CURITIBA; THE WEEK WE WENT `HOME`

After plenty of R&R on Isla Grande the least we expected was to get to spend another week relaxing even more, but I should have know better at Marinas house!

For those of you who dont know, in 2001 I spent 2 months in Brazil through an exchange programme with AIESEC a uni society (I`ll save you the details). My beloved host sister was Marina and in 2002 she also came to Birmingham for 2 months. We have been fantastic friends ever since and it is probably fair to say that her and her family are one of the big reasons that I love South America enough to want to give up work and return so much!

We arrived on the bus from Sao Paulo in the morning and really it was so amazing to see Marina waiting for us. It had been 5 years, but it felt like 5 months! Its funny how that is with good friends. Last time I had stayed with them in their appartment, but recently they had finally moved into their new house. A huge 4 bed detached property in a lovely district, designed by her brother Du and built to their spec, it was really lovely, a great family home. And no family home would be complete (In my opinion) without a dog, so we also got to meet `Ducky`their characterful cocker spaniel!

Marinas Mum was wonderfully warm and welcoming as ever, and her cooking is so fantasic that Greg was in heaven! We ate lots of the traditional Brazilian beans and rice, plus plenty of meat, lasagne, passion fruit cake (mmmmmm), home made bread, and brigadero, just to name just a few! On Saturday night they had all of their friends over for a BBQ and although a little overwhelmed with all of the Portuguese we had a great time.

We spent the week seeing the sights; going to the beach for the day, watching a Curitiba football match, driving to a pretty coastal town, going to the parks etc, but best of all we got to do normal things and have a real home for a while. We washed the dishes, went to the cinema and the supermarket, cooked a meal, went out for ice cream and walked the dog. It was great!

We planned on spending 4 days with them but we ended up feeling so settled and welcome that in the end we stayed over a week before finally pulling ourselves away on to Argentina. I had a very tearful goodbye, not knowing when we`ll next manage to pop back over to Brazil to see Marina and her family again, but we had had a lovely week and it was time to head north to Foz du Iguacu.

I hope that you are all well. Appologies for the mass update on the blog but we`re nearly there now, only 2 weeks behind now which is exceptable!

Thank you all for your many messgaes and emails.

Love and hugs to you all,

Ruth and Greg

xxx