Hips Don't Lie... Part 2

So in my last post I started talking about the Shakira concert and as I said the opening act was Train and that part was very cool. Well, about one hour after they were done singing (that’s how long it took the stage crew and security to prepare) Shakira finally started. The first place we saw her was walking in front of the stage in a pink dress, the dress was beautiful, but it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting her to wear. And soon enough she got on stage and opened the dress to reveal a skirt and top that seemed to fit with the songs she was going to sing. At that point all the fans had broken pretty much all the rules the security guards had tried to put on, everyone was standing on the chairs, getting out of their places to get close, and the aisles were crowded. It turns out that Shakira didn’t only sing songs from her new album; in fact most of her songs were past hits that are still sometimes heard on radio stations. There were two things that weren’t unexpected, but still it was surprising to see live, one thing was her dancing. Somehow she managed to sing wonderfully and dance at the same time. The second thing I noticed is that she’s really pretty, even live. Most celebrities get their pictures edited to remove unwanted things before their pictures are put anywhere, but with Shakira it seems to be different. She looked exactly like we see her in magazines.

This is one of the pictures I took at the concert

I was amazed with the show overall, there was a great atmosphere the whole time and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves even the singers.  

Hips Don't Lie...

Sunday I went to the Shakira concert at a university here in Caracas with two friends. The show was supposed to start at 5 pm but obviously that wasn’t the case, she only got on stage at 10:30 pm. However, there were some artists presenting before her. First, as usual, there were two Venezuelan singers who sung about 5 or 6 songs each, I didn’t know any of them but some people behind us seemed to know them pretty well. After the stage crew had a chance to completely rearrange the stage the band Train got on as the official opening act of the show, and this time it was our turn to sing (well actually scream) along with the lead singer, Patrick Monahan. There was a lot of excitement while they sang, at one point the singer took out his blackberry to take a picture of the crowd, later on he threw shirts that had “Trainette” (female version of Train) written across it, then he asked 6 girls to join him on stage, he even threw a straw hat that he wore for one of the songs and when he sang Marry Me, he came down from the stage to sing to the girls in the audience, and everyone in the first few lines got to see him close up. Last but not least, on his way out of the stage Patrick signed his shirt and threw it into the crowd. Very deserving and after having sung along to most songs one of girls who went to the show with me caught it. After about 5 minutes of screaming we were able to show the shirt to our parents who were also super excited.

This is a picture I took at the concert 

This post was actually supposed to be about the Shakira part of the concert but clearly I got carried away and this is getting long so I’ll tell you about her in my next post! 

Imperatriz

http://www.metro.co.uk/showbiz/pictures/photos-10799/pictures-rio-mardi-gras-carnival-2011/38

In my last blog post I talked about my trip to Rio and the carnival I watched, but I also mentioned that I had participated in one of the schools parade. I had mentioned this idea to my parents but I didn’t know until two days before we went to Brazil that I was actually going to be in the parade. As a way to make some profit, most of the schools offer spots for tourists in the parts of the parade that have big groups of people. The people in the cars and in the sections with choreography have to be locals who have spent a relatively long time practicing and preparing. The people who pay for the costume like we did can just show up around 30 minutes before the show and participate by dancing or just walking. Two other people from the group we traveled with decided to come with us. We were going in the second school, Imperatriz, so while the first school, Sao Clemente, went by we got dressed, as soon as we were done we went to the concentracao which is where everyone lines up to go on. The time before the show was very exciting, everyone was getting their final touches on make-up, fixing costumes and some were practicing their moves. When we began walking in the sambodromo there were tons of fireworks and the whole crowd was shouting. At one point we passed by the other people we were travelling with and they took pictures and filmed us. In total we talked for about 40 minutes, even if we were tired none of us would have noticed because the excitement from being part of something so great and fun had made us forget about anything else.  

Rio 2011

This is a picture I took of Portela.

Three weeks ago I traveled to Brazil for three days for Carnival break, it may sound crazy but it was one of the most exciting trips I’ve ever gone on. My family and I went to Rio with another 14 people, among them there was a local comedian and a former actress both who would say jokes as often as they could. Although we went to a couple of the usual tourist locations, our main purpose was to go see the famous Rio carnival. In Brazil, more specifically in Rio and Sao Paulo carnival is probably equivalent to a weeklong 4^th of July. The most important event is the carnival school parades; basically there are 12 “schools” that spend the whole year making songs, costumes, and parade cars for their spectacle. Each school has an hour and thirty minutes to cross the sambodromo which is a long street with stands on both sides. When our group arrived at the sambodromo at 8 pm and soon the first school started passing by us. The most amazing thing was the overall feeling as we watched the parade, everyone passing by us was dancing and had the biggest smile on their face, and everyone in the stands was dancing and singing the song that went with the school presenting. We watched all the six schools that presented that night and I even participated in one but I’ll talk about that experience some other time. Everything was amazing and we only went back to the hotel at 6 am and it seemed like we could still hear the drums in our head.