(no subject)
And now it's Friday! Can time just slow down a bit?
So off we went to the beach yesterday, at Guaruja. We got there late afternoon, and ended up going to the hotel pool instead. We had dinner at one of the beachfront restaurants which was rather rubbish - the food was average, and the service was terrible. At one point there were four waiters chatting to each other a few metres from our table, and my plate was empty (I had pizza, and the tradition here is that they serve the pizza to you from a bigger plate. Seems completely daft to me, but there you have it). Combine that with slow service, meals delivered at substantially different times, and grumpy miserable staff.
The night was a bit difficult. The cot the hotel had given us wasn't sealed around the base, so Amélie's legs were coming out and the cold floor was waking her up. In the wee hours I brought her into our bed, but she was moving lots (unusually). For a couple of hours she was at 90 degrees to Lu and I, resting her legs on my stomach! I couldn't help but laugh.
We went to the beach for about 2 hours, which was enough to be at least vaguely satisfying. We then went back to the hotel around 11am, and all got the sand out of our crevices. I ended up giving Amélie a shower with me, which was wasn't happy about to say the least. But she wouldn't have a bath either easily, so I went for the quick option.
Once we were all packed up (we had to check out by 12pm) we headed off for some lunch, and went to another restaurant. This one was much better - the staff even had a sense of humour! Curiously you get a lot of dishes at the beach which are for 2 people. They come on one plate, and are then dished up for both of you by the waiter. The food is usually more than enough for 2 people, so there's seconds if you want it. We didn't today, as it was just too hot for food even (it was about all I could do to get from the hotel to the restaurant without collapsing).
To stay out of the sun, and also because Lu wanted, we went to "the biggest aquarium in Latin America" AKA Acqua Mundo which was just a short walk from the restaurant. I could have sworn I'd been there before but Lu says not. It was actually fairly reasonable (ignoring the odd area which was too small for the animal), and a way to pass an hour or so. After that we had an ice-cream, and Amélie got her first ice-cream all to herself. They had watermelon flavour lollies, to which I was instantly smitten. In fact they have a lot of watermelon flavoured products here e.g. chewing gum, which is awesome. Ditto for grape flavouring (Fanta Grape is the nectar of the gods).
From there we went back to the hotel to collect the car, and then it was a very unpleasant hot drive home - I was putting my hand out of the car window, but the air itself seemed to be burning hot. We're back home now thankfully, and there's been a fairly mild thunderstorm, which will clear some of the heat at least. The forecast is actually for a big change between Saturday/Sunday, with the temperature dropping to just above 20C, at least in Sao Paulo city. We're off to Botucatu tomorrow morning, or that's the theory. We're going to rent a car just to get aircon if nothing else (although we have to anyway due to the state of the PILs cars vs. a 3 hour journey).
And here's three photos from the last couple of days...
^A photo of me where I don't actually look that fat. Tis a miracle! A shame Amélie didn't look at the camera, but c'est la vie.
^Probably the clearest of the aquarium shots, although this crab was actually on dry land at the edge of a big pool.
^Amélie's eyes are still very confusing - blue around the outside it seems, and brown in the middle. Perhaps they'll turn brown yet?
So off we went to the beach yesterday, at Guaruja. We got there late afternoon, and ended up going to the hotel pool instead. We had dinner at one of the beachfront restaurants which was rather rubbish - the food was average, and the service was terrible. At one point there were four waiters chatting to each other a few metres from our table, and my plate was empty (I had pizza, and the tradition here is that they serve the pizza to you from a bigger plate. Seems completely daft to me, but there you have it). Combine that with slow service, meals delivered at substantially different times, and grumpy miserable staff.
The night was a bit difficult. The cot the hotel had given us wasn't sealed around the base, so Amélie's legs were coming out and the cold floor was waking her up. In the wee hours I brought her into our bed, but she was moving lots (unusually). For a couple of hours she was at 90 degrees to Lu and I, resting her legs on my stomach! I couldn't help but laugh.
We went to the beach for about 2 hours, which was enough to be at least vaguely satisfying. We then went back to the hotel around 11am, and all got the sand out of our crevices. I ended up giving Amélie a shower with me, which was wasn't happy about to say the least. But she wouldn't have a bath either easily, so I went for the quick option.
Once we were all packed up (we had to check out by 12pm) we headed off for some lunch, and went to another restaurant. This one was much better - the staff even had a sense of humour! Curiously you get a lot of dishes at the beach which are for 2 people. They come on one plate, and are then dished up for both of you by the waiter. The food is usually more than enough for 2 people, so there's seconds if you want it. We didn't today, as it was just too hot for food even (it was about all I could do to get from the hotel to the restaurant without collapsing).
To stay out of the sun, and also because Lu wanted, we went to "the biggest aquarium in Latin America" AKA Acqua Mundo which was just a short walk from the restaurant. I could have sworn I'd been there before but Lu says not. It was actually fairly reasonable (ignoring the odd area which was too small for the animal), and a way to pass an hour or so. After that we had an ice-cream, and Amélie got her first ice-cream all to herself. They had watermelon flavour lollies, to which I was instantly smitten. In fact they have a lot of watermelon flavoured products here e.g. chewing gum, which is awesome. Ditto for grape flavouring (Fanta Grape is the nectar of the gods).
From there we went back to the hotel to collect the car, and then it was a very unpleasant hot drive home - I was putting my hand out of the car window, but the air itself seemed to be burning hot. We're back home now thankfully, and there's been a fairly mild thunderstorm, which will clear some of the heat at least. The forecast is actually for a big change between Saturday/Sunday, with the temperature dropping to just above 20C, at least in Sao Paulo city. We're off to Botucatu tomorrow morning, or that's the theory. We're going to rent a car just to get aircon if nothing else (although we have to anyway due to the state of the PILs cars vs. a 3 hour journey).
And here's three photos from the last couple of days...
^A photo of me where I don't actually look that fat. Tis a miracle! A shame Amélie didn't look at the camera, but c'est la vie.
^Probably the clearest of the aquarium shots, although this crab was actually on dry land at the edge of a big pool.
^Amélie's eyes are still very confusing - blue around the outside it seems, and brown in the middle. Perhaps they'll turn brown yet?