Ipanema Beach!
Carnaval was INSANE! I arrived in Rio on Sunday in like no sleep and was a few hours early for checkin, so I literally just passed out on a couch in the lobby of my hostal haha. I then realized that Rio is sweltering, so I should probably buy a pair of shorts. In the mall there were musicians playing and all these kids with their parents were dancing and singing along, wearing costumes--it was so cute! That night I went to Ipanema beach with Eddy, Tim, and Pedro who worked at the hostel, as well as a group of aussies from the hostel, and this Scottish guy Colin I met who's teaching english in Rio. There were thousands of people, and a DJ...it was nuts. Colin and I met this Chilean girl who had found this amazing pair of angel wings just casually on the street haha. We had all kicked off our flipflops into the centre of where we were dancing, and at one point when I was going to the street to get beer, I realized that one of my shoes was missing. I was looking all over for it, when this guy who had been trying to hit on me before came over and said he had "found" it like 2 m away. And then we wanted a kiss essentially for stealing my shoe and then bringing it over. Loco. That night though when me and one of the aussies were heading back to the hostel, we stopped to ask someone on the street for directions when suddenly she like grabbed our arms and started running and we were just like wtf... Then when we're a block away she casually tells us that there was a dude under the tunnel near where we were with a gun, and that you can't just stop on a street corner in rio at night. Super sketch. But other than that minor detail it was a really fun evening.
Chilean Angel at Ipanema
Monday I went to the tail end of of Sgt Pepper Bloko with Maria and Colin. Blokos are just giant street parties with live samba music (different
bands play in the neighbourhoods), and you can just buy cheap beer on
the street, and you're surrounded by hourdes of other sweaty people
loving life with facepaint and barely any clothes. They're really fun. Sgt Pepper is this band that plays beatles music to a samba beat, and they are SICK! There was a sea of people for as far as the eye could see in every direction, and at one point a police car was trying to get through the crowd and then like turn around which was just hilarious, as it was moving like a snail as people were trying to squish together to create room for it. That night was the most amazing night of my life...I went to the SAMBADROMO!!! Colin, Maria, Marcos, Tim, and I all got dressed up and headed down to see the final night of competition between the samba schools. It was unreal! Each school has 1 hour (although from the start to end of the sambadromo each dancer has to go for an hour and a half!), with a fifteen minute break in between each one, meaning we were dancing in the stands til almost 6am! Each school has their own song, and like at least 10 floats, with thousands of dancers, and a constant samba beat. The stands were so full of energy, we were all just dancing along for the entirety of the like 8 hours.
Float on fire at the Sambadromo
Also, ridiculousness: I met my future mother-in-law in the stands. This woman who didn't speak any english asked her son how to tell me that I was "sooo beautiful." But then she kept translating through her son asking me if I had a boyfriend and then telling me all about how amazing her son was...all translated by him! And then at one point, the guy asks Marcos (who is from Puerto Alegre in the south of Brazil and had better english than the dude), to tell him how to say that I "conquered his heart." And then the guy keeps going on about how it's always been his dream to kiss a canadian girl, and how disappointed he is that I won't make his dream come true. This family was clearly crazy, because who tries to set their son up with a stranger they just met in the stands, and who tries to get with the girl their mom is pushing on them? While this was all happening, Tim had met some turkish girl and her mother, who were also trying the same thing. We moved to a new spot in the stands after that...
Float in the Sambadromo
Dragonly getting stuck
It was really cool having Marcos there, because he could explain to us all the politics behind each school. One for example was essentially doing propaganda for the rights dispute in Brazil regarding the oil found off the coast. Also, craziness--One float caught on fire! We were right at the end of the parade, and it happened just in front of us as it was finishing. Officials had to run onto the float and evacuate all the dancers while ripping off their elaborate costumes. Also, one of the floats had a dragonly that extended up above and behind it, and it didn't rotate when they got to the press overpass, so the whole parade had to stop as the float backed up to turn it so that they could get through to the end. When we were walking home, we found all the floats from the earlier schools in the night, just casually on the street. And on the metro we ran into some dancers from the sambadromo who were carrying their costumes and let Colin and Tim try them on.
Wannabe mother-in-law
Amazing costume! Don't know how he could even stand up though with all those feathers...
Me, Marcos, Maria, and Tim exhausted after 8 hours of dancing
Tuesday I went to a bloko at Ipanema in the day, and it was alright, but the energy was not nearly as high as at some of the others. There was a great brass band playing though, and there must have been over a million people on the beach. It was completely packed, and the beach stretches for kms! Everyone was just dancing on the streets and loving life. That night we went to Sgt Peppers again in Lapa because they were so good the last time, and we had only caught the last like half hour before. They were amazing again--Maria and I had just gone, but we ran into Tim and some of his friends there which was cool. After that I met up with Sam from Mexico! We had been trying to meet up all week, but making plans by email is not very efficient. Anyways, all his mates and his girlfriend had flown up from Australia, so I got to meet all them which was pretty cool! We went back to the Lapa stage, and then decided we were all going to go to the beach. But then somehow, Me and 3 of Sam's friends lost Sam and the others... We went to Ipanema anyways, hoping we'd find them there, but when we got there it was kinda dead, and they were nowhere to be found. But then just as we were about to leave and give up hope, we ran into them on the street! And then music started playing! So we danced on the beach all night, and one of Sam's friends even had feathers from one of the costumes in the smabodromo that she gave me! It was an insane last night of carnaval, and so much fun!
Maria and I at Sgt Peppers in Lapa
Sam's mate's from Aussieland at Ipanema on the last night of Carnaval!
Wednesday was a complete writeoff--just sleeping to recover from my lack of it the previous week, but I met Kyle who moved into my room who I ended up befriending which was pretty cool. Carnaval is like if you combined Pride, a music festival, and halloween; add cops who want you to party instead of just being dicks; and then make it like 10 times better. It is probably the most amazing party in the world.
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