If you like soap operas on television, then this is most definitely the country for you…

Most Brazilians seem to stay reasonably up to date with the main ‘novelas’ or soaps, which occupy prime time television viewing slots. You can start watching them at 3 or 4 in the afternoon and finish up around midnight…

They have these intervals throughout them, which are like extended breaks, and they even come with their own small ‘credits’. You kind of think they are finished as the credits are showing, but then all of a sudden the same one is back on again 10 minutes later… It’s a TV toilet break where you can actually go to the toilet and get back before it starts back up.

The latest offerings are ‘Incessata Coracao’ and ‘Ti ti ti’… where they seem to be going through a phase of having the soaps set in the design/fashion industry.

They also still have Big Brother on the tele over here… so I’m having a little bit of reflux each night when it comes on and I remember what we went through in Australia for a few years hehehe. The biggest difference here – more fights, more love, more flesh on display, and they also take FOREVER to leave once they’ve been eliminated from the house… there’s about 5 minutes of back slapping and face kisses…