name your child something traditionally brazilian. like mike tyson.

there was no preparing for rio. heard all the stories about favelas and 'city of god' craziness. my friend dean told me to just accept that i would get robbed and just shove some money in my asshole. i told him thanks, but this wasn't spring break. my friend jahan showed me a movie called 'tropa elite' about the rio SWAT-esque team for favelas since even cops won't go in there. thug life. but, like the neverending theme for my trip so far, i was not prepared for how infectious the whole city would become for me.
first thing off the plane, we were greeted by a 6'4 woman in carnival garb and about a 90 pound headdress and immediately i felt at home. something felt familiar about all this. and it wasn't the fact that i was raised with a mother who is a drag queen in a woman's body. no, it was the entire feel of the place -- it just seemed to say, "come to where the flavor is. come to samba country."

i had arranged with my friend rosa to stay with her friend Roddy and his wife Julia and their two year old Peter, who i didn't know myself at all and was not prepared for how much i would come to sweat them. i was welcomed so totally and completely by them, i felt overwhelmed by their generosity. Julia was so worried about what americans eat she actually bought a big pack of bacon for me to make with eggs since that is what they have seen on TV. roddy's grandmother had an 80th birthday party while i was there and i gave her and her husband an obama pin which he immediately put on and informed me that he planned strutting back and forth around the american embassy wearing it with pride. woot-woot!

now the thing with brazilians,and this is something that is well publicized, is that they are some of the most beautiful people in the world. in my book, they are THE MOST gorgeous people you will lay eyes on all in one place. the mixtures of the races that have settled there over the centuries created what borders on obscene displays of beauty. All i can say is that it was highly probable that if i stayed there any longer (and on my own) i would have come back pregnant. seriously, if you've never been, you're not ready for the kind of lust you will experience for a mcdonald's drive-thru window cashier. ready to give up your whole life and move down to a third world country for the pleasure of having the night manager at the local walmart gaze lovingly into your eyes for the rest of your lives. if you go down there with a significant other, word to the wise - employ the use of dual-function leashes. or chastity belts. thug life.

but physical beauty aside, the inner beauty is just as potent. while taking a tour of maracana, the famous futbol stadium, the tour guide and i started talking about the difference between the crowds at american football games and futbol matches and when i told him i might not be able to make the game he told me that i should go with him and his friends and stay with him at his family's house if i had no where else to stay, which he was completely sincere about. if he had something else on his mind, i didn't notice and, being a big girl, i can generally tell about those things. but the flipside is: would i have minded if he did have sneaky intentions? yeah, not so much... cashiers gave me free food when they saw that i couldn't understand what they were saying, people offered to take me to the places i was looking for and, i swear there was a drunk who offered me his last swig of rum. just kidding. i can't confirm for certain that just because he had no pants he was a "drunk."

my favorite brazilian idiosyncracy: unfortunate naming traditions. anyone who had traveled knows the ubiquity that is american culture in a popular sense, but i was not ready for the trend that has manifested itself on a mass level whereby brazilians, hear, enjoy and then proceed to bastardize the names of american cultural icons so as to inflict a lifetime of embarrassment on their children. my favorites:
mikimaus (Mickey Mouse)
gianef-kinidi (John F. Kennedy)
jilander (Highlander: there were 3 of those!)
myck-tyson (Mike Tyson)
yeah..... i got nothing, i think it's self-explanatorily busted. however, there is some cache in being blessed (cursed?) with such a name, as if one if closer to western culture. i would urge them to watch any video footage of Carrot Top and re-think that aspiration.

final thoughts: a nice young boy, full of self-confidence with a penchant for deep dish pizza once said "...and the weather's so breezy, man, why can't life always be this easy?" this is brazil. it doesn't expect anything from you, doesn't tax your mind or spirit. on the contrary, it lifts you, it carries you from outside of your head. puts you back into the world in the most wonderful way with the softest landing you can imagine full of life and love, and food and smiles and music and beaches and palm trees and monkeys. when you leave you are drunk. if you aren't, you should have gone to germany.