The day after tomorrow.

I am happy to have enjoyed what may be my last week on earth.
If the weather forecast that appeared on the local newspaper is correct, unless my air conditioning units are in top gear I may find myself melting forever into unrecognisable shape as temperatures reach almost 100 degrees Celsius! (look at the forecast for segunda which is Monday in Portuguese).

Had I known the fate that awaited me before, I could have dispensed the skin care and enjoy the beach on Saturday (when I felt like I was melting, but the temperature was only about 37). Of course, every single Carioca in town had already had the same idea -sun protection or not- and the beach was fully packed before I had even got up -admittedly quite late: midday.

On Friday, I went to a Roda de Samba bar, in the centre of Town, own by a friend of Profa. Niteroi (she is the professor I am working with and lives in Niteroi). She was dancing and singing all night! I danced a little: my samba is still in its infancy. Probably it was a good thing I didn't buy a suit to parade with any samba school this year. (Actually I am quite disappointed!)

So after the night out, I was woken up by the noise of hundreds of fireworks, followed by some loud unintelligible music: a bloco had assembled in a square near home. They stayed singing and shouting there most of the day, in the relentless heat, until they decided to start parading, through the roads of the neighbourhood, eventually passing right on my road (this was at about 6pm!) on their way to the beach.

Some time much later, after we had long set head to pillow, we overheard through a microphone a feminine voice still chanting and leading thousands of people through the streets.
Now, that is stamina and love of Carnival and party.

My sole Carnival activity this week was the visit to the home of the Samba school Viradouro. The people there were really enthusiastic, full of energy and charm...although their song seemed a bit poor...
I have to apologise: I had taken my camera, but last minute, I decided to live my backpack inside a friend's car...and the camera stayed inside. In the event, I had my mobile phone with camera with me, and took some photos and even some videos, but I don't know how I can extract such info from phone and put it into PC (anybody: help!)

The only thing to drink was beer (which I don't drink) and a dodgy version of the well-loved alcoho-pop: A little bottle containing some (extremely artificial) lemonade with cachaca. I paid my 4 reais to take one sip of that awful concoction, before deciding to stick to soft drinks for the night- just about right, my female friend went to the toilet, and came back, between amused and horrified, baring news of toilets with no doors!

Despite my sober condition, I managed to forget my phone inside the car of the friend that took home (luckily, I didn't take a taxi!) and was incommunicado until Friday, when I went back to Niteroi.

Now I will enjoy from the distance (from my window) the wet performance of tonight's bloco under the rain and wait for Global warming to come.