The Weekend's Amusements

Woohoo! My last weekend before Matt comes! Wow... that means it's my second-to-last weekend in Rio. That's strange and surreal. I'm going to go ahead and stop thinking about that.

The past couple nights have been amusing-

Thursday night Galen, Arthur, Rafael, Joao, Breno and I were hanging out at Bar Pires (the bar right outside of campus that's the unofficial it's-Thursday-night-so-the-weekend-is-starting hangout spot) and decided to go to Via Show - apparently the largest club in South America! As things generally go with Brazilians (Rafael, Breno and Joao), it took us a solid 2 hours after deciding to go to actually go. Via Show is actually just outside of Rio proper - a bit north of Zona Norte. Rafael drove us there, and as we were driving along the Linha Vermelha and chatting about corrupt police in Rio and such, a police car appeared behind us and pulled us over. This is fairly routine - they didn't have any specific reason for pulling us over other than us driving on Linha Vermelha (a rather... notorious... highway) late at night. They started hassling Rafael about his registration being out of date and then asked where we were all from. When they found out 3 of us were gringos, they told us to get back in the car and hassled Rafael more. Long story short, Rafael gave them R$30 to encourage them to let us be on our way. R$10/gringo, the way I figure it.

Via Show was a sight-to-see and a general good time, and a good way to celebrate my classes ending for this incredibly academically rigorous semester!

Afterwards, on our way home, Rafael decided he wanted to show us a different side of Rio. He took us to Rua Via Mimosa (not sure if I'm spelling that right), which is apparently pretty much prostitution-central of Rio. We just walked around to see that... world... and then headed back home. It was definitely worth seeing - an unfortunately (to me) significant part of Brazilian culture and life.


Friday morning (well, later Friday morning I suppose!) I got up and decided to go relax by the lake for a few hours. It was a nice lazy day, with the highlight of activity being the bike-ride to pick up my (fixed!) jeans from the tailor. I can wear my jeans again without risking getting fined for indecent exposure (assuming that's a law here, too)!

Friday night I didn't have any plans and wasn't in a going-out-big mood, so I headed down to my local bar and had a great evening of sharing a couple beers and interesting conversation with my local buddies. I'm going to miss the atmosphere at these little local bars a lot. I just don't feel like there's the same feeling of welcoming by locals to their watering-hole in the States.
Anyway, I wound up hanging out chatting with one guy specifically until pretty late. He's a 60-some-odd year-old salesman and, long story short, decided that I'm his new youngest son. We talked about politics and culture and religion until all hours and, well, that's about it. Sorry Mitch... looks like I've got a new Brazilian pops!

It's been a funny and interesting couple days - it's awesome how after 5 months I'm still having experiences that are teaching me about and immersing me in Brazilian culture. How can I possibly only have 2 more weeks here???


Edit: I SAW AN ARMADILLO IN PARQUE LAGE THE OTHER DAY! I have no idea why I'm so excited about this... but that's just one of those things I never thought I'd see in the wild!
And here's the only crappy picture I got of it:

Who Am I?

My last post and the old Portuguese tailor who thought I was Russian the other day led to the idea for this... a list of nationalities that people in Brazil have thought I am:

1. Brazilian (woohoo!)
2. American (dang)
3. Portuguese (we've been through this)
4. Russian (definitely don't understand that one)
5. German
6. French
7. British
8. Australian

We'll see what others I can collect in the next month and a half!

To be or not to be... Portuguese?

So I was procrastinating and generally wasting time a couple days ago (as I am, in fact, doing again right now) by wandering around Ipanema. In the course of my amblings in and out of stores I had not one, but two different people, in different places, at different times, think I was Portuguese!

In the first case, I was in some super-expensive store (full, of course, of jeans and shirts all faded and ripped to a perfection that justified their R$500 price-tags) in super-touristy Ipanema, and a sales-lady I was chatting to asked where I was from.
"California"
"No way... Seriously? I don't believe you!"
"Why? Yeah, I'm from California. Where did you think I was from?"
"I thought you were from Portugal!"
[Whoa! My Portuguese is good enough for someone to think I'm a native speaker??? Awesome!]
"Seriously??
[Oh wait a second... does that mean I have a Portuguese accent? The Portuguese-Portuguese accent is hideous!]
Wait a second - are you saying I have a Portuguese accent?"
"Yeah, a little bit"
"That's terrible! Portuguese accents are soooo ugly!"
"Uh... my entire family is from Portugal."
[Ahhhhhh crap.]
"I'm so sorry! I... uh... you know, this R$430 shirt looks way nicer all of a sudden!"

