I came back home this Sunday evening, all wet and covered with mud, happy to reflect on a great weekend that finished way too quickly!
My birthday was this week, and I like to keep those days sort of low key and with close friends. Apparently, this is not allowed in Brazil. My Brazilian co-workers kept coming up to me every 5 mins and asking me when is the party and what am I doing and how come I am not having a huge party (kind of the same story of Christmas – “awww, you are not going home for Christmas, awwwww….”.. “I’m Jewish!!”, “so, what?? here everyone celebrates xmas”), which was very annoying as I had to explain again and again the same thing.. Actually in this case, I just really didn’t want to spend my birthday, drinking cheap beer with co-workers I am not even that interested in. This sort of spoiled my birthday mood ( I don’t like to be pressured), but I recovered the following day and went out every day afterwards, to celebrate with people I call actual friends..
Things really stepped up on Saturday because the sun was finally shinning and I headed to Leme beach to watch grown up men jumping on each other and rolling over in sand. Yes – it was a rugby tournament, and only the need to drink my cold beer and watch muscular men running around kept me from not falling asleep under the sun. I don’t get this sport, but the men seemed happy to be beating each other up and showing off their bruises. Oh well..
In the evening, we checked out the super-cool Paxecho bar in Horto, before heading over to Tijuca to watch a samba school show, courtesy of the frenchman, who tipped us about this place. As I was standing in line to buy the entrance ticket, I noticed the really long line of male couples, with hardly any women in sight. It then turned out that Unidos da Tijuca, is a gay samba school. So it was the gay parade meet samba school with tons of drunk transvestites, dressed in slutty miniskirts and high heels. The music sounded like an organized noise and the place was filthy, littered with beer cups and god knows what else. Once we’ve had enough, we went outside, where we were lucky enough to catch a drag queen comedy show, with the main star Xuxa, telling about jokes how carioca men are so much that they beat up gay people.. I didn’t think this one was so funny. The highlight was when Xuxa found a Canadian in the audience and started speaking English to him “I love you”, “This is a table”, “My name is Xuxa”, and other random phrases.. without realizing the guy was actually French Canadian!! 😀 We love Xuxa!
Today I ended up in the rain, dancing to the drum and sax music, next to the modern museum of art, at a mini bloco of Orquestra Voadora. What an incredible energy! I cannot wait to see them at the carnaval.
Grobetrotter 