It's all good when you come down to my hood!

Ok, so I'm a little far away from East Can-ter-buryyyyyyy but hey! (To non-kiwi's I'm refering to a song 'Not Many' by Scribe.)

So I moved into an apartment a week after arriving in Salvador. A guy I work with was living in the same block of flats and helped me out with everything - there was no way I could have managed it by myself with my (non-existent) level of portuguese! Brazilian people are so friendly and helpful!

Anyway, out of the hotel and into my first ever home away from home! I'm in living in a suburb called Jardim de Alah - which translates to Garden of Allah. Seems strange to find a place in South America with a muslim name! I live right across from the beach, I literally cross the road and I’m there! I figure if you're ever gonna live right on the beach, where better than Brasil eh?

A photo of my apartment block - creatively called Flat Jardim de Alah

Looking north up the beach/road. If you look closely, there are horses in this pic! They're not there every weekend though, there was some special event on the day I took this.

There’s a little peninsula just in front of the flat which is what this grassy bit is. And yip those are masseurs with massage tables under the yellow umbrellas!

Cabanas on the beach. A very brazilian way of life - how better to enjoy the beach than to have little restaurants with food and drink and sit there with the sand between your toes. Not much sense of personal space though, you're definitely sharing your space with a lot of other people! I also managed to capture the essence of Brasil – futebol! These kids in the foreground were higly entertaining to watch (note the green coconuts being used as goal markers)

…the goal seems like it's been scored fairly, but...

…perhaps trying to emulate their idols, the team immediately descends on the somewhat disinterested ref, complete with finger pointing ;)

And finally the start of the grandstand contruction for an upcoming Volleyball competition (the Brandesco National Series). The seating was just done right on the sand - I'm not a civil engineer but still, the structural integrity of this seemed kinda dubious to me...