beautiful day

just in time, i reached the internet cafe it would seem.

i've just come in because i'm on my own tonight. everyone else can afford to go to the sambadrome for the carnaval parade here in rio. I cannot, on account of having a strict budget until i get a new bank card. so not a good basis to start from, but i feel like things are starting to go my way.

reason being, it's just started to rain quite a lot. again! so my timing wasn't bad.

its 11pm and I just went for a walk around ipanema. looks like there might be some good partying at the beachside bars later. its just getting started now. i thought i would leave it to warm up and then go back. now it's raining, one of two things will happen: either people won't care (and won't let the weather spoil their carnaval) and i'll go back and find a lot of wet people samba-ing :) or there won't be anyone there at all. my money is on the first one.

for the first time, the weather has been great today. sunny , hot and not at all humid. the other day it was 21 degrees but humidity was near 100%. its crazy to be constantly sweating when its not at all hot, but we were. i sat on the beach today in the late afternoon sun and read and watched the waves and then went up the Arpoador rock and watched the sunset with a thousand other people. it was a cool, almost spiritual shared experience to be looking down the famous rio beaches as the golden sun set behind the mountains in the background behind Leblon. breathtaking.

speaking of which, the wind is quite strong now and on the seafront all of the days rubbish (mostly skol cans and water bottles) is blowing and rolling west.

in rio, even the rubbish sambas for carnaval :)