Coming back on a birthday

Well, what an eventful couple of weeks it has been! My 13 days in London were many things – fun, exhausting, chilly but above all else a great chance to catch up with friends and family (though I did miss a few friends which was sad).

I feel rather bad that my post comparing London with Rio seemed to show London in rather a bad light. I guess going straight from Rio carnival at 38°C to a Monday morning London commute at -2°C made me feel a little negative. London is undoubtedly an amazing city and the hard winter months make the brief summer all the more magical (I must plan my work trips more carefully in future!).

On my way to the airport. Heathrow is in a rather miserable part of outer London, but I was pretty pleased with the send off.

Moving between my two favourite cities always makes me reflect. I think about my past life in London and my new life in Rio, the pros and cons of both cities and the things I miss out on by being in one place and not the other (that is a rather ‘glass half empty’ view isn’t it?). But looking at things in a more positive light, I can never feel too sad as I leave either place because there is so much to look forward to in the other.

Soon after I landed back in Rio I discovered 2 things. Firstly, it was Rio’s birthday! The city’s full name is São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro (the Portuguese were never ones for brevity as evidenced by the 5 or 6 sub-names that make up many people’s full name here) and today was the 448th anniversary of its founding. Seemed like a great day to return!

Not long after, I found out the second thing – the bus drivers were on strike – maybe not such a good day to return after all. The journey from the airport to my part of town normally takes around 30-40 minutes, but today it took more than 2.5 hours – not ideal after a 12 hour flight. Luckily some unexpected entertainment joined me for the journey.

My flight had landed at 6.30am and by 7.00 I was sitting in the airport bus (thankfully not on strike), waiting to head towards home. The bus filled up and a rather unusual character sat down next to me. How can I describe this guy? In England we use the word ‘camp’, meaning exaggeratedly effeminate. His voice and the way he carried himself reminded me a little of a drag queen. Within moments it became clear that he’d been drinking on his flight and he was feeling chatty!

I have to admit that my heart sank a little at first – I was so tired after my flight and really wasn’t in the mood for conversation. But this guy wasn’t going to take no for an answer and so we ended up discussing the differences between Europe and Brazil, the differences between Rio and São Paulo, his hometown of Manaus, his plans for the weekend and so on. As we chatted he sobered up and became increasingly articulate and it ended up being quite an interesting conversation.

After 45 minutes he turned to me, offered his hand and said “Pleased to meet you, I’m Clark Gable”. Ha ha! I laughed, but his earnest expression told me that he wasn’t joking. Thankfully he wasn’t offended by my reaction and instead reached for his bag to show me his ID card. His name was Clark Gable – in fact Clark Gable Lima de Souza Pereira* – another one of those long Portuguese names!

Not only did I enjoy our exchange but it was also great to give my Portuguese a good workout after having been out of the country for a while. Eventually the bus got close enough for me to finish my journey home by cab.

The cobbles and curves of Santa Teresa.

As the taxi wound it’s way up the steep curves of Santa Teresa I chuckled to myself – within an hour of arriving home I had had a bus chat with a guy called Clark Gable – I was definitely back in Rio!

*I have changed this so as not to give the guy’s genuine full name