Fifa Fan Fest

Towards the end of Copacabana there is a huge tent that the city of Rio de Janiero built for the community to celebrate the games of the World Cup. The tent is called Fifa Fan Fest and there are only 5 others in the world (Mexico City, Paris, Berlin, Rome, and Sydney). However the one in Rio is the largest of the six and the one with the best torcida, that’s my personal opinion and I believe the five stars above our jersey proves my point. There we saw the end of the Germany vs. Australia game along with a lot of good-looking Germans. By the way, I have never seen so many good looking men in one place before, I can’t wait until I go to Germany this Fall!

Notice the guy in the background, he really wanted to look good in our photo...lol

Maracatu

This morning Julia and I were getting ready to go out and walk around the city when we started to hear music coming from the street outside. When we looked out the window we saw a group of people playing instruments and dancing down the street. When we got downstairs they were right outside the building so we went and joined the celebration. The group of people dancing and playing instruments were performing Maracatu, which is an Afro-Brazilian dance dating back to the time of slavery. The dance originated in Pernambuco, in northeastern Brazil and now represents liberty. The performance was very entertaining, there were a lot of people who would hear the music from the street and join in. There were tons of people dancing who weren’t even part of the group so it was a very cool sight. Julia and I joined them until they reached the end of the beach and stopped dancing at which point we went to see the other end of the beach along the way we ate corn on the cob and I burned my lip :-(...

A Night out in Rio!

Today is dia dos namorados, the Brazilian version of Valentine’s Day, and both Julia and I are single so walking around and seeing all the couples kind of made me want to punch some of them. So tonight we went out and had some fun along with the rest of the singles in Rio de Janiero. We arrived at the Singles party kind of early and it took awhile for more people to arrive but after an hour it was packed and both Julia and I were a little tipsy from sitting around and drinking. But after we started dancing I felt the need for a little more alcohol and went to buy some alone while I was on line waiting to pay for my drinks this guy started speaking to me. With the loud music and the alcohol I could barely make out a word he was saying so I interrupted him and told him I spoke English best. At which point he started speaking to me in English and when I responded in English he started to insult me, he said that I am obviously not from America because I have an accent and that I was lying because I was trying to seem like I was better than him. So I just ignored him bought my drinks and went to complain about his rudeness to my cousin. She then informed me that he was just hitting on me and that a lot of Brazilian boys are dicks when it comes to approaching a girl (well she didn’t really say that but that’s what I took from it). After an hour or so of dancing Julia started taking videos of me and this other guy decided he wanted to get in on what looked like a photo. I stepped away from him forcing his arm, which was resting on my shoulder to fall at his side. He then proceeded to try and grab my arm and I pushed him away, he continued to try and touch me while asking to take a photo with me I then said I did not want to take a photo with him. Julia interfered saying that I was American and did not speak much Portuguese he then called me a snob in Portuguese, a word I did not understand so I asked Julia what it was he said. He then translated it for me, making me feel very uncomfortable and said that by taking a photo with him on his phone I would be proving him wrong. After saying that he tried to grab me and push my body towards his at which point I reacted and pulled his arms off me, he then dropped his cup of beer on my dress. I was getting really upset, which is very unlike me when I’m drunk, and started to walk away. Then he grabbed my arm for like the sixth time and said that now I had to take a photo with him because I was the one who spilled his beer so I reacted by pushing him away forcefully and left. Apparently in Brazil there are some guys who don’t really like getting turned down so much so that they feel the need to sexually harass the woman. So just in case you are planning on going to Brazil know that men grab women all the time at parties and no one finds it odd here. There are even some men who grab women and kiss them out of nowhere so you should be very attentive and if a guy grabs you push him away or move really fast. But whatever you do, do not slap or physically assault/abuse the man in any way because he will do the same to you and no one will find it odd. If a woman defends herself by using force and the man reacts in the same form they find it normal and the police won’t do anything about it here and if they do it would be in favor of the man and not the woman. Even though the night did not end perfectly I did have a lot of fun…

Pao de Acucar

I’ve been to Rio about three or four times in the past but I never went to the Pao de Acucar. My parents are afraid of heights and my baby sister was never to fond it either so I never got to go because I didn’t want to go alone. This time I was with my brave older cousin so she agreed to go with me J. The ride up was pretty packed but the view was amazing, Rio de Janiero is a gorgeous city. When we arrived at the first mountain there were people setting up a stage for a concert set to happen at night, unfortunately it was sold out so we couldn’t go but the decorations were beautiful. While I was there I kind of felt like I was back in America, everyone there was American and you rarely heard people speaking Portuguese. Then we went to the second mountain, which was beautiful too but it lacked sunlight so it was freezing. We stayed there for about five minutes then left, it was way too cold. When we got back to the first mountain we noticed a group of American students surrounding a table curious to know what was going on we went up to them and found a monkey. They were all surrounding a monkey, apparently the monkey was hungry and noticed that there was a plate of food on the table so he/she jumped on the table and started eating. We got there just in time to see the monkey finish eating whatever was on the plate and start drinking the rest of someone’s cappuccino…