march?

OK, I admit, I have been neglecting this blog for quite a while. The truth however is NOT that there is nothing going on in my life, but rather there is going on far to much to still get hold on it. The new semester started and my weekly nights during the weeks are almost sold out:
Monday: salsa classes. To practice and to feel great. Cause I am the best! Literally, hehe. And my prof loves to dance with me, BECAUSE I am the best. Reeallly good for my self-esteem.
Tuesday: my night free... but seems to turn out into sushi-night twice a month. There is a new all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant for 20 Reais (8 Euros) around the corner. And enough people who would go there with me once in a while.
Wednesday: movies with Kimberly.
Thursday: university up to 11h00. Night! So after that we just watch desperate housewives and then to bed...
Friday: Tango classes. OK, here I actually learn a lot. And its great. And after that: movies...
Saturday: Salsa. This time at a salsateca.

OK, gotta go... movies are waiting. I'll try to write a little more later.

basics

Every school has its mestre-sala (the man) and porta-bandeira (the woman), who represent the school. Here you see the couple, representing Mangueira, wearing the school's colours. They are one of the categories to be rated individually by the judges.
So better smile and DON'T EVER get entangled with the precious flag!



Another important part of any samba school is the "bateria" (the drummers) which must be made up of at least 200 integrants (to ensure the sound?) and one "rainha da bateria" (drummer queen), who is kind of leading the whole section. Of course they are rated as well. Here... you see the rainha and the bateria of Viradouro.


OK, another category: the harmony of the whole parade. Here you see again Mangueira, with a very good performance ;-) at least they have no holes between the sections.

fantasias - the horse

Well, their are a lot of fantasias (dresses) for those who actually participate in the parade. And some of them are not really practical as we learned in the underground train.
This young man was REALLY upset about his beautifull pegasus-unicorn-horse-fantasia. Apparently it didn't want to enter neither his car, nor any taxi, so he had to go to the sambódromo by metro (underground). With some thousand other tourist who were going the same way, taking pictures of him ;-)

Can you see him? One of the purple horses must be our hero from the metro. We are PROUD of you!

CARNAVAL - getting ready

Samba, sambar (to dance samba), escola de samba (samba school), samba-enredo (theme song of a samba school), sambódromo (catwalk for samba schools), ... carnaval is definetly about samba in this country. Both in the official samba-school championship and on the streets. Following you'll get an impression of the sofisticated samba parade, as in the streets I prefered to have fun instead of worrying about a camera...


And this is how you get the whole audience to be YOUR fanclub: just give them all for free some flags of your own samba school. Everyone will be happy to cheer for you, just for the fun of it.





And of course... I did the same ;-)
This is the Mangueria-flag. It means mango-tree and they were one of the favourites for winning the whole parade. In the end they didn't, but who cares. We had lots of fun anyway...




And these are the judges... 10 different categories from "theme song" to "performance of the drummers", "evolution of the whole parade" etc... After each school their poins are sealed into an envelope which is only opened on ash wednesday when the winner is proclaimed.

Rolling Stones

ich bin die kleine Katze...

Ilha Grande II - gatos... (cats)

We stayed in a little hotel called Pousada da Cachoeira (HIGHLY recommended), owned by a Klaus, who came to Brasil to marry Teresa and set up his beautiful Pousada. Being German he is very friendly to animals, so he is feeding more than 10 cats in his big garden.
His newest aquisition were these two little cats. Both had been abandoned in front of his door. The grey one already old enough, but totally shy, the little one really naughty but only three weeks old. Too young to even eat by herself.

So during our stay I felt responsible for her and took care of her meals and of her of course.
But I had to leave her behind. My little apartement in Sao Paulo is definetely not the place for a cat to live. Even less if you consider that she is used to a biiiiig garden and lot of other cats around.

Ilha Grande I - nature and us

I decided to spend my birthday on Ilha Grande, an island in front of the Rio de Janeiro state with only a little village (almost entirely made up of little hotels) . Cars are forbidden on the island, so there are no streets, just trilhas. With lots of animals included. The sign on the first photo is warning about jacares (crocodiles), but we didn't see any of them.
And this 'bicho' did somehow scare us, until we realized it was already dead. In fact I am not thaaaaat keen about insects. Even less about big ones.
We walked sooooo much, but we also saw really great things. For example some impressive beaches with cristall clear water and powder white sand.

And this natural swimming pool, part of a river.

And some little water falls now and then.
Great!

Little little train in Rio

Rio has this charming neighborhood Sta. Teresa, which you can visit with this charming little "bondinho". A relatively safe way to get through the favelas (chanty towns) around Sta. Teresa and you definetly get one of the best panoramic views of the north of Rio. And a cheap one as well, because the 40 min trip costs only 60 centavos (25 Euro-cents), which is nothing compared with the 35 Reais (14 Euro) they charge for going up to the Christ Statue on the Corcovado mountain.

Ensaios Tecnicos - even carnaval needs some practice

You've probably heard about carneval, haven't you. Well, here in Rio they have this HUUUUUGE desfile de samba, where the samba schools can present themselves before some judges to get rated in 10 categories (like best theme song, best costume, best dance performance, etc.). Well, but somehow they have to practice their skills in the actual sambádromo, isn't it. SO... there are the ensaios técnicos. In the Sambadrómo. With the actual theme song. But without costumes and with only one carro alegórico (the trucks which are responsible for the music). The other carros alegóricos are replaced by busses, so spies from the other schools can't figure out very much about the actual performance. Unfortunately we couldn't either.

But it was still worth it. Every Samba Schools gets 80 minutes to perform. Here you see the school BEIJA-FlOR DE NILOPOLIS. The've won the contest already three times, so expectations are quite high. We'll see if we get to see the REAL parade of this school in carnaval.