11/02/2020 – Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

Woke up early for a job interview via a Whatsapp video call. First time doing a job interview that way! Felt kind of rusty in terms of nursing vocabulary, but I did make the most of ‘oh sorry you disconnected I couldn’t quite hear that?!’ to buy some time! Debriefed with the others, and made some breakfast. Josh had a bad tummy again overnight so he is taking things slowly. Got ourselves sorted, another overcast grey but hot day in Rio, so no point going to Christ the Redeemer today - we checked on the live webcam and it was covered in cloud. Instead we got an Uber to Saara market that Rio calls its ‘largest open air mall’. It was grey and raining so it wasn’t as busy as I can imagine it is in its peak, but there were still quite a few locals going about their daily business. Not many tourists, although we did come across a couple of souvenir shops which James and Dom made use of. James and Josh got some bargain shorts at £2 a pair and Dom and I found an outfit each too. When we were done with shopping we got a taxi to Copacobana beach and found a beautiful little Italian café up a small side street, where we pit stopped out of the rain in and enjoyed some coffee and lunch. We walked all the way along Copacobana beach and to the mall in Botafogo, the district we are staying in. We found a barbers on the top floor and Josh got his haircut whilst James Dom and I enjoyed sitting in the air conditioning for a short while. We wandered through a handful of shops and tried on some outfits, there were some really cool clothes that were so tempting but we manged to resist. Well, we plan on sleeping on it, we may still head back there! We hopped in a taxi back to our apartment, showered and chilled, watching some Netflix. Josh and I made some dinner out of the leftovers that had gathered in the fridge, and James and Dom made the Caiprinhas. My teeth feel like they might fall out after all the suger in the cocktails over the last few weeks! We cleared up, had drinks in the apartment and got ready before Uber-ing to the nearby ‘Jungle bar’, which we had found on google. There was some kind of international social event, that we hadn’t known about, so the bar was full of people from all over the world there to make friends. We had a Union Jack sticker stuck on us as we walked in. Each person got a flag sticker for each language spoken – it was a bit embarrassing to be the only ones with only one language, everyone else was tri and quadlingual! Classic Brits! We felt really welcomed and before long had been befriended by a gay Peruvian couple (one of whom was very keen on Josh!) a few fellow Brits and a Brasilian guy who seemed to be trying to perfect his English accent and was dressed as if he had come straight out of Chelsea. Such an odd crowd of people but a fun night had by all. By 0200 the bar was closing and the Ubers were arriving to take everyone on to the next place, apparently to a club full of gringos. As we waited for our Uber to arrive, and as the last group of people to leave, we quickly changed our minds and diverted our Uber for home, ready for bed. How sensible - what has 30 done to us! Having said that, by the time we got back from the club someones head was down the toilet (not going to name names!) We fell asleep watching tv at around 0300.