Cabin Call

Cigrattes and Guns

Arcos de Lapa was a square of tourists holding tablets too big for one hand in the air. Squinting behind store-bought sunglasses at the aqueduct that was built in the middle of the 18th century to bring fresh water from the Carioca river to the population of the city of Rio.

But at night, it came alive. An endless row of stalls illuminated by fluorescent lamps. Disgustingly strong drinks. Thousands of people crouched on the curbs, drinking and laughing, swaying to the blaring live Brazilian music, yelling and eventually joining the somewhat aggressive assemblage of humanity that had gathered for the biggest street party in the country. It was youth, freedom; dancing with strangers, drinking one dollar contraptions cocktails you hoped you would remember you drank.

Mingling with the dodgy, drunk, dashingly good-looking and daringly... coquettish. Losing those you came with, finding them again and eventually spending sunrise following them around streets you'd found through alleyways behind closed buildings. Collapsing on your bargain hotel bed, exasperated and endorphinated with life in it's absolute entirety.

Cleansing the alcohol from your almost hungover soul in the crystal blue waters of the Prainha Beach all day long and letting your hair dry naturally as you take spontaneous pictures on cobbled streets with happy Brazilian locals. Eating food you felt you were born to eat and the food you know you'd rather go to your grave effective immediately than tickle your taste buds with again.

Taking your shoes off and walking up the blindingly colourful hidden staircases with encrypted messages written into them until you reached the top and wondered if the moon looked the same at home.

There was five of us. Not too many, nor too little. There was Lola, my roommate, who was studying psychology and because of this, was hard to describe.

Sophie, my erratic friend from class got stressed about anything worth stressing about, and her boyfriend Adam also came. Adam was a meteorologist at heart and probably the most boring person I had ever met. He made me want to pluck my eyeballs out.

Still, he was a lightweight and could be good fun when he was drunk, except when he began sobbing at 5.35am because it was raining and he thought it was going to be bright and sunny so his brain was therefore deficient and dying.

Then there was Robbie. Robbie was the life of the party; a law student who abused the law every Saturday night. Robbie was the definition of irony. We got on really well, now, and I'd never admit it, but I had been hesitant and though I would never admit it, intolerant about Robbie about first.

You see, Robbie filled the empty seat, suggested we should go to another bar and not the one we always went to. Robbie didn't have somewhere to live after his girlfriend kicked him out so Adam offered the other bed in his room. I couldn't object obviously- it was Adam's room and I didn't want to fall out with anyone, least of all Adam. Bioneurology might be awkward with Sophie, and besides, it wasn't like I could banish Robbie to the streets just because he was sleeping where James used to sleep.

James used to be the one I travelled with.

Sometimes Lola, once Sophie tagged along, but they didn't get it like he did. They got homesick after a fortnight and missed their routines, whereas James and I could've travelled for the eight weeks of summer vacation, flying home on midnight flights the day before classes started again.

From Paris, to Madrid, Budapest, backpacking in Ecuador, Ibiza; we could go anywhere and have the time of our lives, and we did. He busked and played tiny gigs, I waited tables along with working at the hospital for  my degree. Then in May, we bought one ticket, flew to someone the first day of the summer holidays, bought another ticket, flew somewhere else, arrived there, started interrailing, bribed a boat captain to let us on his small ferry. For two summers, we travelled, aimlessly, cheating on London. It was an addictive love affair with the rest of the world and we couldn't give it up.