In my honest opinion the actual trip wasn't all that, to drive out for close to 3 hours to be put in a beach city in overcast weather isn't ideal. The beaches surrounding the area weren't that spectacular either. The main town of Buzios reminded me a lot of Thailand, plenty of people had made their way out of Rio for the long weekend and in the evenings the streets were crowded with families and party goers. The upside for me was that it gave me a chance to get to know the other people who I will be staying with in Rio. Nothing like a road trip to forge new friendships over a nice quiet beer.
One interesting incident involved the words "Hey, you might want to watch out for this toilet, I think it's clogged". Now, given the topic sentence of this paragraph you would expect something to happen. So if you're not a fan of toilet humour (excuse the pun) then you may want to skip the next few paragraphs. For those sickly people intrigued by all things disgusting continue.
Me one not to subscribe to the warning went a head and used it and of course it did everything I expected it to do, that is, it wouldn't flush. Not only did it refuse to flush the toilet decided to fill up half way.Now being an IT person when something goes wrong with a computer the first thing that comes to mind is to restart the machine. Aka. Re-flush. This proved to be NOT the right solution, what I had expected to happen did not, it overflowed. The toilet was now a cauldron of all things putrid.
This probably wouldn't be so much of a problem if Brazilians had some form of plunger market. Unfortunately this WHOLE beach house had no plunger. Improvisation were required. I managed to unclog the toilet with a variety of objects from the kitchen, the bush and particular limbs of my body. I warned everybody in the house not to use the toilet and put a bath matt over it to deter people. At 3 am in the middle of the night one of the room members was sick and proceeded to vomit into the cursed toilet. He flushed. It overflowed. The toilet was now a quarantine zone. The toilet had won.
The start of the trip was slightly awkward, I felt a little out of my comfort zone. One reason was because being in a new country, another would be trying to break into an already formed group of people desperately feeling like the odd one out. Towards the end of the trip this subsided as I got to know a couple of the people slightly better. I think the main reason why I felt so out of place was because I didn't have any of my own clothing. Part of me was sitting in a red suitcase in Rio De Janeiro. Having to wear the same pair of shorts throughout the whole day with a 3 t-shirt rotation scheme is definitely an experience for anybody. I yearned for my luggage and despite staying only one night in Barron Gardens I wanted to go back.
The variety of different insects that have bitten me this weekends range from mosquitoes, fleas and ants. I've lost count of the many times I've whacked myself in the head at night at the suspicion of critter on my face. They're relentless, I've bitten on areas I did not think could be bitten, elbows, knuckles, heels, toes and earlobes. I feel like an itchier version of the Michelin Man. First thing I invest in after buying my groceries this week is some industrial strength insect repellent.
What a terribly, non-sequitur blog post. Since then I have arrived home to find my luggage in one piece, it's one thing that has made me feel more at ease. Going to finish up this post and get to bed early for my first day on the "job" tomorrow. The volunteer coordinator is scheduled to pick up me up at 7:30 tomorrow for my first day at the Surf School in Ipanema, cannot wait!
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