The start of a love affair

Cachaça - Camden Town

I have been lucky to travel to many countries and to discover cultures and places which are different from my own. For the last 15 years or so my travels have been more or less Asia-focused as I have been based here and while there are still plenty of places in this part of the world left to explore, I have been feeling lately that it is time to move beyond what is familiar in order to wake up that sense of curiosity and wonder one feels when discovering someplace new and unknown. I did this last year when I traveled to Morocco and it was a very rewarding experience. I had been thinking of going to Africa this year but I met you and you invited me to join you on holiday in Brazil instead which is how this all started.

Now with the tickets and accommodation booked, the reality of the trip is beginning to take hold. I am very much looking forward to it and my head is already full of notions of what it will be like there. I imagine a place full of colour with a rich history and a diverse mix of people. We will have fun taking many nice photos and of course it will be a very exciting time with the World Cup taking place during our visit. It seems there is music, dance and food to discover and lots of charming neighborhoods to walk through arm in arm with you.

Thinking of this I am reminded of one of the last evenings we spent together in London back in March when we went for a long afternoon walk through Bloomsbury, past my old student dormitory and past your own old apartment in Euston, strolling further along a canal all the way to Camden Town. We intended to eat that evening in a Persian restaurant but instead, somehow wound up in a small Brazilian cafe in a side street which you remembered from a previous visit.

It was busy when we arrived and there were no proper tables available but they found us a place to sit at the front of the restaurant where we ordered tasty Brazilian snacks such as squid and fried cassava along with several bottles of Brahma beer. We sat just below a TV screen mounted on a wall that was playing outdated videos of Rio's famous tourist sites accompanied by Brazilian songs from the 1970's. It was a warm and cozy time sitting there with you chatting away. The  bottles of cachaça on the shelf next to us caught my eye with their exuberant label designs and happy colours, so I snapped a photo of them. Afterwards we walked out into the chilly night , me feeling convinced that I would surely love your country and all it has to offer. This is no surprise really as my love affair with Brazil began the moment that I fell for you.