Half Time break back in Wales

It's the 21st of December, and I've been back in the UK six days now. To think that only a week ago I was wandering around in my shorts and t-shirt on the other side of the world seems surreal. Having returned to the frostbitten northern lands of Wales I almost instantaneously caught a cold - the drop in temperature from 30 degrees celcius to below zero has been a brutal wake up call. In addition, whereas today is the shortest day of the year here at home, Rio will be enjoying a sunset later than 8pm. Upon landing at Heathrow I wondered why I had so desired to return to my homeland - we flew over grim south London suburbia shrouded in mist and looking extremely bleak and drab. Yet despite the fact that people may moan about the harsh winters we have, it's a great relief to experience actual seasons - although the minimum temperature crept up insidiously between my arrival to Rio in July till the point I left in December, the seasons don't nearly seem so pronounced - I remember scorching, overcast and thunderstorm days in each month I was there - the contrast wasn't great. In Brazil it's very easy to become complacent and take the weather for granted, yet in the UK one day of clear skies and sunshine is treated as a gift from the gods and appreciated to a much bigger extent.

Here are a few things I'd been meaning to mention on life in Rio previously:
The culture of drinking hanging out on the street is still alive in Brazil. The Boteco is the centrepiece of this. These are small informal drinking joints that appear on what seems like every other street in Rio (apart from Ipanema and Leblon - too upmarket for such places). I attribute the success of these places to several factors - the gap between the price of supermarket beer and the beer at these places isn't half as wide as the gap in England. Another reason is the fact that Brazilians are probably more social and enjoy relaxing in the heat. The place opposite my apartment is never shut, which has been very useful at 4am on a few occasions.

Another note on the scenery. It's pretty awesome that you can go from Copacabana, one of the most densely populated areas in South America, to the mixture a village like atmosphere, green lushness and barren isolation of Urca in only a few minutes drive. There is a lovely seaside path that leads down the peninsula on which the Pão de Azucar,one of Rio's most famous tourist attractions, is situated. This is awesome as it is, with its tropical flora and fauna and picturesque sea views. The paved trail morphs into a narrow path that clings to the cliffside, and before long you are overlooking the Guanabara bay with only vultures and reptiles for company and the sound of the sea gently lapping the shoreline below being the only thing you can hear.

I'm not one for basking on the sand, nor do I regularly take to the waters, but I really appreciate the beach nonetheless. It provides a natural and much needed end to the urban chaos surrounding one side of it. One of my favourite features of it is the beachside bars. They provide cheap beer and caipirinhas whilst being in an awesome location. By contrast, on the other side of the road from these places lies the most expensive accomodation in the whole of Rio. The beaches are great for a wander - walking the few miles from my end of Copacabana along Ipanema to Leblon whilst stopping for the odd agua de coco whilst enjoying the atmosphere and weather is something I'll really miss.

As for university here, I have achieved the highest marks of my life with the least amount of effort. The teachers seem to hand out top grades like confetti, in terms of autonomous learning this has to be the most hands off experience of my life. I've already managed to pass the entire year - Leeds only expect you to pass three modules in the course of a year - so until I return to England in September I'll have to do some serious autonomous learning to avoid stagnating and spending too much time on the beach. I have supplemented the pittance of uni work I have with newspapers and Portuguese translations of Charles Bukowski and Jack London's works, and thankfully I've had my dissertation proposal approved by Leeds - so I'll actually have something to do for the next nine months after all!

I'll be back in Rio for mid February, but in between I'm going on something of an Iberian odyssy, flying to Barcelona on 10th January and then flying back from Lisbon at some point after. I'm hoping to take in some cool places along the way and see some friends, as well as practice my extremely rusty Spanish that hasn't seen real action since June.

Jack