Musings Archives - Page 27 of 45

Bahia in Brief

07/09/2012/14 Comments/in Food and drink, Musings

Hi everyone! After 5 days in Bahia I thought I’d attempt a mini-post to tell you about how things have gone so far. I only have my phone, so please excuse weird typos…

We flew into Salvador, state capital and first capital of Brazil (replaced first by Rio and then more recently by Brasilia). Salvador reminded me a bit of Panama City – large, rather ugly outer city, surrounding a beautiful, historic area that is popular with tourists. In Panama City, Casco Viejo is a lovely wreck of a neighbourhood full of beautiful crumbling facades. The perimeter is guarded by heavily armed police to keep the rich tourists safe.

Check out the phone boxes that look like coconuts!

Salvador’s equivalent is called Pelourinho and is far prettier and better maintained. Lovely old colonial houses, painted in complementary shades, line steep, cobbled streets. The heavy police presence (coupled with frequent warnings from random people) remind you that there are people who’d like to take your valuables if given the chance, but the overriding sense is that this is a city rich with music, history and culture.

The storm before the calm

30/08/2012/4 Comments/in Musings

Wow, I’ve been so busy recently that there’s been no time for blogging! Can you believe I actually worked last weekend? Saturday and Sunday? Work has been crazy recently – lots of early starts and late finishes. Thankfully, after 6 months solid work, I have some holiday coming up. During these last few frantic days at work, my mantra has been “This time next week I’ll be in Bahia, this time next week I’ll be in Bahia…”.

Bahia, in Brazil’s northeast, is known for being a particularly laid back place. A friend told me that last time he was there, he was staying in a pousada (like a guest house or nice hostel). At around midday he found the chef snoozing in a hammock. The chef stayed awake just long enough to listen to the lunch order and then turned over and went back to sleep! Apparently the food showed up around 4.30pm!

As if in pre-penance for the relaxing times to come, the pace of work has been building to a crescendo. And as if to mirror this tempestuous ‘storm before the calm’, the weather in Rio has gone a bit crazy too. This was the view outside my window this morning:

Go Dilma!

10/08/2012/28 Comments/in Musings

In general, the British don’t go in for all that whooping and hollering when it comes to politicians. Of course there are a few whoopers and hollerers out there, but most of us tend to feel a tinge of regret when choosing to support a politician. We choose Politician X because, having weighed up the options, we’ve decided that he or she is the least bad of the bunch. Certainly not as bad as Politicians Y and Z. But that doesn’t mean we’re about to start waving flags and having parties.

With that out of the way, I can now say that it seems to me that Dilma (let’s get the pronunciation right – it sounds like JIL-ma) has done a pretty decent job since coming to power. I’m not going to pretend that I spend huge amounts of time reading hundreds of in-depth political pieces (my Portuguese level is closer to João e Luiza vão à Praia), but I’ve formed this opinion based on a few factors.

There are a lot of images of Dilma out there, not all of them flattering, but I like this one for the fact that it looks fairly natural – less like one of those awful, staged campaign posters.

Just like watching Brazil

06/08/2012/11 Comments/in Language, Musings

During a recent Portuguese lesson (yes, I’ve restarted lessons!) a word came up that was unfamiliar to me – goleou. The context was the description of a football match and went something like “Last Saturday night Barcelona goleou AC Milan”. I asked my teacher about this word and she said “It’s when one team beats another team by many goals. You know, like a chocolate” (pronounced in the Portuguese manner: shocko-LATCH). Well, that left me even more confused/intrigued. I’d never heard of a chocolate in football. I decided some research was in order.

It turns out that the national obsession of Brazil has given rise to a rich and diverse set of words, phrases and sayings. I expect that today’s post will be just the tip of the football iceberg so if there any football experts out there then I’d love to hear about the ones I’ve missed out.

Goleada

As my teacher told me, a goleada is a what English commentators might call a drubbing. A win with a large margin of victory. Goleada is the noun, goleou is the 3rd person past tense conjugation of the verb golear (to win by many goals). There is some discussion over exactly what constitutes a goleada, some saying that the margin of victory must be at least 3, others saying it must be 4.

This cartoon, entitled Blue Chocolate, celebrates the goleada of Brazilian side Cruzeiro over Venezuelan size Caracas back in 2008. Final score 3-0. The fox (?) of Cruzeiro is saying “Give Hugo Chavez a hug from me if you can”.

British Time and the English Side

05/08/2012/12 Comments/in Musings

Ah, there’s nothing like the Olympics to stir up a bit of national pride is there? The last few days have seen Great Britain winning medals all over the place, including a record fourth gold from my old classmate Ben Ainslie in the sailing today. GB are now third in the medal table! OK, enough gloating…

There is something about living away from your home country that brings out a kind of fondness for ‘home’ that maybe didn’t exist when you actually lived there! Whenever I hear some mention of Britain or England, my ears prick up and want to hear what people are saying.

One phrase that gives me a little warm feeling is Horário Britânico, (British Time) which is used to mean ‘on time’. If someone says “I’ll pick you up at 9am, Horário Britânico.”, it means “I intend to actually arrive at 9am, so you had better be ready.” – without that stipulation, 9am often means something more like 9:30!

Now see if you can spot the oddity here:

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Goleada