BRASIL UM PAIS TROPICAO!

So Jax and I finished off our week in Washington. After the fireworks and bbq of 4th July I spent the next day with Wing (some of you have met her when she came to the UK - my roommate from the conference in Washington in 2000). We ate an all american breakfast in a diner (I'd forgotten how much the yanks eat - huge everywhere) and a trip to Washington zoo to see the pandas - never saw these in China kind of weird to see them there! They're v cute though! Then we munched through some traditional southern cooking of stuffed cabbage (was delicious despite its description) made by Wing's boyfriend's mum visiting from Oklahoma!

Friday was spent packing and flying to Miami to arrive in Rio Sat am (and buying video camera batteries M&D!). Jax was supposed to be on the same flight but she wasnt able to get her flight as the first one was delayed so we met at the Lighthouse hostel in Ipanema, tired & just in time for the LiveEarth concert with Macy Gray, some cool Brazilians and Lenny Kravitz headlining on Copacabana beach - how kind of them to put that on for us! Since then we've been the girls from Ipanema on the beach and walked around the lake and the botanical gardens (got some photos for your portfolio Mum!) and got v drunk on Caiprinhas (cachasa is vicious) with the people from our alley of hostels. We had 15 nationalities drinking together around one table. We won as the British obviously.

Tomorrow we are going up to see the big famous Christ. We havent started a course in Portuguese and am not sure we will now, I seem to be mangling my Spanish with a few portuguese words - its working fine! 2 more weeks in Rio and the surrounding beautiful country and then on to Peru for the project.

Com amor, buena noite x