my stay in brazil has been quite good. lots of new contacts made, several new friends and certainly an introduction to another vital culture. tonight a group of us went out karaokeing, and zack even got up and offered a rendition of new york new york with a few of the guys. the place also had a bowling alley, a pool hall and a dance club with a live band playing.
the taxi ride home was a bit of an adventure: the taxi driver that was driving zack and myself didn't know how to get to the hotel and had to stop to ask for directions. at one point as we were going through a small neighbourhood street with lots of graffiti everywhere and he slows down a bit, honks his horn and turns on an interior light. we were a little concerned about whether we were going to end in an "interesting" situation, but all was well. apparently just saying 'hi' to someone in one of the houses.
something else we noticed was the disparity between rich and poor here. there are slum neighbourhoods in the city made up of houses built out of corrugated tin and scavenged wood that are densely packed around small winding dirt trails. we passed one such settlement every day on the way to the fisl event.
other things i've learned about brazil:
0) there are certainly pretty women here, but not as many as i was led to believe by media back home. rather it seems the distribution is normal. =)
1) eating a dinner meal at 02:00 am: normal
2) bowling (or doing just about anything) at 02:00 am: normal
3) you pay your bar tab at a club on the way out. they give you a card on the way in and when you order a drink it gets recorded on this card. you clear your debt at the door.
4) walk signals on streets don't mean much of anything. watch out for cars going through the red light even if it says "walk".
5) they know how to pour a drink here
6) bbq has been perfected here (and i thought the koreans had that title, with south africans coming in close behind). this has come at the expense of vegetarian cuisine, however ;)
7) people are easy going, but knowing portuguese is a -definite- plus
8) it's a friendly place where there is much fun to be had
i hope to come back again next year and perhaps meet up with some of the people i met for the first time this year.
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13 comments:
It was really nice to meet you guys there, and hope we can meet each other again next year (or maybe in akademy). Btw, I one of the guys who played truco (or "svn trunk"), with Zack :)
I was with you in that fantastic night, and have many photos.... if you to want I them sending.....
I was with you too!
Great Night!
The honking and turning on the interior lights is a normal procedure you MUST make when entering certain neighbourhoods in Brasil. That way the people who control those neighbourhoods can see who is inside the car. This serves also as a way to say "I mean you no arm". There have been some pretty disturbing stories about persons who did not make this procedures!!!
"The honking and turning on the interior lights is a normal procedure you MUST make when entering certain neighbourhoods in Brasil. That way the people who control those neighbourhoods can see who is inside the car. This serves also as a way to say "I mean you no arm". There have been some pretty disturbing stories about persons who did not make this procedures!!!"
Very good to know and damn scary too!
Your lecture about Kde Plasma was very nice! I watched via streaming..
"The honking and turning on the interior lights is a normal procedure you MUST make when entering certain neighbourhoods in Brasil"
Funny this.. I live in Brazil and never saw that thing :P
maybe it's some strange culture of Porto Alegre
"The honking and turning on the interior lights is a normal procedure you MUST make when entering certain neighbourhoods in Brasil"
Didn't know about that. And I didn't heard about this in any city that I've visited around here eighter...it might be a very specific procedure in very specific neighbourhoods of very specific cities.
@flamarion:
yes, please do send on photos. (and anyone else who took them too). ever since my camera broke a couple months ago i've had very few photos of events i travel to. i need to get a new one. =)
and thanks for all the hospitality. the people i met were generally really friendly, fun and committed to free software =)
You gave me a hug!! hahahaha
Porto Alegre is the worst place to find veggie food. Everybody eats meat here!!
Well, in some areas like Rio de Janeiro's favelas you need to turn lights on, and sometimes you aren't allowed to go into this neighborhood (high risk of teenagers firing at you with a machine gun). In some places you should _run_ as fast as you can with closed windows. Rule of thumb: put dark film on your car's glasses.
Street signals don't mean a lot because of robbery and kidnapping at the crossings. I was kidnapped once by three robbers and had to spend 45 minutes with their guns pointed at me ("interesting" as in the chinese curse).
If you want to see lots of beautiful women you should go to Minas Gerais or Goiás... Take my word for granted. ;)
Sorry for not attending to fisl. I'd really like to meet you in person. Maybe next year...
Where the heck did you guys stay? I've never seen the need to turn the lights on -- i've heard you need to do it, though, when you're entering some favela in Rio, that sort of stuff. But i don't think you'd find any hotel in the middle a favela.
> Where the heck did you guys stay?
the hotel itself was in a decent downtown neighbourhood, but we had been out at a place some 30 minutes or so away by car even taking the larger roads that were relatively empty by that time of night, so we got to travel through quite a bit of the city...
I was in Brazil and I was impressed by its beauty. The nation's natural beauty is reflected in its variety of geographic locations, from Sugar Loaf Mountain in the city of Rio de Janeiro, to the magnificent Iguazu Falls in the south, to the Amazon basin in the North, there's something for almost every taste... snow skiers excepted.
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