Brazil Part 2: Partying

One of the things that sold me on visiting Rob in Brazil was the allure of all night parties. He send me a few YouTube videos to convince me. I acted like these sounded awesome, but deep down I was slightly concerned that I didn't have the all night party in me anymore. As Blake Anderson once said "I can't drink like that anymore, I'm not 16".

But when you're in Brazil you gotta man-up and just do it. So on my second night there we got dressed up and left for this nightclub called Green Valley. I had never heard of it, but when Rob would tell people that we were going there they got this look in their eyes. One of the reasons Rob wanted me down there that weekend was that Green Valley was having a party to celebrate being voted the second best nightclub on the planet. We took a cab downtown where Rob's friend Aga picked us up. Aga was his nickname and that's all I ever knew him by. We left around 10 pm and drove about 100 km north of Florianopolis to the club.

Drinking Budweisers at Green Valley before the start of the show

The Green Valley nightclub is a crazy place. It is a giant tent with a lagoon and a big lounge. This video does it more justice, and pretty well describes my trip in general. It was insanity and I've never been to a club like it in the states. I'd guess there were about 5,000 people there and half of them were wearing sunglasses which I later figured out meant that they were probably on ectasy. The other amazing thing about the club was that all the girls were dressed up with full makeup and heels. I don't think I'll ever again be surrounded by as many beautiful women as I was that night. The show started around midnight went straight through until the sun came up. At around 2am two American DJ's came onstage - Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike. They played a great show, and when they were done at 4 I had to switch from Budweisers to Vodka Red Bulls to stay awake. The next DJ had a violinist with him that was insanely good. He did a mix to the Orcana of Time and later Katamari Damacy and I just let the inner nerd out. Especially because I used to listen to the Katamari Damacy soundtrack when I would study in college.

Green Valley is epic

Around 7am the sun started rising and although there were still a few thousand people there I was getting tired from partying for 7 hours. Rob had disappeared so Aga and I drove home. Cars in Brazil are much

more expensive then they are in the US and Aga was quite proud of his Renault. As I sped down the highway along the coast of Brazil at 7:45 in the morning with a fatigued 40 year old man I had just met, I wondered if this would be the sketchiest thing I would do on this trip.

...and we raged so hard

Aga dropped me off at the Bus Station and as a sign of how much I had learned  in 2 days I was able to get a cab back to Rob's place by myself. I got back and within 10 minutes I was passed out on the couch.

Rob didn't make it back until 2pm and he still hadn't slept. He took a 2 hour power nap and then rallied. At 4pm we got in a taxi to go to this club called P12. It was less than 10 hours since we left the last club. This place was on the North End of the island, which is a really affluent part of Florianapolis. There were big houses with luxury cars. We got up there and before going in we ran into the British blokes from the first night. They were with some Spanish girls and a few Argentinians. We drank vodka with them and hung out for awhile before going in the club. The cover for the club was $35, but the place was quite swanky with a pool and cabanas. I was beginning to get more confidant in talking with people and the few phrases of Portuguese I knew helped me figure out if people spoke enough English to talk to them. Since most of the people at this club were children of the upper class, many of them had studied English or spent time in the US.

The view from the beach at P12

The DJ ended at 10pm and we went out and got some hotdogs that were sold out of a 1980's Datsun pickup (New sketchiest thing). We couldn't get a Taxi so we ended up Hitchhiking back to Florianapolis (New-new sketchiest thing). We got back to Rob's place and his roommate cooked us a traditional Brazilian dinner and we passed out.

The next morning I woke up feeling refreshed and a little uneasy about my feet being on the strange part of the couch that was cracked and stained.

Rob went to the gym so I decided to go for a quick run. I've realized that I can run much father when I have a great view. I learned that when I was going for runs on the National Mall in DC and running along the coast of the Puget Sound back home. The views here were just as impressive and running by homes and stray dogs took my mind off of everything else and I had a terrific run.

After Rob got back we packed up and took off for the beach. We bought food to make sandwiches on the beach. When we left it was sunny and calm but by the time we got to the beach it was starting to get windy and the clouds started to roll in. Since it is the equivalent to late October in the US the beach wasn't very full. But we rocked some paddleball and took a walk down the beach. At the end of the beach were an outcropping of rocks and then we hiked a short ways past them to another more secluded beach. We walked to the end of that beach and onto some more rocks until we could go no further. We turned back and walked back down the two beaches. At the end we took a small trail through the bush to get back to where we started. It was literally littered with condom wrappers and used condoms. Apparently it was where the man-on-man backwoods sex occurred. I wore my sandals, Rob didn't.

