Sleeping with Ronaldo

Sincere apologies for my fairly sluggish start to this blog. Laziness follows you wherever you are in the world.

Having stayed in Santa Teresa since my arrival, I´ve now made an unscheduled change by moving to a more lively joint down by the Copacabana. It´s called Mellow Yellow and is supposed to be a bit of a party place. The last hostel was pleasant but quiet and up a hill. I feel I needed to step things up a little so here I am.

If it makes everyone happier, the weather until today has been pretty poor. Mostly cloud and rain for the previous two days and it has warn me down a touch. There ain´t loads of great things to do here when the weather´s being a bitch.

On Monday I went to the Copacabana but then the heavens opened so I had a pizza under cover instead. Then I ventured off to the Maracana stadium which was actually a lot less run down than I had imagined. The stadium tour was quite good but the pitch was no better than the pitches at Hough End. From here I just wandered the city centre streets but to be honest that wasn´t wonderful. In the evening there were caiprinhas and beer being downed at the hostel bar by a few of us. Met a good couple from London way but they´ve since made a run for the sun and headed for Salvador. They call themselves Shaun and Nadia.

Tuesday I tried something different. I don´t know many people who can say they´ve visited a n all inclusive mental hospital/art exhibition in Rio. I have. Awkwardly, it seemed to be sandwiched in between a load of favelas on my google map but I thought what the hell. I got a bus to the Maracana again as this was the nearest tourist stop to the place, then flagged a taxi with the assistance of an English cameraman who spoke fluent Portuguese. My taxi driver didn´t have a clue where my art exhibition was and didn´t even try concealing this, asking other taxi drivers as we drove, as to where the hell we were supposed to be going. Eventually we found it. A man in a caged garden greeted us and a run down complex which seemed very depressing. Seemed, I mean was.

On finding the art exhibition, I was treeted to my own private viewing of an English language video about a former patient who did lots of painting. I did start to nod off in the empty classroom but was conscious of the CCTV camera pointing straight at me and didn´t want to offend the staff.

On my way back, I went over to a taxi man who was parked up and instructed him to take me back to the Maracana. As it turns out, he was waiting to get jiggy with the lady inside the house he parked next to but he was happy to make her wait. Two minutes later, an angry Brazilian lady was on the phone asking where the hell he´d got to. He was a little crazy and had five kids from ¨Three lovely, lovely womans¨ and also ¨Loved to do snooker¨ I don´t think he was drunk but he was talking about drink driving and laughing like a crazed clown so I had my doubts.

In the evening I was just sat at the hostel bar, which was completely desserted, reading my Paul Theroux book when two English girls turned up wanting drinks and something to do. Within an hour, we and another good couple (John from Blackpool and Pam from Ireland...now living the high life in the Cayman Islands) had decided to go check the night life down the road in Lapa. We had several Caipirinhas and even managed a really good cod ball.

It was on the two girls´advice that I decided to move on as they said here was good fun especially compared to the scene at my then current hostel. Also, it´s next to the baech and the weather should hopefully pick up soon.

This evening there´s a game on at the Maracana and having been there everyday since I´ve been here, I feel I should keep it up and say hi once more. Going along with John and Pam, which means meeting them at a metro station in the middle of Rio. Which in turn means I need to get from Copacabana to the centre where they´ll befor 8.30pm. I´ll be flying solo so I´ll be going armed with minimum cash and leaving my flashy camera behind. Seems a bit of a needless risk doing the subway alone at night in Rio but hey, don´t knock it til you´ve tried it.

Right, I´m warn out with all this typing. Next few days will consist of sightseeing, a couple of group tours, a trip to the favela and a Rio derby at the Maracana on Sunday, hopefully followed by a favela funk party. And, I think tomorrow there may be a big party on the beach if Brazil are chosen to host the 2016 Olympics.

Oh, I nearly forgot to explain the blog title. My dorm name is Futbol and my locker is Garrincha. Ronaldo is next to me.