Foz du Iguassu to Belo Horizonte to Montes Claros

After a day of sunbathing at the hotel it was time to pack up on the Friday and head back to the airport and back to Belo Horizonte. Our tour guide from the week took us back to the airport and even though we'd managed to fly there already he left us with instructions of where to go and what we had to do, like we didn't know that we had to check in...

The flight this time went via Rio de Janeiro, the only landmark that I'd wanted to see there was Christ the Redeemer (Big Jesus on a hill) I spent all the time we were descending to the airport trying to find it and not succeeding and then it was too dark when we set off again to keep looking. Will have to go back to see that one another time. We got back to Belo Horizonte and to the same hotel again, this time it was just an overnight stay and then to the smaller Pampulha airport in the morning for another early flight. It's either an 8 hour bus journey or a 1 hour flight to Montes Claros and I'm so pleased we did the latter.

We were met at Montes Claros by Sara, an American from the college, so it was nice to be understood again and not to have everything translated for a journey. We unpacked back at Catherine's and had a quick look around and met a few people. The Brazilians like to hug people so when they were introduced to me they looked a bit hesitant - having met western people who aren't quite so keen to hug strangers - before Catherine would say 'she's happy to be hugged' then I'd suddenly have arms wrapped round me.

We weren't sure whether to go out in the evening as Catherine was feeling ill from the flight but decided we would as it was her friend Lizete's birthday. There were nine of us including two children and the joke on the way there was that with three nationalities and three languages between us all, we still couldn't find our way! We made it to the burger place we were going to for food and I've never had such a good burger. Everything comes in the bun, meat, salad, sweetcorn, crisps, sauce and it tasted good. After we went to the shopping centre for an hour, it seems to be the place to go to on a Saturday night - and definitely worth a trip for some ice cream!

February 10

Either not much happened in February or I didn't keep my calendar up to date. I'm hoping it's the latter and not that I didn't have anything to do.

I do remember going over to the Lavers after a Huddersfield work day mid week and finding out that we were all going to be up in Stockton at the weekend. Mum & I went to Northallerton Saturday morning to order picture frames and then met Dad for lunch at the lovely Roots Farm Shop. Saturday night Vicky, Charlie and I went out for drinks, in true old woman style we also had chips and were home by 10.30pm!

At the end of the month we went to see Beauty and the Beast in York. As always with York Light Opera it was well done, it's not one of my favourite on stage musicals but I did find myself singing along to a lot of it and the actor playing the Beast was really good.

And that was February.

January 10

As there had been so much snow in December it stopped me visiting the Lavers to meet Isaac when he was born, despite my attempt to get there after 3 hours driving in the snow I decided the more sensible option was to turn back home. So I re-planned my visit for 2nd January and again the snow tried to thwart me! This time after a quick call from Charlie before setting off we changed plans and I went to get the train instead which was definitely a better idea than driving. It was a lovely day seeing Isaac, building snowmen and throwing snowballs up at the house.

Most of January was tied up with working, from December we had recruited someone temporarily to cover my day job for me so that I could work on the planning for the restructure, ready for announcing the first part at the end of January. It made it much easier for me to be able to pass everything else over and just work on the restructure.

At the end of the month I managed to get a day off to get down to Sal & Rob's for the weekend. I'd booked to fly down as it seemed probably the same cost as driving but a lot less hassle. By the time I was on the plane on the Thursday after a day at work I was again pleased not to be driving so much. It was a lovely relaxing weekend, we had some house things to do, wait for deliveries, view all the plans for the decorating and watch films in the cinema room downstairs.

In January I also had my injections in preparation for my trip to Brazil. For all the travelling that I've done I've never had to have vaccinnations for anywhere that I've been, which meant that I had to have all the booster shots as well. So I went for most of them on one day Tetanus, Diptheria and Polio in one shot in one arm, Typhoid and Hepititus A in the other. Then a few days later Yellow Fever (for a price) that was the only one I was worried about but of course the actual injection was no worse than the others and I didn't feel too ill after it. Now just to get to March for the holiday!

