Blog Archives
Visitors!
Fernando, Danny, Aija and Ricardo at the Banda de Ipanema
I was blessed while staying in Rio to have plenty of visitors come to stay with me at the apartment I was renting.
Rafael, my portuguese tutor, returned to visit his home country. I was able to acclimatise him back into his own culture pretty easily. We met up with two of his American friends in Rio as well, Lee-Michael and Matt, and we hung out at the Marriott hotel in the Executive Lounge for a while with a great view over the beach.
Danny and Aija came down from Canada to visit Brazil for a few months and arrived in time for Carnaval in Rio. Their introduction to Brazilian culture included açai, this purple berry mixture from the Amazon that is chock-full of guarana, and agua de coco, the delicious water inside the green coconuts.
Fernando and Ricardo, two of my friends from Sao Paulo came to stay for Carnaval as well so it was a full house!
New Year Superstitions
New friends for Christmas (Natal) and New Years (Reveillon) in Sao Paulo
I’ve heard of not walking under ladders, avoiding the paths of black cats and something about breaking mirrors, but in Brazil there’s a whole new code to learn.
For New Years, people deck themselves out in pants and shirts of different colours. Typically the white outfit is a standard as it signifies you are hoping for peace. By wearing red, your love life could improve, or yellow so your bank account can mysteriously increase in size. But whatever you do – don’t wear black.
Many people will buy and wear new underwear of a specific colour to see in the New Year and increase their luck. Personally, I think it’s great to see everyone thinking hygienically and it makes for a great pick-up line on New Year’s Eve…
And the local chicken shop would suffer from a lack of business at New Years as you can only eat meat from animals that don’t scratch dirt in a direction behind their feet… like fish for example (primarily because they don’t have feet.)
Tales of The Brazilianaire 