Carnaval!

On a rainy Sunday night Chris, Mara, Rodrigo, Brandon and myself took a taxi to the Sambodrome in Centro in Rio. The Sambodrome is a big outdoor row of bleachers built specifically for the samba schools to parade through at Carnaval. Each school is a group of 5,000 people who spend the year building floats and costumes, working on a theme, and practicing dances and songs. They get exactly one hour and twenty minutes to parade the quarter mile through the Sambodrome, if they go over or under on time, they have points deducted. The groups are judged on how well they sing and dance, their creativity, their timing, and ther floats. Each group us allowed to have eight floats. Regular people can pay money to dance in the parades with costumes and famous people get to ride on the floats. It's amazing how much time and effort goes into each school.

The whole thing starts around 11pm and goes until after 5 in the morning. It's a two night deal with about 6 or 7 schools competing each night. On Wednesday they will announce the seven finalists and then next Saturday they will all do it again.

Walking into the Sambodrome, was crazy. Mara and Rodrigo kept us gringos hidden and got tickets from the scalpers. We paid 40 reas each (about $25) and our seats were far up, but you could see everything. Going into the Sambodrome was packed, wet, dirty, people with bits and pieces of their costumes all over the place, floats being taken down, stray dogs running around, kids selling beer, and a general happiness. Everyone dances around and cheers for their favorite school. I highly recommend this experience... Chris thought it may be better than the Indy 500, although he'll probably deny that now.

I've posted the pics here and tried to explain the certain themes and floats. Unfortinatly, we were far away so you can't see all the detail, but it was still great.

Chris is sick today with a flu or cold or something so he's laying low. It's still cloudy but I think I'll go to the beach at Ipanema.

Brazeeeeeeel la la la la la la la laaaaaaaaa.

I wanted to check in quickly and let everyone know that we made it to Rio. We arrived on Friday afternoon on seperate flights but managed to meet up at the airport hungry, stinky, and tired. We are staying with my friend Mara in a neighborhood called Leblon in Rio and it's great to have people let us tag along, while they speak Portuguese and we loiter in the background.

This is my third time to Rio and my first time for Carnival. Chris did Marti Gras in New Orleans but has never been to Rio so we are balancing each other out nicely.

The first night, we went out with Mara and her fiance Rodrigo. He is from Rio and they are set to get married in April. We went to Rodo Skol which basically means Wheel of Beer. Skol is a brand of beer and they sponsor this giant Ferris Wheel in Ipanema (another neighborhood in Rio). So we rode the ferris wheel, had some Skol, and got caught in some wicked rain.

Yesterday, we slept in until noon (lazy!) and Chris and I walked along the beach in the afternoon. I love the beaches here because they are long and clean and have little kiosks every hundred feet or so that sell beer, fresh coconuts, and snacks. There are also people selling corn on the cob and sandwiches and shrimp on a stick. You can rent chairs at the beach and have people bring you water and food, but we didn't have time for that. In the afternoon, Chris, Mara, Rodrigo, his brother Rafael, Brandon (an American that lives in Sao Paolo that came up for Carnival), and myself went to a soccer game at Maracana. It's the largest soccer stadium in South America and we saw two teams from Rio; Vasco and Botafogo. Rodrigo and his brother Rafael love Botafogo so we sat on that side and cheered for them. Chris wants to tell you about that, so I'm off to shower and get ready for a Bloco in Ipanema. A bloco is a block party in celebration of Carnival. This particular bloco is known for cross dressing gay men... Chris is super pumped. :-)