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Published: March 6th 2006
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So it's been an eventful last few days. The last entry, I believe, was just before we went to the Parade of Champions, the winners of the formal Parading of the Samba Schools.
To sum up, there are no words that come close to appropriately describing the event. (I seem to be saying that alot lately). We arrived at 2100hrs, to see the Sambadrome, the site of the event. This is a really long structure, made entirely of concrete. It was constructed by the famous Oscar Neimayer, the same architect who designed the city of Brasilia. To get an idea of what the Sambadrome is like, imagine the Commonwealth Stadium, stacked about 6 lengths back to back, with a long white stretch of 4-lane pavement in between the 2 sides of the stadium. On one side is "Arquibancadas" or bench seating, basically a big sweaty free-for-all. On the other side is four stories of Luxury Boxes, for the rich and famous.
As a Samba school is about to strut their stuff, an announcer comes on and announces which school is going to begin their parade. Then there is a bunch of fireworks which start at one end of the
The Chucky-Baby Float
Don't ask me to explain this. In fact...don't expect much of an explanation for ANY of this. It's mostly incomprehensible, and bizarre, but is complete sensory overload. Sambadrome, and then the music of the Samba School's Samba commences, and is played over and over and over for the next 60-90 minutes, until the parade has ended. The Parade itself is completely incomprehensible. Imagine Thousands, yes, thousands of people, each dressed in intricate costumes of many colours, parading down the street. Next, comes a float, with large colourful charactes, which may or may not be animated. In among the floats and different groups of people, come dancing the "passistas" - a group of mostly women who are dancing the Samba - an equally incomprehensible dance. Also, there is a group of some 60-80 drummers, called the Bateria. Also, the Baianas with their long wide skirts, spinning around in a flurry of colour. So they just start coming, and they keep on coming. As we were into the first group, when the whole street was literally filled with gyrating floats and bodies, one of the guys turned to me and asked which one of these groups won the contest. It was at this point that I advised him that what we had witnessed was just the majority of one group only. 9 hours later (yep...6 AM) it was all
done, we had memorized the choruses of all 6 Samba themes, and we took a very sleepy taxi ride back to the hotel.
At this point, it was back to sleep, then awake to see the Futebol game. It was scheduled to start at 1300hrs, but in typical Brazilian fashion, they decided at the last second to move it to 1600hrs, given that so many would sleep in after the Carnaval Parade. We had already woken up, and used the extra time to work on our tans and our bellies by the pool.
An interesting happening today, while we were lounging by the pool, we heard a small group of players playing the theme song of Beija-Flor of Nilopolis. We Looked and beheld the famous "Neguinho" - the caller, or singer of the song for that Samba school - hanging by the pool. We were singing his song back to him, cuz we had heard it so many times the night before. (Okay...I was singing it) I forgot to mention, also, that at Carnaval, we went out to the backstage area, and saw Luiza Brunet, a famous Carnival Gal, and Actress leaving to great whoops and uproar from
Me and the Sambadrome, other direction
Ooh la la...who is that handsome chap? the crowd. I managed to snap a picture.
At 4 we left for the Soccer (Futebol) game. It was between the very Famous Fluminense, and Vasco Da gama. There was alot of cheering. There were lots of drummers. There was group singing. there was Unfurling of ridiculously huge team flags, there was popcorn, peanuts, etc. There were fireworks. There was much joy when my team came back for a 2-2 tie. Then back to the hotel to Crash, and finally out to dinner in a Bairro called Barra da Tijuca, a relatively new Neighbourhood in Rio. Finally, we retired early, as we were all so beat up from being up all night for Carnaval.
Tomorrow, we hope, will be a big beach day, to the famous Ipanema. Shopping locally for treasures, etc. Perhaps Corcovado for the Christo Redentor Statue, perhaps Pao de Acucar.
I am well. I feel so blessed to be be back here, and to take this all in. It's going to be tough to beat the last several days, though.
I love and miss you all. Arash says that if I mention/speak of my family and how much they would love this place,
and how much I miss them, he will kill me immediately.
I hope all is well with all of you there.
XOXO
S.
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Dad Don
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We resist envy and jealousy
Your blog and comments are interesting indeed. We desire but try not to covet the experiences you are enjoying. This travelogue blog is a wonderful format and we read with great interest. The pictures are a great addition except that the human subject in some is a bit ragged.