In which I've been to Brazil

Copocabana beach, on the day we landed.

Going to Brazil has been on Andy and my's wishlist for a long time now, for many reasons. Andy  used to live there and wanted to show me all his old places, and give meaning and images to the stories. I'd wanted to go there, even before I met Andy, for the wildlife and the beauty. And to top it all off we have a great friend living there, the best man at our wedding who we hadn't seen in nearly 4 years.

So we skipped the sadness that is February in London and went to Summer heat in Rio. We were there for 2.5 weeks, so I'm going to split it into 2 posts so your Internet connection can deal with all the pics!

When we did the same thing of taking a big trip to Japan I blogged about all the small details I noticed about Japan, that were new, that were not commonly known things. But this time, I wasn't keeping a notepad of such things. Instead we were travelling with a friend who knew lots about the local history which I half-absorbed, but I am so bad with names and dates, I just got a general impression. (sorry!)

Not covered in the pictures at all is that I went to a bunch of art galleries, saw a lot of Brazilian art, and developed a sudden interest in Latin American painters which I bought a book on and am still reading. Nor is the copius drinking of cairpirinias, the eating of fejoada and the playing lots of board games covered  - despite being key parts of what made the trip. But what I do have is so many beautiful views, and monkeys.

No trip is complete without visiting Corcovado and the statue of Christo de Redentor.

The view from Jesus' viewpoint.

This is Parque Large - an amazing mini-rainforest, right near Andy's old home.

Taking a walk into the trees

The first time I saw monkeys!

Beautiful Escada de Selaron, a long series of steps completely covered in tiles. 

We went up that cable car to the top of Sugarload Mountain.

where there were views

and art

and monkeys!!!

 WAIT FOR IT

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACE NEEDS A BREATH TO SEE

 AAAH. SO PERFECT.

So much spray it's like clouds are forming!

Then we went to a bird park right next to Iguasu falls.

Chilling in little swings.

Beautiful bromiliads

These beautiful parrots!

In which Spain was a beautiful dream

I have a somewhat post-Spain melancholy. Which might be inevitable looking back on these pictures. It was a really happy time and now I'm back the things in my life that make me unhappy are feeling unnecessary. I'm itching to change things and make some big decisions about my life. And not just that from now on I want more and better snorkelling. I want to think about the things I most want out of life. And nearly one year on from getting married, having a wonderful solid relationship in my life means that I feel free to mix the rest of it up a bit!

There's a strange thing to holidays, as though they exist outside of realtime. Returning after a trip to the sun feels so strongly grounded, like a weighted curtain is just dropped over the whole thing. Bam. Back here again. Holiday memories are always wrapped in this cocoon of warm light and happiness. I  think because their very nature is to be a change, something totally different from the normal life, they actually become somehow surreal when we remember them because they have nothing of what is familiar in them. It's why films like Moonrise Kingdom work for the Summer - it's never quite real to us. Or that's my theory. And it's one I'm using to explain the way that thinking about specific days of holiday have that magical feeling of bliss to them when I recall them. And I think my first trip to Spain will always be like that, playing itself back to the tune of Pharrell Williams' Happy.

Now that I'm done with my romanticising, let's get down to some pictures. The outfit is River Island, both dress and hat which I bought for the trip and am really happy with. Normally River Island clothes are for people with model-esque proportions so I was so surprised when I tried it on and it actually fit! I've just put in a few other pictures from the trip as I don't want to labour you all with holiday photos.

The view of Moraira, the town we were staying near.

At the villa we were staying at, just by the pool.

Lil' hermit crab

 

There's me snorkeling. Which is literally the best thing ever. I swam with the fish and saw a live swimming octopus.

 

 Do you ever feel like holidays don't quite seem real when you get back from them?

In which I am all diced out

I've just been on a mini-holiday to a gaming convention. When I pause I hear the sound of dice rattling in my head and when I close my eyes I see their shiny marbled sides rolling across a table. When I got up to go to work it was a strange action to leave my dice bag and pencil case behind. For the last four days I have lived and breathed games, and it was So Much Fun.

And that was partly because of one bonus addition to the game set: the sea!

Wheeee!

 I used to live by the sea and, although I am a terrible swimmer, I like to think of myself as some kind of water-baby. I always feel so happy by the sea. I love seeing that final horizon. The straight line that always could be the edge of the world. The feeling that you could get into your coracle and ride ever-East to Aslan's land... or South as it would be in this case. So I got that wonderful thing of combining my outfit pictures with me skipping in the waves. (And wearing my new hat.)

There are a lot of pictures of me just skipping about in the sea like delightful child.

Oh waves? I see you, thinking you will catch my heels. I dismiss you with a glance and a hop.

Also, please pay attention to my brand new hat for the collection. A pink bowler from Camden.

Kiss.

The rest of the time was spent playing endless games. It was a convention for home-brewed games, long fermented in imaginations and finally tapped into four hour chunks. I played six of these four hour games in three days. You see why I see dice constantly? 

My character from Squadron UK, a super-hero game set in Birmingham.

A typical table set up.

It was really good to have a break from it all, and completely abandon the internet. Didn't take my laptop and didn't check my phone for 3 days!

In which I catch up and have a satchel

Hello.

I have not blogged in so very long I know. It’s embarrassing but there has been a great deal going on in my life over the last month and I had so many life decisions to make that I decided to wait a little while till I had figured some things out and was feeling like a normal person again. Not that feeling normal is actually normal but that’s a weird problem I shall ignore for now. I shall try not to ignore my precious 20 followers any more.

So anyway… I went on holiday to Texas for a couple of weeks and didn’t take any photos. I’m a bit embarrassed by this, especially as I just found a new blog called Polienne in which the author has so many beautiful photographs of places all over the world that she goes to for her job. It is not especially impressive for a blogger as this internet world revolves around pictures. However I hate to be taking photos of things rather than actually experiencing them. I have no problem with people taking photos but it’s just not something I do on holidays. I wanted to be totally enjoying myself.

I really enjoyed the sun and mostly the food. I ate such amazing incredible food. I tried gumbo and etouffe for the first time; had spicy sushi, Carribbean steak, lots of shrimp and seafood; went to a churrascaria and ate far too much beef and enjoyed tequila salsa.

It was very much the culinary holiday.

I also celebrated 3 years of a beautiful life with my boyfriend. We went to shopping together and ate pear and gorgonzola pizza (again with the amazing food). It was the same day we got some bad news but we tried to just forget it for the evening.

Anyway as a present I got him some malachite cufflinks that look a bit like globes to match his international travelling.

He got me this amazing bag! There is a whole story behind this bag. I had pined for it for weeks and got very upset about having no money. It became a representation of all the things I had failed to achieve in the year because I didn’t have the spare cash to buy myself this one beautiful thing. This was a couple of months ago. Then he gave it to me on our anniversary! I stroke it sometimes. Anyway here it is:

Look at all the pockets! It also has lacy leather, a beautiful clasp and lots of room. It is seriously the perfect bag.

This is the outfit I was wearing with it today. The velvet jacket is also an acquisition via my mother from the 70s. The skirt is charity shop find, top, XXI in America, bag Nico and shoes: Marks and Sparks. The brooch is one that belonged to my grandma and I should have done a close up of.