The Sambadrome

The rest of Monday, once I knew the girl was safe and sound, was great. The lovely Tracey cut my hair. I went for sushi with the girl on the bunk above me. I bought lovely new Havaianas. I also got extremely excited about going to The Sambadrome.

I got dressed up for The Sambadrome and even put some make up on! I headed there with the Canadian girls and a lovely Aussie couple. It was all pretty easy, unlike the previous night when apparently the metro got closed. The only minor problem was a rather over zealous Brazilian girl pushing me out of the way so that she could sit down. We found the Sambadrome and were seated by about 9pm. I say seated, what I mean is we had our own little place on some concrete steps.

The parades were amazing and everything I'd hoped for, both colourful and vibrant. Unfortunately a very tall girl decided to stand on the step below me - successfully blocking a considerable amount of my view. She was well over six foot and I was getting pretty annoyed. I sent fuck off vibes in her direction and eventually she moved and I got on with my prime objective - taking photos!

At the start of the second samba school she moved back into position. Lovely feisty Martha swapped places with me and exclaimed loudly about ignorant tall people - she was brilliant, and again the girl got the message and moved to the side.

Between the second and third school we attempted to move closer to the front - this was achieved by gingerly heading down the steps and squeezing ourselves into a space. Once again we met with Brazilian hostility and were literally pushed out of the way by an older woman who stated she'd been there since 4pm to get a good seat. We tried to plead lack of understanding, but she wasn't having any of it - I could sort of see her point, but she didn't need to be quite so aggressive about it. We returned to our steps and continued to enjoy the show. I was also trying to ignore the pain in my back and hips from standing for so long.

At the end of the third school it started to rain - a mere trifling I thought, I am English I can withstand this. Hmm, more fool me, it started lashing down and I got soaked. By the time the guys came round selling ponchos I was already wringing out my dress and there really seemed to be little point covering my all ready sodden self up! Throughout, I was laughing and dancing. I seemed to have found my second or possibly even third wind! By 3am and halfway through the fourth school, it was starting to get really chilly and with no hope of making it to sunrise so that my dress could dry, we retired home.

The Sambadrome, without doubt, was an incredible experience. I didn't see it through to the end but did have an absolutely wonderful time - tall people excepting! I also got some fantastic images - hurray for my big lens, fnar fnar!