After a slightly nervous journey, ?lets just go to Sao Paulo im sure there will be buses?(thank god there was!), we arrived early in the morning in Florianopolis.?Upon arrival as per usual we were approached by various locals all trying to convince us to stay in their particular guest house. We ahd been given a recommendation of a hostel by several people and so we went to the tourist information to find out where it was. Unfortunately they told us that it had shut for th winter and that its probably best to stay in an appartment instead. Lies! Stupidly we bought the ruse and commited to stay at a appartment close to the beach. The man we were renting off was an ex olympic silver medalist boxer for argentina and had fought naseem hamid (what is it about incredibly hard men out here??). On arrival at the beach it was a beautiful day and?the surf looked amazing so after a little rest and some time to unpack we headed?down there. We found a surf school on the beach and decided it was about time to learn? properly! Our instructor brought out the learner?boards and we did some land drills on the technique and where to stand on the board. After that Ed and I hit the waves, apparently rory is unpronouncable?for?brazilians, and were making our first attempts at surfing. After two completely awful attempts I nailed it and was surfing for real! Rory took a few more attempts ?I just dont like not looking at where im putting my feet!?, but after that he pretty much had it down too!? By the end of the lesson I was paddling into and turning along some 4 to 5ft waves which was the best feeling! We cooked our own dinner and then headed into town to sample the local night life. First we hit a local pool hall and played some pool over a few beers. There was one comedy moment when rory sweetly caressed in the black and turned to me and said ?they just dont teach that? only to realise that he had forgotten to pot his last ball first! WE then walked the rest of the way into town along the side of the lake and decided to try out a brazilian music club we passed. It was fun to get an impression of the ?real? brazil with pounding drums and brazilian samba. The only disappointment was that unlike Rio people in there treated us like we were diseased!

The next day was a bit of a non-day as it started late due to the 4am finish the night before and the weather was awful! So we pottered around in our macs and went on the internet in the day and then had pizza for dinner returning in time for our favourite brazilian?telenovela Pe Ne Saca.

In the morning we decided to move out of our appartment out of spite for the lying boxer! So we packed up our stuff and carried it the 100m to the hostel which had a great atmostphere to it. Another day of pretty average weather however meant we were limited to walking on the beach and playing cards and chess. In the evening we met a some english lads travelling after finishing uni who we had a few beers with and then went out for a meal with. When back at the hostel we played a few games including a card game called waterfalls and a game where you had to bounce a coin into a glass.