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.