Maybe having a better time, maybe not

I figured I'd pop out of the hotel about 10pm (mostly because I'd probably have burst with suppressed irritation if I stayed there) and it was only spitting really. I sat at a table at what I can only call my local here and, despite an apparently promising interchange of hand gestures with a waiter when I got there, was politely ignored for five minutes, so I wandered off.

Currently in Paraiso do Chopp, or something like that. My naive Portuguese makes that out to be something like 'draught beer paradise', although I wouldn't put money on it. I only got here about 10:30 and it looked like it was shutting soon-ish, so I drank English-style by force of habit and am currently on my fourth small-ish beer. But people seem to keep wandering in, and there is a group of - I assume - rather drunk Brazilians singing at the table behind me, so maybe it isn't shutting that soon after all.

I probably won't stay that long anyway, it's nowhere I haven't been in the day but it's just far enough from the hotel (a good three minutes' walk, maybe even five) that it makes me a bit nervous after dark. What with Rio being such an INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS PLACE and all. I'll go to Afghanistan for my next holiday, it's probably safer.

Still not exactly what I anticipated my nights here being like but then life is full of surprises.