Cariocas Archives - eatrio.net

The reason I started Eat Rio

18/04/2014/5 Comments/in Musings

Next month Eat Rio will be 3 years old. During this period I’ve written over 400 posts and 48 static pages; you guys have left more than 4,500 comments, and I’ve filtered out almost 2,000 spam comments (if I ever do inherit 22.9 million dollars from a long lost uncle in Nigeria, I’m almost certainly going to miss out). The Eat Rio Facebook page has almost 1,000 likes (come on people!) and the Eat Rio Twitter account has almost 1,000 followers (are you trying to torture me?).

Now I don’t want to get too misty eyed here but, for me at least, Eat Rio has meant more than just the numbers. Writing this blog has pushed me to investigate and learn more about this great city. I’ve also made lots of friends through the blog, had several of those mythical ‘free lunches’ and just recently I was able to escape a less than satisfying job and switch career paths completely. Not bad for 3 years!

It feels like an age ago now, but I still remember why I started this blog in the first place.

Rio strikes back

14/10/2013/13 Comments/in Musings

I feel like I’ve been mildly unfaithful recently. I’ve been off having flings with other cities and neglecting my beloved Rio. First I was seduced by Lima with its exciting food and reasonable prices. Then Melbourne caught my eye with its fancy restaurants and excellent transport system.

My first week back in Rio wasn’t easy. The people who told me that jet-lag is worse when you travel from west to east were so right. More than a week after arriving back, I am still waking up at 5:30am each morning and falling asleep at 9pm. On top of that there has been the usual trauma of returning to full-time work after 2 weeks of lounging, snoozing and other forms of general relaxation.

So, have my dalliances with other cities made me think twice about whether Rio is the one for me?

Big trouble in Ipanema

10/10/2012/27 Comments/in Musings

People who’ve never been to Rio often have quite extreme notions of what life here must be like. Some assume it’s a never-ending beach holiday, others think we are constantly ducking bullets and running from armed thieves. The reality for most is more prosaic – bad traffic on the way to the office, work 10am-7pm, bad traffic on the way home. No beaches, no samba, no guns and no fatalities.

Of course that’s not to say that good and bad things don’t happen here. Yesterday on Ipanema beach something quite shocking occurred. As is often the case, there are various versions of exactly what happened, but it seems to go something like this: A large group of Guardas Municipais (Municipal Guards) moved onto the beach. Some reports say that they were there to remove a pitbull dog that had been brought onto the beach – other reports say that they were there to stop a group of kids playing Altinha (in England we call this keepy-uppy) which apparently is not permitted on the beach before 5pm.

briga entre banhistas e guardas municipais

Beach mayhem. source

Whatever the exact reason for their presence, the atmosphere quickly turned sour.

Is it better not to speak Portuguese?

17/12/2011/6 Comments/in Language, Musings

Recently I was reading the blog of an expat and they were summing up the good and bad points of living away from their home country and then also looking at what it felt like to return. One point that particularly interested me was the returning to a country where everyone speaks your language isn’t always that great. Sure we all get a little tired of the language barriers when we’re ‘away’, but when you go ‘home’, you have to get used to understanding everything that everyone says.

Yes. Yes I am still complaining. And so is everyone else apparently.

Sweet Jesus!

13/10/2011/0 Comments/in Things to do

One of Rio’s most iconic landmarks is undoubtedly Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer – that statue). Yesterday was the Cristo’s 80th Birthday and anyone who makes it to 80 deserves a party right? Well a party is what he got, complete with a massive cake:

10 metre long cake…

…gone!

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