Friday or Saturday... I want to go home!

In a few hours I will (eventually) know if I can fly on friday night and therefore go to Paris for the WE. ... meaning that I would B in LSN for the 5th May for birthdays and House warmings
I hate waiting!!!!

A tous ceux qui pensaient avoir un job de m…

Il y a 1 type qui contrôle que tous les grains de riz sont blancs.
Il y a 3 types qui vérifient que tous les cubes de carottes sont bien oranges.
Mais le must :
Il y a 6 personnes qui tapent avec une baguette en bois sur chaque petit-pot pour bébé qui sort de cette usine. Le son produit leur permet de vérifier que les pots sont bien remplis. (Sorry je n’arrive pas à mettre une vidéo avec le son, il vous faut donc imaginer les « toop toop toop »).

Brigadeiro

Brazilian chocolate speciality named after a Brigadier General who lost his balls during a battle. In fact, there are no eggs in the recipe :-)

Florianópolis

Last WE in Brazil
Florianópolis is in the South, 1 hour flight from Sao Paulo. Famous for its beaches and nightlife.
Home town of Gustavo Kuerten, the guy who aroused my interest for tennis when he won Rolland Garros (twice, excuser du peu!) Scoop: Elvis is alive!
A beer @ the airport!!! Yes I know I spelt it wrong in my lasts articles, sorry.
The most exceptional thing is: this is not just a beer, it is MY beer.
After 6 months in London, 4.5 years dating a Brit, EHL, KPMG and our crazy Apéro du vendredi without drinking beer, I now like it!!! (what a waste)
Any volunteers for a dinner @ Les Brasseurs @ Lausanne/GVA???

We arrived very late and had no hotel. We tried several hotels but they were all full.
Mimi: “you ask”
CG: “well, if there are no hotels, we can go to a motel”
Taxi driver: “motels are not like in Europe, I’d rather … “
CG: “are scared to leave us in a motel”
Taxi Driver: “ehhh …yes”

CG:"let's go!"

Motel Corsarius
Here we are, outside the city in a Motel!
We were quite curious to see what it is as Anna talked us so much about it…
The concept is simple: it’s a hotel where one goes with their partners only for naughty purposes.
It’s very common in Brazil to go to Motels as people live at their parents until they get married and Brazilians don’t bring their girlfriend/boyfriend home.
So these type of hotels are never empty:
- in the mornings it’s for married lovers
- in the afternoon it’s for students
- during the night for couples
Lucrative <:-) Other detail: they are usually outside the cities by the motorways, a bit like Formule 1, with the same thickness of walls… The only access is by car even inside the motel, you basically drive in your room.

CG to Maite :"have you noticed that the motel is paited with the colors of the Spanish flag? ;-)"

the room:
- Pink with a mirror on the ceilling and no duvet
- a Porn channel on TV

In order not to disturb the lovers, there is a "pigeonhole" to deposit any request (this is just some bedsheats)

In bed with Mimi
- amenities: no mini bar but loads of toys!

So tired, we felt asleep straight away with all our clothes on, too scared to use to bedlinen :S)
Slept so badly: we had the most noisy neighbours on Earth. Too tired to even knock on the wall to tell them to stop screaming, not very appropriate in such establishments anyway :-)

Saturday, stroll, shopping and dinner
CG: "I am HUUNNGRRRYYYY!!!!"

After dinner: more shopping. Very interesting conversation with Adriano and Gustavo who leave in the street and make bio-jewels out of seeds.
Adriano: "for us it's a therapy to make jewelry"
CG: "for us it's a therapy to buy it!"

Sunday: beach!
So tired to go to the beach we just spent the morning in front of the hotel. No that bad!
our hotel

Already time to go. Ritual pic @ the airport

Friday night

Mensage para los padres de Maite:


Mimi esta bien y come bien. Yo me aseguro de eso


Faltan 8 dias!





Last night dinner @ Hilton hotel:
- myself: Seabass
- Mimi: giant ravioli stuffed with Brie cheese and apricots: delicious!

Luck

I found this coin in the street last night :-)

Et de 4!!!

Hier un mail qui m’a fait très plaisir:
Aude, que j’ai connue lors de mon 1er stage à Londres en 2001, se marie avec Dave !

Après Denise (et Alexander), Pia et Marina ça va faire 4 mariages !

Tous mes vœux Aude !!!

