On the Road to Find Out

I have to apologise for the lack of updates here, it’s not because I’ve forgotten about this blog, it’s just that life has taken over a little slightly. Since returning from South American I have spent a week in Barcelona, a month in London and the rest of the time in Uttoxeter, a small market town in the center of England. I’ve tried to continue the travelling way of life, making sure I don’t tie myself down again, sleeping on friend’s couches, not worrying about money and generally being very laissez-faire about everything. Only problem is that the money flow has suffered. It took a couple of months before people realised I was back in England and started offering me work. By which point I had decided to go to London for a month. Various celebrations were happening there that involved Brazil and South America in general, and I had begun work on a website, called Sounds and Colours (which I will talk about in more detail on the next post), which is ostensibly a magazine about South American music and culture.

Going to London was the perfect opportunity to turn this website into a viable entity, or even, dare I say it, a profitable one, although this is a long way off. Now, the magazine has a marketing manager (my friend Rick), a media pack (already hideously out-of-date), a few hundred twitter followers, over 100 visitors a day and has generally got itself out into the ether in a way that didn’t seem possible when I came up with the idea in my bedroom a couple of months ago. The site now has itself a head of steam, and I’ve slowly come to terms with how to market and how to add content without wasting my days. Which is why I am now thinking about this blog again.

Over the next few weeks I will be staying in Porto. I managed to find someone who needed a dog sitter, so off I will go. I hope to post some interesting tidbits about Porto, as well as a few about London and Barcelona that are still unfortunately laying dormant in my notebook. I will also be posting far more articles about music and culture, interesting stuff that there isn’t room for on Sounds and Colours but which is obviously of the highest culture.

God, I hope I didn’t sound all formal and straight-ahead there – it was certainly very cathartic writing all that though.

Rio de Janeiro is an amazing place. I have never been to a city of this size where people are quite so friendly. It’s almost like it’s got a small-town mentality. People speak to you in the streets and shops and generally want to say hello, if not sneak in a handshake or a kiss on either cheek. Meeting people from the favelas makes it even more convincing, they are generally some of the warmest people you can meet.

I haven’t been to many large cities where the people are so friendly. London, Buenos Aires, Barcelona and Berlin all have their moments, but none of them quite have the goodwill of the Cariocas (the name for people from Rio). I think it is because they have such a bad image, the people are constantly trying to prove that it’s a good city, that it’s not just a place of violence and beaches. This is my theory anyway. People in the other cities don’t need to prove anything. People arrive with high hopes that they will like the city and will generally be disappointed. In Rio, people arrive expecting to be robbed, and then get robbed. It’s worth taking the risk though, to get to know the people. The key is to make sure that if you are robbed you don’t lose much.

Now I just need to prove the theory, which means making Israel or Islamabad my next stop. I would be very surprised if the people there didn’t turn out to be some of the friendliest folk around.

In football news, tomorrow is Flamengo v Corinthians. Which potentially meant Ronaldo returning to his boyhood club, the club where he trained at the start of the season until suddenly Corinthians had the money and he switched sides. However, he fell over on his hand, breaking it in the process (he is still carrying a substantial amount of weight, it’s almost surprising the whole arm didn’t break in two) and will miss it. I think he did it on purpose. The Flamengo fans had been knitting Judas banners since the fixtures had been announced. It would have been a horrible experience for him. Now, they will have to wait a year. In the meantime we get to see Adriano, which is at least one great from the game. My money is on a Flamengo upset.