The Lone Wolf

  The year abroad is one of the most complex life experiences that someone in their early twenties could go through. Packing a bag and heading into the world at a time of your life when your biggest decisions are what colour VK to get on a Friday night and what pizza topping you will order to cure the resulting hangover. Whether heading to the other side of the world or hopping to the other-side of the Channel, the adventure and it's respective challenges are the same. You have a new language, a new environment, new people to meet and new parts of your own personality that you have to get to know.

  There's many layers to the whole thing that people on their year abroad go through, and 95% of it isn't what people post on Instagram (or what people write in blogs). It's going down to the shops for some bread, sitting in a group of natives joking around and adapting to life in a new country with all of the routinely quirks that it brings. Some of it is great, some of it is less great, but all in all you know for sure that when you leave your respective English airport you're diving into the deep end.

Grab your goggles. 

  Personally, one of the biggest parts of this year has been the independence. When I went to Argentina there was no familiar faces waiting on the other side, and Brazil has been the same. I've been lucky to meet some great people along the way, but I've embarked on this experience as a lone wolf. It's never the thing you preempt when worrying about stuff pre-year abroad - that's reserved for Visas, accommodation and what the word for 3G internet is - but I would say it's definitely been the biggest challenge for me so far.

Gringo Survival Guide

  Once more, I write this blog in a state of unholy fragility. I've spent the whole day lying around like a mess, in and out of consciousness and feeling like the world is, finally, coming to an end. When you go to a BBQ at 2pm on a Saturday afternoon, there is often little evidence to precede such a hangover but, alas, it's happened again. I suspect this may be karma for spending my Friday night laughing at Tottenham Hotspur for a similar sentiment; whatever lessons that past failures have engrained in you, sometimes it's just destined to happen again.

'Bald-head pecking' levels of friendship
can be achieved HERE

  What I want to write about today is life as a solo 'gringo' in a foreign country and city. When I arrived in Brazil - after my two friends had left - I knew nobody. The same can be said about Argentina. I was a young English bloke with no pre-determined platform, just trying to make some mates and have a good time. It's been 300 days since I arrived in Buenos Aires back in July, at which point I was without family, friends and belongings (Air Canada ladies and gentlemen...), but I feel like I've done okay. Many new friends have been made from all corners of the globe and of all social groups and ages.

  Along the way though, I think it's fair to say that I've had to take myself out of my comfort zone. I've had to do some weird stuff, and expand my personality out to lengths that it previously hasn't required or experienced. Before this vague description starts to create mis-leading images in your heads, I'm going to go through a few things that I've been through to give a a taste of life as a gringo in a foreign land.

Let's Have a Moan...

  At the time of starting this article, the time since leaving English soil is 112 days, 23 hours and 14 minutes. I left behind a traditionally frosty gloominess, as the Christmas and New Year celebrations had quickly turned into a new working year. It was grey, drizzly and as British as a Yorkshire Pudding. What awaited me was a different stratosphere; the white sands of Copacabana and the postcard images of Rio de Janeiro in the height of summer. As I went through the routinely processes of Heathrow Airport, I felt like I was trading in a Ford Focus for a Lamborghini.

An initial warning to myself...

  Nearly four months later and I'd find it hard to argue that I was wrong. At times, my time in Brazil has felt like a tour around Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory - not just for the oompa-loompa tans of Rio's beaches - with an array of incredible experiences around every corner, and an infusion of the odd dark surprise to offer a bit of life perspective. I've had the time of my life and there's very little that I can complain about. Then again, I am British... 

  Would I even be a member of our proud (ha.) country if I didn't have a daily gripe or two. An example of this? Well for a start, that Yorkshire Pudding reference earlier would have been wasted on any Latin American readers of this piece. Further over their heads then an expletive fired towards Nigel Farage (there's another one...). I'll go further into my humour based niggle a bit later... 

  I've compiled a list of things that I come across on a daily basis over here in the land of samba and joga bonito. These are the most serious aspects of living abroad. The things that bring a dark cloud of longing to be back on the tarmac of Hitchin. Forget family and friends, it's these things that really pull at those homely heart strings. So, for anyone else currently abroad, get the tissues out, put a bit of James Blunt on and take a gaze at an old £5 note - we're going on a nostalgic ride.... 

My Favela Experience

  So my time in Rio de Janeiro has temporarily come to an end. My 6 weeks in the Cidade Maravilhosa were memorable for a number of reasons. The heat averaging out at 35C+, the iconic beaches stretching along the coast and the postcard perfect Christ the Redeemer peering down and observing his city. There were some more edgy memories that also stick in the mind; not least seeing a 20 on 1 fight on Copacabana beach that left the victim with a new face, and the regular tirades of gunshots that I could hear from my bedroom. It's certainly safe to say I've never visited a place quite like it, with its obvious natural beauty being chipped away relentlessly by its ugly, bludgeoning acts of crime.

  One of the most interesting elements of Rio de Janeiro's identity is the favela communities that are scattered both in the centre and the outskirts of the city. The favelas house an estimated 22% of the city's population (approx. 6.3 million) and, rightly or wrongly, present a strong stereotype for tourists coming over here from abroad. Films such as City of God have painted an incredibly strong vision of what a favela is and have attached a number of leeching toxicants to the word. I asked a few of my English friends and family about words that come to mind when they hear the word favela:

"Poor. Dangerous. Drugs."

"Slum. Poverty. Crowded."

"Drugs. Slum. Community"

"Crime. Poverty. Colour."  

"Brazil. Cardboard. Football." (You know who you are...) 

"Crime. Colourful. Disco." (Interesting last choice Louise...)  

  So you get the point, not the place you'd want to settle down and have kids. Since arriving in Rio, something about these favela communities has fascinated me. Their raw, jagged appearance makes for aesthetic gold (in my opinion) and something about them made it very hard for me to take my eyes off them. In my second week in the city I visited the Donna Marta favela, which was made famous by Michael Jackson in his video for They Don't Care About Us. It was an intriguing, passing visit for me and my mates, with a tourist-less experience sucking us into the true nature of the community's homecoming rush-hour. Whilst valuable, it was more of an immersion experience than an informing one. So when the opportunity arose to continue my education by visiting a favela with a local guide, there was no way I was turning it down.