Les prochains :
- Marina et Serge (Mai)*
- Caroline et Alexander
- Fanny et Vincent
- Gaëlle et Benoît
- Sonja et Tom
- Anne-So et Renaud
- Claire et Alexander ( ;-) )
- Nicolas/Momo et Catherine

* : J’attends les photos avec impatience
P-S 1 : Il semblerait que si vous êtes avec un Alexander vous avez plus de chance de vous marier !
P-S 2 : N’hésiter à mettre ici vos faires-parts

Forget the Vikings!

Today's it's my Team Leader anniversary: 2 months!!! BUUUrrrrKKKK!!!!!

Nothing to shout about: when she will reach 4 years, a joint bank account, a car, 8 jobs, 5 flats, a cat...


12:00 o'clock


I will just say one thing: Forget the Vikings!

(sometimes Vikings wear funny shoes ;-) )

13:00
Lunch: Anna told us about her last WE in Rio when she met Marlon's family. Her future mother in law gave her underwear as a present.
Anna "I went to try it on and all the sudden I was confused: does the whole family expect me to show them my new present?"
Maite: "Que fuerte tia! esso no te ocurre en Europa!" :-))

Bad News

Monday
Email from V*: “Monday’s bad news”
Kate and William split up!!!
Unlike most of the women on this planet I am not happy about this news, I am rather sad: I am so scared that he will find someone as nice as the other women in his family.
Kind of ruins the X-mas pudding!

his gd-ma'

His dad on his mother in law

* : if you would have had told me V, I would had never known!
Notice that I have not spelled your name :-)

Republica Oriental del Uruguay: Montevideo

Left on the run to the airport on Friday not without having said goodbye to Ben and Christina (on their way to Lima).

Airport ritual: a beer! Impossible to drink it on the plane mainly because we felt asleep ;-)

Saturday morning
Stroll by the sea to arrive to the city centre. CG: “I didn’t know Montevideo was by the sea” Maite “yes, it is and right in front of Buenos Aires”.

Looks like it is going to rain!

Well done: it rained a lot!!!

Under a bus shelter we waited until the rained stopped. We talked with a nice woman who gave us some tips on the city. No shopping tips as all shops are closed since 12:00 on Saturday :-(
By the way Mimi (Maite): Montevideo is not in front of Buenos, toc!

Maite: “I could not tell the difference btw the accent in Montevideo and in Buenos Aires. Is there any difference?” the woman: “no there is no difference really, except that Argentineans are more “cocky” (gde gueule), that might be because they have more Italian migrants”. Notice that I am not the one who said it!
The woman “the real difference is that a Uruguayan always carries his Mate tea everywhere”. I guess there is some strong addictive substance in it because one has to be totally crazy to carry a cup and a big thermos everywhere.

Being absolutely soaked, we decided to end our day at 5pm and go to sleep, so 5 hours of Montevideo!

Maite: “My friends are going to say that I am crazy for coming to Montevideo to sleep. What am I going to do without you Mimi (=me)?”
CG: “To go abroad and spend the whole day in bed at the hotel, well if you don’t have me, you can find yourself a BOYFRIEND”.

10pm Woke up. Put the TV on. CG “shall we go clubbing?” The idea of facing that bloody rain didn’t quite motivate us. We end up by watching TV and drinking beer, what a nice pyjama party!

Maite is scared that I will blackmail her one day wiht all the pics I take of her. I really wonder why she thinks that ;-)

Sunday
Walked around the city. It’s a very nice and safe city CG: “it seems it’s only in Brazil that one cannot walk in the streets without being mugged”.

"Non mais des choses pareilles!" I always tought that my Seat Ibiza from 1996 was old!

I like this picture because it is not just a big tree and a lamp in front of a fountain. It's a bold ginger (roux) man holding his girlfriend, and if you think about the probabilities of finding a bold ginger in South America that makes it a very unique pic!

Tube station

Flee market

I liked that pic, so I got it

Maite always takes pictures of the names of the streets to remember the monuments/areas she pictured

Well me too
(Petites pensées pr mes 3 petits crapeaux: Inès, Astride et la petite Chloé que j'allais chercher à l'école et reconduisais chez elles, 47 Rue Pigalle, avec arrêt de bus devant un sex shop: Chloé 3 ans à Inès 7 ans: "Dit Inès prq Maman elle est pas venue ds ce magasin (= un sex shop avec des chaussures de travelos) pr s'acheter des chaussures à talon?" Inès:"Parce qu'elle préfère les chaussures plates de chez Chanel")

The parliamant and us, well mainly us!Airport ritual: A beer!!!!