....they just didnt! just seemed really up themselves and the lady loked like a clown with a baby pink on her lips and really dark red lipliner around them. Hmm....so that annoyed me-their lack of respect for rules especially on a plane. Arrived in Brazil and it took 2 hrs to get through passport control. GOt a taxi and went to the hotel where the room nextdoor had its door open so they invited me in and everyone is really nice!! we all just clicked straight away which is good because i was really worried id have to spend the next 69 nights with a bunch of goons i dont get on with! We decided to havea few drinks with a bottle bvodka which was 1.50GBP !!

We went outside and i kid you not i know it rains in Wales and stuff but the heaven opened. there was thunder and lightning and just rasin that turned into river in the road it was amazing. We got drenched within literally seconds so we decided hey...lets go dance in the rain. Half the Brazilians huddled under shelters and looked at us like we were so strange when we salsa'd all the way down the street...the other half joined in! we got the archeds of Lapa where two of our group got mugged the pervious night but we had no trouble. It was just an amazing experience to have the rain, thunder and lightening but none of it dampening the spirits of the people on Rio. Then went home and slept like a baby!!

Saturday 2nd Feb

woke up stupidly early at about 8 ish (brazilian time) and went to brekkie which is included with my room mate Caroline who is really lovely! Brekkie was great i stuffed myself so i wouldnt have to eat anything else that day - save the pennies n'all!! I made lots of hcese sandwhiches and stored them in my bag and had so much fresh fruit it was really nice and refreshing. Decided to go to the famous copacobana beach and take the bus there. The bus was very very hot, cramped and humid but they have a really good system where the bus driver doesnt take the money everyone gets on and then a second person is sitting down to take the money. It was 2,90 reills which is less than a pound and that is a standard price nomatter how far you go. Both these ideas are good because the bus can continue its journey when everyone is on and also you can travel for ages and see lots of the city for the same as going just one stop down the street!! value for money. Anyway it hit 36 degrees in Rio that day and we were boiling i dont think i have ever sweat so much in my life. I boughta nice sarong with the brazilian flag on it from an old man. Its rather strange because Copacobana beach i expected to be very touristy but we seemed to be the only tourists there. In addition to this on most tourist beaches or busy beaches with tourists on peopole learn little english catch phrases to buy things like "cheap as chips" or " buy for your mother in law back home!" however the brazilians seem to have missed this selling point and dont even know the english for simple things like water or umbrella. Quite cool, but it makes it difficult to speak anything with them as i only bought a spanish phrasebook.

We ended up frying and seeked refuge under the shade of some trees. I bought some BBQ'd cheese which was lush...similar to haloumi espeically in its texture but the flaour was less salty. Anywho we then went back to the hotel and i decided to go and see a football match. I know everyone said i shouldnt but i just couldnt resist going to the massive 150,000 people stadium to see two rio teams play. We had to wiat outside for 2 hours which was annoying because we arrived too ealry but on the underground metro there the train was just humming. People batting rythems on the windows to chant to and sing to. It was great. When we got into the stadium we were on the Vacos side. It was Vacos Vs Bogato. Our symbol was either a red crusade-like cross on white or this really hideous pirate with a bullet through his head with the bones and a gun behind him...hmm. Anyway about 20 people ahd bought a huge array of different drums and they were all hitting out these rythems and before long all of us espeically me and charlotte were standing on our seats screaming out these chants in portugese. We had no idea what we were saying but it was great fun. We just didn~t sit down! By half time we were losing 2-0 gutting and honestly people were actually crying. Ive never been into sport but i wazs actualy feeling rather disheartened. In the first 30 secs of the 2nd half we scoreed a goal and i found myself absolutly extatic and hugging my friends and random brazilians it was bloody brilliant. We then scored anotehr goal that the ref disallowed...we then chated something along the lines of oi ref somethingsomethingsomething which you could deifnately tell was very rude! Then we scored again! so it was 2-2. i honestly didnt think i could get any happier. I thought how could something so great turn into something bad?