Christmas 09

I finished work on 23rd December this year and because of the snow decided to get straight up to Mum & Dad's that day rather than wait until Christmas Eve. It was definitely a good decision as it snowed again overnight and was much worse for travelling in.

Christmas Day was just going to be the three of us but with various visits to church, Sandra's and Joan & Albert's with all their family, there wasn't much time when it was just us. Boxing Day we went for another dinner at Bill and Margo's then Sal & Rob arrived on 27th from the Lakes. We had a visit from Sarah and Jon one afternoon before Sal & Rob headed back to Southampton to their new house, having owned it for 2 weeks they'd only spent less than 24 hours in there. I had another couple of days catching up with people, crashing Mark & Carlie's House Group Christmas Dinner and seeing Joanne and Catherine.

Robert and Laraine arrived to stay for a few days over New Year and I took until New Year's Eve to decide that I would stay another night and spend the evening at the Toops. Definitely my kind of New Year's, food, quiz, games and home by 12.45am.

December 09

December as usual was generally filled with Christmas things starting with the Reflect Fundraisers of a Craft Fair and a Carol concert. I volunteered to help at the craft fair, which I thought would be helping in the kitchen but turned out to be standing in the middle of Stonegate with a very large sign and occasionally shouting 'craft fair, coffee and cakes'. I think I knew this before but it turns out I'm not very good at shouting, so I didn't do that bit so often but more gently persuaded people to go in for the cakes! One lady did come back out and say it had been a very good recommendation so I must have been doing a half decent sales pitch.

The same evening was the Carol Concert so after a quick change it was out to the URC to help set up. The concert was really good, Hannah had found some willing music student volunteers to make up the choir who were all fantastic. Definitely feeling more Christmassy now, although by this point I think my Christmas tree has been up for a week already.

A week before Christmas was the work Christmas Party. There isn't much to report from that, good meal at the Queen's Hotel in Leeds followed by a disco. It took me a long time to get my head around having all this from 1pm but then by 5pm I was back on the train to York :)

The last pre-Christmas event was the old peoples Christmas meal at church, I was there at 9.30am peeling sprouts, wrapping pigs in blankets, mixing stuffing ready for lunch at 1pm. I think we were 5 or 10 mins late but generally it all seemed to go quite smoothly and there were no complaints with the food.

November 09

November seems like it was pretty quiet. The usual work and travelling, Saturday nights critiquing Strictly Come Dancing with Gillian and Naomi, a catch up dinner with Susie and Emily from my old work - although I don't think I was so well at this one and ended up being sick at the restaurant and going home early. Went to see High Society, done by an amateur group in York. I also had someone come do a valuation on my house and I went to view another house, having had the idea put in my head that I might think about moving I decided to look into it a bit. I decided not to do anything more about it then but haven't completely dismissed the idea. That seems to sum up November.

October Musicals

At the end of October Sal and I had another musicals weekend in London so I decided that needed a whole post of it's own.

We both travelled to London on the Friday after work, my train got in a bit later than Sal so after the initial confusion of where we were meeting (why does there need to be 2 H&M's so close to each other but in opposite directions from the exit of the tube?), we found each other and dropped my bags off at the hotel. We decided not to bother with dinner until after the show so headed straight off to the Price Edward Theatre to see Jersey Boys. Sal had seen it before but really wanted me to see it as well and I really enjoyed it. There were moments when the woman next to me became quite distracting by insisting on singing along, which wouldn't have been so bad if she'd had been in tune, but still it didn't spoil it.

Saturday we had a shopping trip for my Christmas present and was successful in getting me a lovely new handbag which I was allowed to start using straight away. Then the afternoon was a showing on Billy Elliott, another good show. The language in it is really blue which the family in front obviously hadn't realised having brought what looked to be a 13 year old daughter and much younger son with them. But amazing dancing in this one.

Saturday night I think was my favourite for the weekend, La Cage Aux Folles with John Barrowman in a role that seemed absolutely perfect for him. If he hadn't been in it, it probably might not have made it onto our list for this weekend but I'm glad it did, good singing dancing and very funny. And even a little mouse running down the stairs before it started!

Now what to see next time...