Sao Paulo Winner's Parade

Despite being completely shattered, we all forced ourselves out on a rather wet Friday night, with various Rio costume leftovers to jazz us up! Ana joined us which was ace as it really helped having someone to answer all our questions about samba and the parades! I was also thrilled to have a lovely girlfriend for company! Ana had actually never been before, it's funny, unless you are really part of a samba school, many Brazilians don't really bother. Ana took the pic on the right unbeknown to me hahaha you can't see my ears, they are under my hood, but Gracie's tail is obvious! Lovely poncho clad men in the background!

It was quite a walk to get into the stands, and we wandered past lots of dancers all in various states of costume.

Pile of costumes accessories

Re-fueling before their performance

Traditional Bahian dresses. They must be part of each samba school parade. 

Rusty went for an umbrella hat instead of a poncho!

Eight of the winning schools paraded. The samba drome was loads smaller than Rio's, and it was empty. I'd read that the winner's parade in Rio is also badly attended and that the best atmosphere is during carnival so it wasn't such a surprise, but I did feel a bit sorry for all the paraders as the contrast in just a few days must have been massive. I don't think the rain helped, but lots of people wore ponchos and it did finally stop!

A bit of rain could not stop these ladies booty shaking!

Thriller!

My favourite parade was one about the nostalgia of the 80's. It began with Michael Jackson dancers in a Thriller tribute, and went on to childhood games, rubix cubes, massive computers, rollerskates, hoovers with bags etc etc.....

The name of the school was the Royal Dragons. 

Remember this game?!

I didn't understand the zebra connection, but I love zebras!

As the parades progressed, dancers would donate parts of the their costumes to the spectators. The costumes were so expensive so this surprised us rather, though the boys thoroughly enjoyed it and our taxi was full on the way home! I was so surprised to see the giant ant head I had tried on in Rio was part of the parade. The guy, who was from SP, must have taken part on Friday night and then flown up to Rio where we met on Sunday. Random!

Happy spectators wearing various donated goodies including an ant head!

A thrilled Rusty and Luke

Cute bin!

The clean up operation was so smooth and well organised after each samba school, it looked part of the parade!

And now Carnival is officially over......the blues remain a little, but the tiredness is immense! Looking forward to the end of nocturnal living and dare I say it, getting back into a routine!

Above is a compacted video of the Sao Paulo winners, 2014. Their theme was world religions.

Rio Carnival

Rio carnival….where to begin?!

In some ways Rio was calmer than I expected. The carnival itself is quite spread out, with localized blocos (street parties) and then the sambadromo parades. When we arrived on Saturday we had a little wander through Copacabana and saw lots of stalls selling costume accessories and bits, and some people in various stages of fancy dress. We had tickets to the sambadromo that night so decided to dress up Hawaiian style (nice and easy!). The city was busy, and parts of it did feel a lil rammed (the beach especially), but it was never crazy or felt like there were people pushing everywhere.

The sambadrome was huge. Its capacity is 75,000, and the runway is half a mile long! The parades started at 9, and each lasted about an hour (they had to be between 60 and 100 minutes or they would be penalized).

Look at the size of this!

The runway

There was about a ten minute break between each one for the runway to be cleared and then the samba drums would start again. The time flew….it was daylight before we knew it, yet we barely yawned. We were completely focused on the parade. Each school had something different, and there were multiple floats per school, and then also thousands of dancers (schools lose points if they have less than 2,500 people parading). It was insane!!!

Floats and dancers

Any lulls in between samba schools was taken up with people watching…there were a few good costumes about in the crowd!

Impressive costume....though he got into so many of my photos!

The floats were so big. They were all so original and each of the schools told a story which the floats and dancers explained. Some we got, others we didn't!

Samba school flag

The Samba drome

Classic Rio showgirl!

Everything was so well organised; we barely had to queue for anything. The streets were full of people selling drinks so we didn't need to worry about high bar tabs or having to queue for ages. Crime…well, we were very careful and didn't take much out with us each day. A few things did go missing, but on the whole, we were completely looked after and safe.

Dressing up was great fun, and we did it every day….a range of costumes. I was coerced into dressing up as Princess Peach from the Mario games (love wearing a crown!), which was a giggle, though less recognizable than the brothers!

I was impressed with some of the elaborate costumes we saw, people even wore them on the beach!

But, compared to Cologne, which was more centralized, I would say we saw less people dressed up. However, there were plenty of dressed up dogs!

Every evening we saw an amazing parade go right outside our street. The noise was amazing, and then there was a little bus and just so many people! We would sometimes go and join in for a little while. Thanks to our school carnival a few of the songs were familiar.

I spent the day time chilling on the beach, whilst my friends joined the blocos. I missed having a girl with me, and just needed some quiet solo time! Our apartment was five minutes between Ipanema and Copacabana so was in a great location.

Sunset

Beach play time!

The evenings were amazing, and I was amazed by the friendliness and levels of English on the streets. It was an incredible few days.

Giant ant head lend

Hello clown!

I am so glad we got to go, and am rather gutted now that is all over and we are back at work! Post holiday blues…. but Friday night we get to watch the Winner's Parade in Sao Paulo's samba drome! Woo!

Carnival Build up

Carnival is coming!! There is samba playing everywhere and lots of street parties are popping up, as well as pre samba processions.

Sunday afternoon samba band

In school we had a mini carnival parade, and were so busy making costumes, learning Portuguese songs and developing a dance routine (who needs to learn English and Numeracy, right?!). The carnival itself was so much fun! Probably the best morning we have had at school. My house won, I am thrilled!

Burn's Night

I am so impressed with the St Andrew's Society in Sao Paulo. We went to their Caledonian ball in October, and it was great fun, so we were keen to go to the Burn's Night, which was held a few weeks later than it should have been in late January, but I don't think anyone minded.

Scottish dancing is so fun…though we are really clueless and very dependent on the Scots there to help us out! I did eat a bit of haggis….not a huge fan at all, but it would have been rather rude to decline! The champagne flowed, which helped the various poems pass! Ode to Haggis did make me smile though. I do love all of their toasts too. It was such a fun sense of occasion. There was a full on Scottish band, and plenty of bag pipes and kilts about! If only there were more Welsh of us here….