Carnaval 2011!!

Carnaval, aka the biggest party in Brazil, was last week. March 3-8, and because of my ca-ray-zee time I think that sharing it with my avid readers is necessary. I’m pretty sure you’ll want to be seated for this wild and crazy tale of my carnaval…93.8% chance you won’t be able to contain yourself. Let’s go!

What is Carnaval? Essentially it is a country wide party. Every state/city/region celebrates carnaval in their own way. I’m not sure of the exact history of it, but it has something to do with meat. Carne-> carnavval. Maybe people started throwing meat parties and that’s how it transformed into a huge rager? Sei lá. Ok, but what does carnaval mean for BRazil today? It’s broken into regions:

São Paulo/Rio: The Samba Schools put on shows with costumes, floats, and original music that each school is required to create. Each school spends millions of Reais for their one hour slot to march. Every school chooses a theme of some sort and uses this theme with their floats, costumes, and music. These parades are shown on the national tv 24/7 during carnaval. There are contests to see which school will win and the fight is competitive! This is the carnaval that the rest of the world knows and is one of the most famous/popular exports of Brazil. I’m sure you’ve hear about it/or seen it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLya2kdDaAM

Salvador: One word, Axé. Axé is a type of music that is very popular in Salvador, Bahia. This is Axé: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT8xro8fRw8&feature=relmfu . How do you dance to Axé? Jump up and down, run into people and drink a lo. This video is of Chiclete com Banana, a really popular Axé band. A couple of months ago I went to the concert and it was a lot of fun! The only thing is, I was elbowed, almost forced to kiss someone, and head butted multiple times while jumping and pulando. So how do you enjoy carnaval in Salvador? Hook up with some hottttttt chocolates (think beyond the candy…), drink, and dance to Axé! Score man! (Que pena that I didn’t go to Salvador…)

Northeast: I’ve said before that the Northeast is FULL of forró. It’s the preferable type of music in this region. So, during época de Carnaval, forró becomes more electric and with a faster rhythm. yay

My city/state: Essentially everyone leaves the São Luís and goes to the interior and partys in a smaller city where the crime rate is lower and everything is relatively tranquilo.

What I wanted to do: In keeping with the tradition of my city/state, I wanted to travel to a small city in a neighboring state, Luís Côrreia, Piauí, and rage there. The musical lineup in LC was flippin stacked!! Exaltasamba (LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS BAND) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-xmjgPvQlE Garota Safada http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJhIUh554fg Aviões de Forró http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHIvRUF9yIA (basically the song of carnaval). Like can you get flippin better than that!? Yes, yes you can. LC IS ON THE BEACH!! So imagine all of this ragin beach side!! A couple of my friends went and said it was amazing. My one friend met a sexy israeli ;-) (lawl, when she came home, we made hamantaschen in honor of Purim. and I was like OMG, next time you meet a sexy israeli, you can use your new knowledge of Jewish culture and totes woo him! I know, I am such a match maker! ;-) ;-) ;-) ..but really…lawl). So FML that LC was so great and I wasn’t apart of it…

What I did: So I didn’t explain yet what we specifically do to enjoy carnaval, então vamos lá. You get drunk, go to an area (usually a specific neighborhood is throwing the party or bloco, or if you go to a small city, the center), listen to a band that is playing on top of a bus/truck. The group of drunk carnaval pular-ers (people who like carnaval), follow this truck while jumping around, throwing silly string, corn starch, water/beer on the crowd as everyone follows the band. Well, although that doesn’t sound like my idea type of party, if with a group of stellar people, it could be excellent.

The week leading up to carnaval, I decided that it would be a good idea to get sick…sick like taking antibiotics etc. What does that mean? No drinking etc. Ok, grool, not the end of the world, I can survive. Just now, when someone shoots silly string or corn starch in my hair it seems to lose a bit of its excitement. Or when someone, who is drunk, head butts me, instead of laughing it off like he did, I start cursing in English and being like, “omg, you just head butted me, DB!”

So, let’s start to get personal. What I did exactly. Once again, I went to Barrerinhas with my family. I didn’t write about my New Years because it was awful, but where did I go? Barrerinhas. Why was it awful? I was with my parents..and their friends…did I get to partake in any fun activities? Na dawg. Did I get to enjoy New Years like the people who stayed in SLZ did? Think again! Now you’re seeing the picture of how I felt prior to going to Barrerinhas…to me it seemed like another party that I’ll be missing. gr8.

Let me rewind, no, I didn’t go with my family. My brothers found something better to do, so I went with my parents (from my mom’s family) + 4 aunts, 1 dad, 1 stepmom, 2 uncles, 1 cousin. Nine people + my parents + me. The youngest person was 4 years old. Then me…then an aunt with some 40 odd years. So without going into much detail, pode enxergar why my carnaval was less than exhilarating?

The group.

To make the weekend not a complete bust, I was lucky enough to have a group of friends, other exchange students, that went with their families to Barrerinhas as well. After arriving, I was +/- able to play and enjoy minha turma as my parents enjoyed theirs. Clara (Denmark), Janine (Sweden), Esben (Denmark), and Teemu (Finland) saved me from complete and utter boredom and losing all hope of enjoy carnaval. One night went to the center of the city to pular carnaval um pouco and did as I explained in the past couple paragraphs (chased a bus and jumped etc). We jumped around for about 2 hours, we danced, we sweated, and at around 11 we decided that we had jumped enough until next year’s carnaval and decided to get some ice cream… I know, I know, on our ca-ray-ziiiiiiii night, we ended by eating ice cream and I got a T-rê-rê (like twist thing that makes me feel really cool) put in my hair. CAN YOU SAY RAGE?!!??

We didn’t even get one of the cool shirts!!

Me, Clara, our friend Valdir and his sister Rayssa.

Now I can’t complain that much. It was nice to meet my mom’s side of the family even if there wasn’t anyone for me to hang out with. It was nice to play with my friends because we got to relax and have exchange student gossip (always a fav).

Collectively the xchange students concluded that, vamos voltar ao Brasil o ano que vem. Vamos pular pra caramba e ir pra Salvador, Rio, ou Recife. E essas cidades devem ficar preparadas porque os gringos estão vindo pra invadir!! And, that none of us think that we’ll spend carnaval in Barrerinhas again…ever. lolol

I hope my fellow xchange student Brazilians enjoyed carnaval more than I did and we’ll come back to enjoy together!!

beijão gente!!

3 p.s.

1. tô apaixionadinha por meu namorado! que fofinho, né?

2. Shout out to Wesley (American from my district who I ADORE! He lives in Teresina, Piauí) and Thea (Danish girl from my district who is super grool who also lives in Teresina) came to visit me! Well, actually they came to see Jason Mraz in SLZ…but like same thing, right? Omg, we were so flippin close to meeting him! I 1% flirted with the body/security guard and also used my amazing, “tell Jason that American fans want to meet him!” Sadly our timing was off and we went after the show, and instead of being escorted to the backstage with ease, a bunch of Brazilian groupies totes cramped my flow. I met everyone from the band, sang FLY EAGLES FLY because the bassist is from Philly or something, and then these Brazilian girls were all up in my grill and didn’t let me go back stage. l@m3. But, like always, it was SO much fun to play with Wesley and Thea!