The Rio Color Run

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Because of my activities yesterday, I needed to spend an extra 10 minutes scrubbing my chiselled body in the shower this morning. No, I didn’t enter the Rio Erotic Mud Wrestling Competition (after last time I promised myself never again!). Instead I entered the Rio Color Run!

The idea is pretty simple: a 5km run/race during which competitors dressed in white are pelted with paint. Sounds like fun right? The race started at 8am in Glória and as Mrs Eat Rio and I arrived, we realised that a lot of other people also liked the sound running around and getting covered in colour.

Rio Color Run

We hadn’t even started and already I was leaning on Mrs Eat Rio for support.

 

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Buzios: good blood and tiny hearts

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Those of you who stay in touch through the Eat Rio Facebook Page will know that the Eat Rio team (erm, that’s Mrs Eat Rio and me) went to Búzios over the weekend. Búzios is a popular beach town located on a peninsula around 100 miles (170km) northeast of Rio. Apparently Brigitte Bardot loved Búzios so much she stayed for months and is now immortalised by a statue that sits (rather provocatively) on a bench along one of the main streets.

I had heard plenty about Búzios since I came to Rio, but until this weekend I hadn’t visited. So when some workmates suggested a weekend trip I jumped at the chance. It’s really rather nice:

Praia de Geribá, Búzios

This is Praia de Geribá, just 2 blocks from where we were staying.

 

That’s a fine looking scene isn’t it? I can only imagine how this must make you feel if you’re currently suffering sub-zero temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere (heh heh!). However, you should know that we didn’t spend the whole weekend lazing on the beach…

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Horti Fruiti Kung Food

Is this racist?

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You may remember I’ve written a couple of posts about the excellent Horti Fruti adverts that show up from time to time on the metro. The format tends to be an illustration of a fruit or vegetable in the place of some human character with a caption that plays on either the name or the origin of the item in question.

Take a look at the latest one:

 

Horti Fruiti Kung Food

Couve Chinesa is what we in the UK call Chinese Cabbage. The caption says “I am the master of Kung food”. Except that’s not exactly what it says…

 

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Veta, Dilma!

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Once again, like child wandering into a particle physics lab, I’m going to walk into a Brazilian issue I don’t know too much about. Apologies in advance.

All over Rio huge signs have been appearing recently. I saw even noticed a huge banner on the Sugarloaf this weekend. Signs like this:

Veta, Dilma. Rio

These huge signs are imploring President Dilma to use her presidential veto to block a controversial plan concerned with the distribution of royalties related to the discovery of pré-sal (in English, Pre-salt, a deep layer of salt that suggests huge reserves of high quality oil below).

 

When they say “huge reserves” of oil, they’re not messing about. Petrobras estimate that there are more 50 billion barrels of oil available – roughly four times Brazil’s current national reserves. That’s kind of a big deal.

So this is good news right? Big oil party for everyone in Brazil? Not quite…

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Does Brazil have too many public holidays?

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I’m no workaholic – I put in extra hours when there’s a big project on, but I’m not one of those people who calls the office when they’re on holiday or sneaks off during birthday parties to check work emails. I like holidays OK? Long weekends are the best! But…

I’m starting to wonder about the situation here in Brazil. We had a public holiday a couple of weeks ago (great!), today is also a holiday (OK…) and also next Tuesday (seriously?). I’m struggling to get a definitive answer, but it looks like Brazil has somewhere between 13 and 16 national public holidays, and Rio has its own “Founding of Rio” holiday too.

 

Batman and Robin meme

This image was circulating yesterday (Wednesday). Robin is saying “Woohoo! Today is ‘Friday’!” (because Thursday, is a public holiday). Batman is replying “Today is Wednesday and you have to work on Friday!”.

 

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