The beach was nice and empty while we were there

We got back to the apartment and quickly had to get ready for the party. One of the guys from couch surfing had organized and party/BBQ. We rode over with a guy who was here from Sao Paulo and another guy who had just been bit by a stray dog that died after biting him. So basically I was partying with a guy who most likely had rabies (arguably less sketchy than the hotdog).

The party was at a very nice house on the mainland. Most of the couch surfing community in Florianopolis speaks English and Portuguese so I had no problem making friends. There were about 40 people at the party and it was starting to get really good (evidenced by them playing Call Me Maybe) when Rob and I had to leave. We were on the list at one of the nicest clubs in Florianapolis and as I understand it; Brazil.

The club was called Le Confraria. It was super swanky with half of it a Vegas style nightclub and the other half a lounge area. Again, the females really gave 110% on their looks. We met up with an Argentinian names Adres and a Spaniard named Borha (I think). Also our friend Aga showed up. So naturally decided to do some bottle service, and in what proved to be an excellent decision we went with Jose Cuervo Silver. After a few shots of Tequila the night really opened up. After the 4th shot of tequila and what must have been the thousandth Stella my memory of the night goes away. The next thing I remember is being out on the street at 5 am eating food we bought from a gas station. We came home and I crashed hard on the couch with my feet squarely in the dirty section. The next morning Rob would fill me in on my exploits from the night before.

I'm not sure when we got up the next day, but it wasn't very early. Eventually we got moving and headed downtown. We took a nice stroll along the waterfront and drank Gatorade. It was one of those hangovers. We stopped to get some food at this place called Habib's which is Middle eastern fare, with a Brazilian twist. I don't know why I thought that it would be a good place to order a pizza from, but I'm an idiot. We eventually went back to Rob's place and did what any 2 cool dudes would do on an international vacay... we caught up on some How I Met Your Mother. It was on of those relaxing days that you could really use after ingesting your entire body weight in alcohol over the past 4 days.

Walking along the water in Floripa

The next morning was Wednesday. It was a little nicer outside so we decided to go back to the beach. We had lunch at this restaurant on the beach and ate some fresh caught fish. It was super tasty, and the view was pretty awesome to boot. While we were eating we saw one of the guys from the couch surfing party named Enrique. He came over and we drank a few beers with him. He was a Spaniard in his thirties who had spent the last 8 months travelling around South America. He plan was to keep traveling until he runs out of money and then return to Spain. Seemed like a pretty sweet deal, until I realized that it probably meant that he wasn't going to be taking an early retirement anytime soon. Maybe this was his mid-career retirement.

Lunch on the Beach

After lunch Rob and I tossed the football and played some paddle ball, and just hung out on the beach. We were in no hurry to get home so we went and got some food in La Goa and hung out around there for awhile. La Goa is like a little beach town that it seemed like was rather touristy.

That night we decided to go to the bar and his roommate gave us some suggestions on a good area. It was a Wednesday night and most of the bars were empty. We picked one and started drinking. We started reminiscing about college stories and lady-conquests. Each story would one-up the previous one. Tales of high-school desperation and college debauchery. It was a fun night just hanging out remembering the good times.

The next morning we packed up and got a ride from our cabbie Joel to the airport. We were on our way to Rio De Janerio. As we were standing in line to board the plane this Asian girl comes up and starts talking to us like we were old friends. I played it cool but I had no idea who she was, I got the feeling Rob wasn't too sure either. 10 minutes after she got on the plane Rob figured out who she was and filled me in on everything he knew about her. Her name was Ping, she went to Stanford, and we had met her at La Confraria while I was blackout. It was a fitting end to my time in Florianapolis.

Up next: Part 3 Rio

Brazil Part 1: Arrival

About 2 weeks ago I got back from an absolutely amazing trip to Brazil. It was a fantastic adventure, and at many times quite blog-able. I went down to visit my friend Rob who I have know ever since we lived on the same floor of Markley hall our freshmen year. After 4 years of friendship through college Rob moved to Peru for a year. He then came back to Michigan to get a masters degree and graduated last December. He accepted a job to work for a consulting firm and requested a 6 month delay to his start date. He then packed up his things and without trepidation moved to Brazil.

