Last night went to sambadrome for 1st night of carnival parades, 6 samba schools paraded and each school can have up to 4000 members. Each school has a minimum of 65 minutes and maximum of 82 minutes to complete there parade. Started at 9pm and would take until 630am next morning to complete.

First we had to get there though, there was a massive Bloco on in our neighbourhood and could not get to metro so walked to next station through absolute mayhem of people. Train pulls up and is packed full but we all push onto train anyway - packed in so tight didn't need to hold on, someone could faint and would never hit the ground. By the time we got to Centro had sweat running down my face, hair was damp and t-shirt wet - it was beyond hot on that train!!!

Few blocks to walk to sambadrome, noticed riot police lining streets, Nat read later on that there had been protests in area earlier on and police had tear gas and all sorts to get under control, might have been interesting to see.... The garbage collectors are on strike at the moment, streets are filled with rubbish.

Sambadrome is packed, crowds up to 75000. Beer, dancing, singing and crazy outfits everywhere. The parades themselves were fantastic, lavish costumes and floats - average of 6 floats each parade and each one different, some so big that cranes were used at end to get people down from the top of them.

230am and 4 parades later, we out. Back to metro, actually got to sit down on train, thank god don't think I could do another trip like earlier.

Lazy day today. By 8pm the street at end of our block was closed as yet another Bloco had started - just does not stop.