After the epic scenes of Monday (both day and night), it will be scant surprise to hear we were absolutely shattered come Tuesday... after finally rising some time in the afternoon (going to bed at 7.30am isn't ideal for an early start). Feeling somewhat obliged to do something, however, Anna and I hopped into a bus and headed down to Ipanema where, after topping up the energy levels with the delicious açai berry-fruit-shake-juice stuff that is found in the fruit juice stalls that come ten-to-the-dozen all over Brazil, we walked over to Lagoa Rodrigo de Frietas and rented ourselves a couple of bikes to rekindle memories of Oxford as we cycled around the 7.5km path. I'd wanted Anna to see the amazing Ipanema sunset that we'd enjoyed before she arrived, but unfortunately we ended up getting to Ipanema beach about 20 minutes too late... although we still had time to see Anna's compact digital camera (as opposed to her all new fancy SLR one which we left back at Rita's for its own safety) come to a sticky end thanks to an over-zealous wave and the splash of few drops of salty sea water. To say she was unimpressed would be a rather large understatement.
We managed to pass several hours sitting on the beach, walking up the beach, sitting on the wall while drinking some beers... generally mitzing around the area, before we decided to look into hopping on a metro train home. The metro runs 24 hours a day during carnaval... but unfortunately the powers that be had decided that carnaval refered to the sambódromo (which finished on Monday night), rather than the carnaval de rua on the streets that continues till Tuesday. Bad news for us, and adding to our woes was a complete lack of cash for either of us, and apparently no working ATMs in Ipanema. Eventually we bought a couple of drinks by debit card at an Irish pub and got 100 reals cashback to sort ourselves out... and as tends to happen when you're just seeing where the night takes you, we ended up with an English lad, a Colombian, and some guy who was presumably American, overfilling a taxi to Lapa (the centre of Rio nightlife). Ostensibly we were only heading there to try and get on the metro (as apparently it would still be running further up the line), but once we were out on the crowd-filled streets with the full noise and energy of the last night of carnaval, we were always gonna stay and soak up the atmosphere. Wandering over to Arcos de Lapa - a big viaduct of arches across a public square that, by day, looks like the photo on the right - turned out to be a great move as we found ourselves in the midst of a live performance by some sort of band - a good 10 thousand people dancing away in front of the constructed stage. It was probably about 2am when we decided to call it a night... cue walking around to find a metro station, only to discover that it too was closed! Cutting our losses, we just got a cab. 
Today was to be different, however, with Rita driving the two of us down to Prainha beach - a recommended spot due south of Rio; bright sands enclosed by green hills (see right) and with the big surf that seems standard along the southern Brazilian coast. Several hours were spent relaxing; Anna wistfully watching the surfers enjoy what are supposed to be the best waves in Brazil, while dismayed by the total lack of surfboard-rental establishments anywhere in Prainha (or indeed anywhere around Rio); I taking some crappy photos. At some stage, however, I had the fairly unusual experience of being stunned to silence after she recounted her torrid time in India and, point-by-point, presented her case for how - in seemingly every conceivable way - India was a disaster of a country. Normally, it takes barely a flicker of criticism of India for me to launch into a strong-worded and generally over-excited defence of the motherland - a personality trait that has provided much easy entertainment over the years for serial windup merchants like Paul "P Sizzle" Smith. On this occasion though, what hit me wasn't so much a flicker of criticism as a raging inferno of lambastations, denunciations and disparagement whose content might been vitriolic if it hadn't all been built upon experiences that were undeniably Indian, and presented in a manner that was perfectly fair. It was an impressive argument on her part, and it was its volume as much as its content that left my quietly collecting my thoughts for some time - wondering why I wasn't at all offended or surprised, but merely disappointed. The overarching conclusion for me eventually seeped through though - travelling can be wildly influenced by preconceptions and expectations, and if they don't include an expectation for anything and everything to come your way - as much in terms of trival customer service standards as the more serious dangers of theft and illness - then 4 months in India are gonna be tough. The irony for me is that the vehemence of her criticisms simply highlighted the chasm in my mind between what I consider normal anywhere in the world, and what I consider normal in India, and how at ease I am with this division. Repeatedly saying "it's just how it is" wasn't a particularly strong argument on the face of it, but combined with a sense of expectation and it starts to take a deeper significance. Every time I found myself resorting to the same sentence merely served to confirm the sense of ease I feel in a world that was just so foreign for her.
As we drove home conversation turned to just how fantastic a city Rio is; with everything she would want from a city present in Rio, Anna said she'd certainly be happy to live here. I love the place, but my love of London, Kent and the UK is enough to stop me ever seriously thinking about the merits of settling down anywhere else for longer than a few fleeting moments. What I realised, however, is that if the afternoon's conversations achieved little else, what they did do was increase my desire to one day live and work somewhere in India.
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