Yesterday - as in Monday (I'm playing catch up at the moment) I had planned to go to Parada de Lucas, the favela where I'll be working, for the first time but something came up so I couldn't... Re-scheduled for Friday now... Instead I was impromptu-ly (is that a word or a Izzism as my History teacher called them?) invited to lunch by my landlords, Vilma & Mucio, who had come over in the morning to drop off a juicer and CD player for me... They were so kind and sweet - I met their entire family - daughters, granddaughters etc and they even paid! Afterwards they took me on a guided tour of Rio in their car... I got to go to the site where the Portuguese first landed, which i wouldn't have done without them beacuse it's now the site of the military school and you need a pass to enter... (Brazilians in uniform - PHwoar! (Sorry Dad))... I went to their home in Urca (right at the bottom of Sugar Loaf mountain) and they gave me loads of maps! Late afternoon / evening I spent about 5 hours on the computer transfering the AfroReggae database to my new email (when are Outlook going to invent an easy way to transfer data instead of copying and pasting everything??)... Chilled in the evening and watched some Brazilian TV trying to improve my Portuguese...

Today I've been on the beach (see first-ish post) structuring the radio production / presenting workshops... buying Havaianas flipflops (the same colour as this post in their honour) and trying to get a USB cable to download the pictures of the view from Vilma & Mucio's apartment, which was amazing... At $R120 a pop though, i'm asking Tom L to bring one over for me (that's your second hint Tom!)... Hoping to hook up with old 1Xtra friend Helen C 2nite and having lunch with Simon Fuller (don't think it's THE Simon Fuller but he manages bands and was put in touch with him via a journalist friend!) 2moro - will tell all
Beijos XxXxXxx

Yesterday/Today I have mostly learnt the words:
Almoco - Lunch (sooooo tasty here)
Carioca - Rio resident (as in what i'll become when i can talk proper and i'm brown!)

P.s for those of you who haven't been able to work it out... to see my posts from the start, click on 'My Old Posts' or 'Postagens Mas Antigas' at the bottom of this page - it takes you through to the page b4 (or it does for me anyway)... don't know if it's English or Portuguese for you coz all my instructions on this blog are in Portuguese (sometimes the internet is too damn clever for its own good although it is improving my understanding of the language)... and no the person in the picture with the cherry in the cocktail glass is not me, it refers to me "popping my blogging cherry" and yeah i thought it was funny
Bj xX