All adventures start with a torturous journey

I´m not the type to leave it at just one leaving party. Instead, after I finished work I seem to have had quite a few of them, one of which involved a stray dart piercing the side of a loner sat in a wheelchair in the corner of the pub. Evidently he was very calm about the whole matter - he was just pleased we hadn´t given him a puncture. After that mad leaving party I had one or two more to go to:

• Watching England Vs. Montenegro at Wembley (awesome)
• Going down the pub with a few friends back in my home town (involved me dropping quite a few beers apparently)
• The family do's (drunken)

With all of that in mind you would have thought I'd be a bit bored of the alcohol, but I had paced myself for the inevitable barrage of welcome parties on the other side of the world of which no doubt there will be many.

After the obligatory stressful week living back home (which involved me throttling a post office worker - if you see the blonde, fat, curly haired one in Chichester be sure to send her my regards - and spending numerous amounts to get my car into a saleable condition) we went to the airport to leave the country. After queuing for what seemed like three hours (the machines had broken down so they were writing everything by hand) we were all tired, but said our goodbyes and got on the plane. At which point all three of us were comatose. We practically woke up just before we arrived in Sao Paulo at 7am.

Flying over the city you can really get a feel for just how immense it is. There's nothing but building as far as the eye can see - right up to the tip of the horizon. It really is a wonder, but I guess it's not the type of place you'd want to visit more than once. Upon landing I was showing Daniel the planes on the tarmac and caught myself thinking I hope we get a bigger plane on the way back. it then dawned on me that the way back is quite a long time ahead in the future!

Sao Paulo Garulhos airport is really quite nice, but when you have to spend 8 hours there tempers start to fray and you realise there is not a lot to do. Still, at least I amused the waiting staff at the restaurant there with my novel way of speaking Portuguese. Every time I spoke to them they couldn't help but laugh in my face. I assumed it was my accent. It could have actually just been my face thinking about it.

We caught our connecting flight at about 3pm (which stopped at Brasilia) and arrived in Goiania four hours later. The plane ride was torturous and Daniel was running up and down the aisles for the entire journey. Still, I always look on the bright side, if he's annoying someone else, at least he's not annoying me.

I had intended on videoing our arrival at Goiania airport as I found it amusing that the missus might cry at the sight of her parents. Alas there were no tears so I got rid of the footage. Fortunately this time all our luggage had arrived with us unlike previous years when they had been sent to Peru.

With the flying parts of our journey over we now had another four hours by car to go. I slept for most of it, but I do remember the manic driving, and our driver partaking in the Brazilian male mating call when a car of girls pulled alongside (he revved his engine lots and lots and stared at them. Dirty beggar).

Anyhow, enough of the journey, we arrived in Quirinopolis, our new home for a year and were welcomed with a few beers 'bem gelada' already. Just the way I like them.

I got drunk and passed out.

So ends day one.