thought a little too soon it seemed. Before i know it about 3 rows in front us we saw like a scuffle i just thought that maybe someone had pushed another and they were shoving around then we heard screams and people just stampediong towards us. our group of about 8 just all split into different directions we had to actually shove people out the way or we were going to get trampled i was absolutly s***ting myself i am not ashamed to say. My sunburnt feet got trodden on the seats were wertt and i amnaged to find my way to a gate. My first reaction was either OMG this is going to kick off i need to get out of here but if everyone surges out im going to get trampled to death and the second being god damn it everyone was right about things kicking off at footy. I turned around and these huge falsgs we were waving whichi were just...unbeleivably large, attached to big bamboo poles were being used as weapons. We just saw people getting hit with this huge stick and police running in with their batons which were about half a meter tall. However through this chaos the bloody game continued which just amazed me. I found myself coughing and the police were using tear gas on us! Anywho managed to regroup and tried to find the 2 girls that were missing. we waited until the end of the match and then ended up leaving. howvere we coudlnt leave becuase when we got to the gate there were people screaming and running back from the road into the gate. the two teams had seperate groups but of course as soon as you got out the gatees the two teams could mix and riot basically. The fight had started becuase one of the Batofago supporters didnt like that we were drawing and so broke into our gate and started a fight. Then we went down the ramp towards the gate again and this time we heard shots like gun shots and a bunch of police on horseback came...after about 5 mins we then decided to venture out and get a swift taxi back...!! I would not have missed that match for the world. It was amazing and i dont think it was irrrisponsible to go to be honest becuase there was a big gfroup it just got split up and people said that that rarely happens at such large games. It was an eye opener for a first game and it lead an insight into how things that are so great can copmletely flip the other way in such a short period of time.

Sunday 3rd Feb

SAMBADROME TONIGHT......the big big carnival night. we bought flowers, feathers, glitter, sequined masks etc to dress up for it! we went to a small market in Ipénema trying to find the rather popular hippy market but we didnt find it. On the bus back, the bus defo said Lapa but the bus driver decided mid journey to change the route and destination so we edned up going through the flavelas and it was rather disconcerting that we were the only white/tourists in eyesight haha. the bus driver was driving like a maniac. he tried to drive anotehr bus off the road and was driving his bus into the other and rubbing together, playing cat and mouse with each other which was funny but none of the locals seemeed to even notice when we did it or went under tunnels and our bums lifted off the seats!! We then got dropped off at the footy stadium again and managed to flag down in the rain another bus which we learnt wasnt in service so he gave us a free lift to Lapa which was really nice of him. Tried to conserve our energy becuase we were wanred it didn't finish until 5-6am. My feet have swollen after the game last night to double the usual size. its really really painful and i dont know if its sunburn, being on them for so long at the footy, when they got trampled on in the footy, or something to do with the flight/climate. anyway got alll ready and left with money bags well hidden to go the carnival. we had been warned that pickpockets were about so we were all very protective of our cameras so we could take lots of photos!!

The carnival had 6 different samba groups andi was expecting like 2 or 3 floats per group. Oh no, i dont think i could ever truly be able to write down what i saw last night. just the attension to detail, colçour, theme was outstanding it just made you just stare. i took lots and lots of photos and as the night got on each group was better and better. It was amazing. there were hundreds upon thousands of people in each samba group and at the end of the walk they just threw theyre outfits away so we went and got some and took some funny photos with them..... so much effort and time must have gon einto them it just awful to see them discarded. All the floats were hand pushed and there were these amazing confident women who wore very very very high heels and a thong and a m,asisve feather headress were moving their hips to the music and it was just jaw droppping. The groups had about 10 flats each and they were huge. some had water founatins off them. people with trampelines bouncing away and acrobats suspended from material. neon lights, food themes, global warming themes, syncronised dancing that was so in time and they had so much energy. it was honestly mind blowing. i don't even know what to write becuase my photos or words just cannot even scrape what i saw. It finished at 6 this morning and we walked back through the sewage as usual because the drains overlfow with the rain. NIICCEEEEEEE!!

hope ive kept you up to date so far. its been amazing, sometimes scary especially as one of our group as almost been mugged twice now!! what a target...well he is a tall dangly canadian... rio completely takes your breath away and i never expected in my wildest dreams for it to be this good. My feet have slightly less swollen now but if it gets wors ei will go to the hospitol because they are over double in size!!

Hope your all OK

Love you and miss you liike crazy

p.s. when i saw brazilian bikinis are tiny i mean......TINY.