Having arrived early at Heathrow (there is a first time for everything...) I was sat in departures with a mixture of fear, trepidation and excitement running through me as it dawned on me that I was about to begin my adventure in South America...may I add here that it took a green tea from Costa Coffee to actually have these emotions kick in as I was literally a walking zombie from having to wake up soo early!
My flight to Frankfurt (my first stop en route to Rio) was delayed at Heathrow due to fog at Frankfurt airport - the clue was in the Captain's welcome speech in German (flying Lufthansa) exceeding its normal time and going on for about 10 minutes! there was me panicking about the public sector strikes at Heathrow which incidentally had no impact whatsoever...
Whilst sat on the plane waiting for take off I read two quite amusing articles in 'i' newspaper:
The first being about how Tony Blair's goverment had tried to get Oxford University to admit the late Colonel Gaddafi's son but rejected him only to have him accepted into London School of Economics (LSE) which is now dubbed the 'Libyan School of Economics' (!) due to its connections with the Gaddafi regime.
The second was about how an American gun club is offering families (yes that's right) a chance to pose for photos with Santa while holding pistols and assault rifles?! The image accompanying the article showed Santa flanked by a machine gun and a tripod-mounted rifle with a boy holding a semi automatic rifle with an attached grenade launcher...
Both articles made me chuckle during what would have normally been an annoying situation.
My connecting flight at Frankfurt was fuelled with me running like a mad women through the airport thinking I was going to miss my flight, barging past everybody queuing at security and being fast tracked through the system and then being told by quite a scary authoritative German security lady that I had plenty of time before my flight left and to calm down and take it easy! typical...
The flight itself was fine, entertainment was OK albeit slightly lacking in film selections. The only negative was the smell we all had to get used to throughout the flight of the guy who had brought his pet dog on board?! I think he must have been a professional dog groomer or something as his laptop was covered in pics of dogs (I could see it from where I was sat...) and the attention he was paying the canine was pretty intense.
Arriving at Rio, going through security and getting my bag was super quick, the airport itself reminded me a little of Cuba (quite stuck in the 70's) but generally good. Understanding Brazilian on the other hand was another thing all together! I thought having a Spanish mama would have prepared me for this day, but how wrong I was. Just trying to find a cash machine and then booking a taxi was a trial in itself (I blame my tiredness and weight of backpack for this!) but I managed it in the end and was soon on my way with the oldest taxi driver in the world driving like a lunatic through the torrential rain of Rio. Finding Tom and Manuela's place (wonderful people that have offered to have me stay for the first few days) was tricky as my taxi guy didn't appear to understand my broken Brazilian and also appeared to have a serious issues reading the address when written down - when he turned the page upside down it clicked that his near sighted vision was clearly not good so he offered me his mobile to call Tom. It turned out we had gone too far up the road and past their place!
So I'm here in Rio, having had my first nights sleep, waking up not knowing where I was initially. Weather is still misty but Tom and Manuela have the most amazing view from their living room window:
As they say in Brazil, Tchau for now!
Woo, has it stop raining?!
ReplyDeletenope it's still raining but the clouds have lifted so I was able to take a piccie!
ReplyDeletesuch an adventure! xx Jojo
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