Feb 2009

Today I had to say goodbye to Carlos, Carlos' parents and all the friends I made in Rio Preto. Sad, however! I went to Rio de Janeiro what was really exciting. I arrived in Rio at 17 o'clock, took a taxi to the hostel, and about two hours later I was on the street cellebrating carnaval.

It was a total crazyhouse, 2 year olds, 80 year olds, complete families were dancing, dinking and having a good time. In the beginning I was with a Canadian guy, but real soon I met a whole bunch of people from Rio. They learned me how to play the little drum, couldn't do that so well since a 6 year old could play it better. They tried to learn me to dance the samba, total failure again... I got the hat as a present and we traided our shirts. Overall, I had a great time and around midnight I took the taxi back to the hostel.

As we woke up somewhere in the afternoon, we had some lunch and friends of Carlos' parents came by. They were really interested and really trying to communicate.

Nice people. At night we went to the rockbar were a two personed cover band played. However, it was crowded and we were all tired from the carnaval, so we went to eat a hot dog. As I met another friend, Daniele, she told me she has a friend in Rio. Maybe I'll meet her there, hopefully...

During the day, again, didnt do much. We had to gather all our powers for the night in Potirendaba. We went by bus and as we arived, the party didnt start yet. Around 7 everyone was on the street and suddenly the party begun. Dancing people everywhere! Samba, regaton, funk and also hardstyle.

We went to the main stage and danced the night away, also did some polonaise.

And the girls, damn, they can dance here. The little bit of bum-shaking they do in Holland is a complete joke compaired to what I saw here... gheghe. However, at 5 everyone was tired and the first bus in the mornig took us to Rio Preto.

Freaking hell, it´s hot here... It´s still early in the morning and the sun shines trough the window burning me out of bed. Take a shower and the minute I dried myself, I´m sweating again...

In this climate, people live here every day and today I´ll see how they manage that. It´s just a matter of doing as less as possibel during the day, eat a warm meal as lunch, get some sleep at the end of the afternoon, and live to the fullest at night.

Our warm meal of today was in a BBQ restaurant. I ate all kinds of meat, really all kinds, including chicken heart and the stomach of a cow (photo left - that weird looking stuff). Kinda gross when you know what you eat, but I liked the stomach untill Carlos told me what it was.

At night we went to this bar where a 80´s rock cover band played. We heard every song again, except for ´Dream On´ by Aerosmith which we really wanted to hear... For the rest, from Queen to Micheal Jacksson was played and danced on.

Kitchen in Rio Preto and a scenery of Rio Preto

Today we stood up early in the morning so we could go into town for one very lsat time. The day we wanted to climb the building, the elevator was broken so we went there again today. We had 5 minutes to be on top, no more no less. It was just long enough to make a 360 degrees picture of Sao Paulo from 161 meters high.

Then we ate some chinees food in china town and we had to go to the bus station to go to Sao Jose do Rio Preto. Carlos became more and more sick so he slept almost the entire trip and I was looking outside for 6 hours because it was the very first time I saw Brazilian nature. Nice!

As we came to Carlos´ home I met his parents and went in to town with some of Carlos´ friends. First we went to a bar were a nice guy with a guitar was playing samba. I tried to dance a bit of samba and I failed. Maybe I get there later... As the bar closed we went to a nightclub and we danced the night away.