Eric’s Blog

Today is my last day in Brazil. I have 45 mins left on my inernet access, and I just noticed that my website/server is down. Hmmm… Bummer. I am writing this here in Brazil, but going to have to post it when I get back to the US of A in 20 hours or so.

Well, I’m prepped for the flight! We went to this place called Porcao (www.porcao.com) - in Portuguese, it literally means ‘fat pig’. This place is friggin’ crazy- you sit down, and pay R$ 47 per person (about…. 20 bucks), and you are given this tag that you put on the table- one side is green, the other is red. When you have it on the greeen side, it means that the waiters carrying grilled meat will descend upon you like a plague of locusts to give you cuts of meat (as much as you want). They have fillet mignon, lamb, chicken, sausage, more beef, beef with parmesean cheese on it, beef that has this special seasoning, more lamb, other chicken, etc. (more…)

hmm… it was tough not being able to write in my blog while I was in Buzios! The gist of the trip there was on a bus (air conditioned) from Rio to Buzios. The whole trip took about 2.5 hours, and it was actually a lot of fun. I was able to get a front row seat, so I was able to unroll my legs a bit, and stretch out.

The hotel that everyone decided on was very nice. The rooms were great, and the first hotel in god-knows how long to have fitted sheets! Supposedly, it was near a awesome beach that was rated pretty highly by a bunch of the locals. Anyway, we dropped off our luggage, and hit the beach. The odd thing was that it wasn’t that nice of a place. We looked around, and their were kiosks selling all kinds of stuff, but the beach wasn’t very deep, and was pretty drab over all. We all decided to walk around and find something to eat, well, it was about 3:00pm, and there weren’t any places open! Everyone kept on saying that the (more…)

Do as the Romans do, right? Well, I got off the plane in Rio, and made a b-line to my hotel. Dropped off my bags, and went on the street to mug someone. I mugged two people, and made enough money to buy dinner- sweet! What helped was picking up a ‘Mugging for Dummies’ book in the Rio airport bookstore…

So I’m sitting here in an internet cafe, finished up a guarana soda, typing away after killing about 5 spyware/viruses on this friggin’ system. This ‘puter is totally infected.. anyway, Rio is amazing- so unlike (more…)

So yesterday was the 2nd day of my going to carnival. I went and got my shirt from one of the people in the group that picked it up for me, and like last time it was a large. Well, everyone that knows me, larges don’t fit me too well, so I had to ease up on the seams a bit on the sides. heh. Anyway, it was raining in the morning, so we didn’t show up at 12:00 like we were supposed to, but showed up at about 2:00, and we still waited about 1.5 hours for things to kick into gear. Finally, things started rolling, and what scares me most, is that I am learning the words to these carnival songs, and some of them are actually really fun to dance to. I think with the rain, and the fact that it was the last day, people weren’t up to their usual festive selves, so things were starting off a bit slower. Well things changed when we were approaching the ‘bend’…

All I can say, is that it started off as a light rain- the kind of rain (more…)

Ok, so it’s been two days, and I already am worrying that I am not going to remember everything that I have seen and experienced, so I have to apologize as I am going to write fast to keep the stream of thoughts flowing, and to do it before I get so pissed off with this Portuguese keyboard, hehe…

For starters, the flight was brutal. From SFO to Miami was a piece of cake, but the long-haul flight from Miami to Rio was the long one. I was able to get a exit row with about 4′ of space for my legs, so that was great. Oh, then come to find out the seat was not available, as the last minute this guy wanted it as it was his seat, but I asked him if we could trade, and he did. He was totally cool- when the lady next to me was wondering why we were so friendly to each other, he said “oh, we are (more…)