So it's official. I can put my foot in my mouth in TWO languages now!

(Gotta love Google Image Search)

The second instance wasn't nearly as... eventful. Another sales-guy in another store just asked me if I was Portuguese. I said "No, I'm from California" and asked what about my accent made me sound Portuguese, since it was the second time that day. He gave me some explanation which I only half-paid attention too, because I have the attention span of -- Hey look! There's a pretty bird outside!

Vai Subir, Subir! - Hiking Pedra da Gávea

Arthur had been waxing poetic about it ever since he went last month, so we finally all agreed to meet at 8:00am on Friday to hike Pedra da Gávea - an 842 meter high rock dividing Zona Sul from Barra de Tijuca in Rio.

We got together at 8, and after meeting up with some more folks (we were 14 total), wound up finally at the base starting our assent at 10:15. The first couple hours were pretty standard steep uphill forest hiking, with occasional rocks to clamber over. The real fun, however, started at about hour 3... when we got to the real rock-climbing! And Daniel remembers (again) that he loves climbing things! Daniel also realizes (too late) that jeans are a bad idea for hiking in general (I swear I expected it to be cooler) and especially for rock-climbing. See the pictures.

The view from the top was (obviously) fantastic. Look left to São Conrado and Zona Sul, straight to the Atlantic horizon, right to Barra de Tijuca and behind to seemingly endless rainforest. The sun was shining and the packed sandwiches and snacks were excellent. While eating I ruminated on how badly I wished I had brought a parachute. I mean, really, hiking back downhill is always soooooo much more lame. I'd much prefer just jumping off the top and letting gravity and wind-resistance do the work for me. Maybe next time.

All told it was a 6-hour round-trip excursion, and well worth the extreme sweatiness and now-necessary trip to a tailor!

Hiking Pedra da Gávea

Fluminense Campeão de Brasileirão 2007

Last night was the final of the Brazilian soccer championship. One of Rio's 4 teams, Fluminense, was in the final against Friburguense (from Florianopolis, I believe). A rabidly 'Nense Brazilian buddy, Rafael, took a handful of us gringos to a down-and-dirty Fluminense fanclub to watch the game. It was, in a word, ridiculous.

We drove to Zona Norte (GASP - leaving our little protected haven of Zona Sul???) to the clubhouse of a Fluminense fan group called "Young Flu" (Haha...) to enjoy a good old fashioned churrasca and cerveja while watching the game. The place put frat houses to shame.

Bar: check.
too-small TV: check.
pool-table: check.
2 chairs I wouldn't touch in a hazmat suit: check.
bathroom that made me feel dirty even though I can pee standing up: check.
bucket the size of a small jacuzzi full of ice and beer: check.
about 75 fanatical and drunk Brazilian men: check.

Everyone was incredibly friendly - which still catches me off-guard, even though Cariocas always are. I don't think I've ever been told "fica vontade!" ("help yourself!"/"feel free!") so many times from so many people in such a relatively short period. The even more impressive part was how the three gringo girls (one of whom has blond hair, blue eyes and doesn't speak a word of Portuguese)were not attacked like that cow that was lowered into the velociraptor cage in Jurassic Park (man, does anyone else remember that scene? That was gruesome!) by the aforementioned 75 drunk testosterone-fueled Brazilian guys.

Well, the game itself was pretty uneventful. Fluminense scored a goal in the first 3 minutes of the game, and the next 87 minutes were pretty full of not-scoring. But holy crap. When minute 90 ended and Fluminense was still up 1-0... the place exploded. Screaming, hugging, beer flying through the air. I won't lie - I ran for cover! Or at least I tried, but kept getting pulled back in by some jumping, hugging, screaming Young Flu.

When we finally succeeded in making our exit, we headed back to Zona Sul to some (predetermined?) main intersection in Leblon which had apparently been decided on as the ideal location for a post-victory street-party. And then to Gavea, for more of the same. Mind you, this is at about 2:00am at this point... and no one's showing any sign of slowing down!

Basically, what I'm trying to say in this blog entry is... Brazilians REALLY like soccer. And I wish I had brought my camera last night!


I'd also like to congratulate Peter Fiek for calling the outcome of the game 'cause he'd "heard of" Fluminense before. Hahahaha.

I found this on youtube, it's the Young Flu fan club at a Fluminense vs. Flamengo game in the Maracanã (also a good general illustration of what futebol games are like in Brazil!):