Hi all,
Well, I finally made it to one of those churrascaria restaurants, where they bring the meats around to your table on skewers. It was great!
I’d gone to Copacabana to change my plane ticket and see the Copacabana Palace Hotel, built in 1932 and featured in that 1935 movie, Flying Down to Rio. It’s big and white, has a large pool and a lovely restaurant facing the famous beaches, but the lobby is about half the size of the lobby at the Royal Anne Inn, or whatever they call the motel that used to be the Wandlyn. The Copa does have more marble, but the lobby is tiny for a fancy hotel with its reputation.

Continue reading Corinne’s Rio Diary: Prestação Final
Carnaval is almost over, and the journey home awaits →

Hi all,
Well, we are two days through the four official days of Carnaval, though this exuberant Brazilian festival seems to have been going on for weeks. Don’s house is only a couple of kilometres from the Sambrodrome, so if you turn the TV’s sound down, you can still hear the bands playing. TV is my participation medium of choice, as the crowds seem a bit much for me.

Continue reading Corinne’s Rio Diary: Instalment Oito
Carnaval is well underway, and the celebratory spirit is infectious →

Hi everyone,
Well, the heat has finally become too much — it is affecting my health, so I am returning to Nova Scotia early, for about a week, before heading out to Vancouver — where, hopefully, spring weather will have arrived early.
Rio de Janeiro is cranking up, big-time, for Carnaval. Two nights ago I was awoken by floodlights streaking across the sky. Remember how Hollywood galas used to have all those big floodlights? What I saw was much like that, except there were in excess of fifty lights streaming across the sky, waving not just back and forth but flashing on and off, as well, sending out laser-like lines of light, in zigzag patterns across the night sky.

Continue reading Corinne’s Rio Diary: Instalment Sete
In which Corinne announces her early return →

Hi all,
In case you haven’t heard, Brazil is handing out 10 million condoms during Carnaval. The word “condom” in Portuguese translates as “little raincoats”, and the advertisements on TV show a guy in a bar pulling a condom over a can of some purple-coloured pop, shaking it up like crazy, and then opening it up. Of course, not a drop leaks out, and everyone applauds like mad.

Continue reading Corinne’s Rio Diary, Instalment Seis: The Penudo Adventure →