Short stay in Rio

Rio is of course in summer so we arrived into glorious 34 degC it was, however a little sticky but us Houstonians are used to that! It is four hours ahead in Rio at this time of year so you don't get in until midday and by the time you clear immigration and customs and then take the 40 minute car ride to the hotel there is no way to arrange a meeting any earlier than 2pm. We had ours a 3 o'clock and we already knew we had enough material to keep our audience entertained for at least two hours. So as expected, the meeting went on until 6pm! But it was well worth it so we cant complain. The only bad thing was the office is currently suffering from failure of the air conditioning system so with just one standing fan to keep us cool the meeting room was rather toasty by the end. I kept asking if anyone needed a break but those Brazilians just laughed at me getting too hot:)

That night there was a dinner arranged in a lovely Italian restaurant. The food is always great in Rio and the restaurants we get taken too are definitely 'fine dining'. The traffic from the office was horrible (as I am coming to understand - it is always horrible), so we didn't have time to get out of our 'business dress', not to mention both Dorte and I were starving, so asked the driver to take us straight to the restaurant where we ate all the bread sticks before anyone else got a look in! I had a lovely squid and shrimp pasta dish followed by a nutty homemade ice cream dessert. However, I also had a little too much to drink, although I wasn't alone. Two caipirinha's and red wine meant I kept waking in the night for drinks of water!

I forgot to set me alarm (hmmm too much to drink?!), but fortunately woke up in enough time to get dressed, fed and out for the second meeting planned in our trip. Again that all went fine and finished by eleven thirty so after an early lunch provided by the hosts of the meeting, we really didn't have anything else to do.

The company was very nice and told Dorte and I to go off sightseeing with the company driver. Dorte had never been up Sugar Loaf mountain so that was the first point of call. It is even better the second time, for me, the views are great. The only down side was that we couldn't go back to the hotel as it was in the opposite direction so we both ended up in the heat in our black work trousers and heels! After two hours of sweating lots we got back in to the lovely air conditioned car to go and look at the stadium where Rio celebrates carnival (starts next weekend I think). The stadium was in Rio Central, and there the buildings become old fashioned and ornate, but very run down, howeve, it does have a strange charm about it even if we only saw it through the car windows. I thought the carnival parades/floats would be along Copacabana or something like that, however, in Rio they have this specially designed stadium. Basically it is a two lane road with staging up one side and on the other is 'boxes' for companies to rent and the floats just go up this make-shift road. We then headed back to the hotel to change and go for a walk along Ipanema beach. Neither of us had brought swim stuff because we didn't think we would have time, so instead we paddled in the water. I was wearing a long summer skirt hitched up and while we were admiring the big waves and people gtting semi drowned by them, a big one got us. My white skirt was now see through and clinging to my legs - Dorte also had skirt issues!! Embarrassed, we continued to walk hoping to dry out. We sat on the rocks at the headland that separates Ipanema from Copacabana, but not for long, as the rocks were very hot. By the time we got back to the hotel I think I had burnt the soles of my feet!

The evening flight doesn't leave until 11pm so we decided to get some dinner otherwise it was going to be a long wait and it is always more difficult to sleep on a full stomach. We arrived in Houston at 5am to a thunderstorm and flooding!

Then work :(