After I got back from DC in March, I realized that I would have a large amount of travel pay coming my way.  Since I didn't do anything special to earn this extra money, I had no inhibitions to spending some of it frivolously. So I told Rob that I would come down and visit. He then looked up which weekends would have the most outrageous parties and that's how I decided when to come down.

My first few steps off the plane in Brazil

The hardest part of the trip was getting a Visa. Since the US makes Brazilians get a visa and pay about $150, the Brazilians make the Yanks do the same thing. It turns out my nearest consulate is in San Francisco, but luckily you aren't required to apply in person. The only other pre-trip errand was an ingenious plan to smuggle drugs into Brazil. It turns out that muscle milk is 2-3 times as expensive in Brazil as it is in the US due to some crazy taxes. So as a house-warming gift of sorts, I ended up taking 6 pounds of suspicious vanilla scented powder with me.

It took over 24 hours to get from Seattle to Florianopolis. My overnight leg between Dallas and Rio I was lucky enough to have an empty seat next to me. Once I landed in Rio I had to clear customs and change planes. I had neglected to learn any Portuguese before coming down and I instantly realized how hopeless I was by myself. The two words I had bothered to learn we're 'cerveja' (beer) and 'partido' (party) until I later learned that 'partido' is not actually the word for party (it's fiesta).

I finally made it to Florianapolis and landed at the airport. Rob picked me up and we took a cab back to his place. Florianopolis is a city on an island right off the Brazilian coast. It's a very modern and clean city (for South America). At least that's what I hear because I've only ever been to two cities in South America.

The first half of my trip was in Floripa, as the locals call it

After we dropped my stuff off at his place we decided to go out around the town. We walked around the city stopping in for coffee and visiting with some of his friends. After his old roommate got off work we went out for Cervejas with her. Although it turns out that draft beer is called 'chopp'. The beers we were drinking were served in 350 ml glasses so I felt like I could drink hundreds of them.

Colonial Florianapolis

After the beers it was already 8pm. So we grabbed some of the most delicious street meat I've ever had and went back to Rob's place. Rob's place was something of an interesting apartment. He lives with 2 guys who go to the local university. I took some pictures of the place for you. Note the table on cinder blocks and TV from 1985 and the Zebra striped fridge and my favorite: the non-functioning stage lighting. It was like everything was at least partially broken. The one armrest on the couch was held in place by an unused toilet, I'm not even joking and I wished I had a picture of it.

It's furnished like the BOX house of Brazil.

Every kitchen should have a Zebra striped fridge

The barely effective hot water heater is part of the shower head.

I was fighting some sleep issues and jet lag so I took a quick power nap. I work up at 9:30PM and ready to fiesta. We got picked up by this girl rob knows through the couch surfing community. She had two couch surfers with her; a guy from Sao Paulo and a Frenchmen from -surprise- France. We went out in La Goa which is a little neighborhood between two lakes on the island (It's on the map above). We went to a Mexican bar where the DJ was spinning the latest Katy Perry hits and Rob and I challenged some Brits to a dance off. After a tough contest we won the right to the floor. We danced and drank while the frenchmen sulked in the corner. He wasn't very interested in the bar and didn't really drink anything or talk to anyone. We didn't make it home until 4AM when we were well drunk.

Tequila and Mango Juice before heading out on night 1

Saturday we woke up and hung around the house with Rob's roommates. Both of his roommates spoke English and seemed like pretty good guys but I could never get a good read on them. In the afternoon we decided to - as Rob calls it -  "troll for mall ass". We went to the local mall and grabbed a quick bite to eat before setting out on our quest. Everyone was so nice down and friendly that Rob had no trouble getting some numbers from the hot female clerks while I either watched or browsed the store looking like a sexy American.  The mall wasn't much different than most malls in America which somewhat surprised me. We caught an afternoon showing of American Pie Reunion which was shown in English just for me. Actually they show most movies from the US in English and sub-title them. It was a very interesting movie to see with people who didn't grow up in the US. I'm not sure they got some of the jokes and references.

The view from the mall food court

After the movie we had to come home to get ready for the big party. After all it was a Saturday night in Brazil. Up next: Part, 2 in which I do something that I am explicitly warned not to do.

*As a side note I lost my backup iPhone on the flight home and had to wait for the random dude who found it to mail it to me. It had all my pictures on it, and thus the delay in getting these blogs posted. I think there will end up being 3-4 of them total coming out in a few day intervals.