Carnaval Tuesday

On Tuesday night Laura and I met up with Vianney on Leblon Beach. We ended up just sitting on the beach for awhile, which was a pleasant, low-key way to end Carnaval. While we were walking around awhile later, we happened upon a crowd of people outside a club called Scala in Leblon, so we decided to stick around to see what was going on. It turned out that all the people going to the club had to parade for a stretch down the street in order to enter the club, sort of like a Hollywood red carpet deal. Though some guests came in regular clothes, quite a few of the club-goers were in full costume, and they seemed to really have fun parading in front of everyone. Huge costume parties like that are known as Carnaval balls, and they occur all over the city throughout Carnaval. The costumes at Scala tended to be more glamorous than silly or childlike. It was gay night, so there was quite a bit of cross-dressing, and that was also the only time during Carnaval when I saw women wearing barely-there costumes outside of a samba parade or bloco, and were they ever barely there. A few of the women had nothing more than a few strategically-placed jewels in only the most essential of places. One woman seemed to be wearing a light tan bikini bottom with a few jewels in the front and one or two in the back, but after a minute I realized that those were actually just her tan lines and that she was wearing no fabric whatsoever. Though I found that type of costume to be rather extreme, I have to say that it must take an incredible amount of confidence to be able to parade in front of a large crowd of people without any more substantial attire. However, even outside the Carnaval ball, one of the few places where that type of costume is deemed acceptable, I only saw a couple women wearing such things. The vast majority still wore more normal clothing. My friends and I never went to any Carnaval balls ourselves, but it was fun to at least watch Scala’s entrance procession for awhile.

A lot of Americans seem to think that all Carnaval in Rio consists of is lots of scantily-clad women and lots of obscene or otherwise objectionable behavior. I even had a guy at school tell me that he was surprised that I, as a girl, would want to go to Rio at all. That comment made me angry and has stuck with me ever since because he was so wrong in his perception of Rio.

Carnaval isn't nearly the spectacle that the media make it out to be. In fact, I think there are probably festivals in the US that are far rowdier than the Carnaval that I experienced was. You might attribute that to my rather quiet nature, but I really don't think that was the case. Throughout Carnaval I spent time with different groups of people from different countries in different parts of the city, but no matter whom I was with or where I was, things almost always turned out to be calmer than I expected. Other foreigners also had this impression, so I know it wasn't just me.

The blocos were fun and the parade in the Sambodrome was definitely the highlight, but other than that, everyone just seemed content to stand around talking and drinking with their friends. Not unpleasant by any means, but definitely nothing particularly out of the ordinary. One would think that with extremely cheap beer available everywhere, there would've been lots of problems with drunk people, but I really didn't find that to be the case. I only ever encountered a few obviously drunk people, and they always happened to be on the buses. Overall people were remarkably well-behaved for a festival that's all about indulging in all earthly pleasures before the deprivation of Lent.

As for the scantily-clad women, that myth definitely got debunked, as well. Average Brazilian women celebrate Carnaval in the same clothes that they would wear to the beach or out with their friends. Stereotypical Carnaval costumes are only acceptable in a few very specific settings, and even though those costumes are revealing, I generally find it difficult to associate them with the unclassy and overtly sexual connotations they seem to have in the US. The costumes are so beautiful, ornately decorated with jewels and feathers, and to me, at least, they seem to represent a celebration of life and beauty and the Brazilian spirit, rather than simply sex. The women at the Carnaval ball are, of course, the exception. Those costumes (or lack thereof) were clearly designed with only one thing in mind. My guess is that the Carnaval balls are where some of the wilder Carnaval behavior takes place, though I never went to one to see for myself. Even if that were the case, however, the Carnaval balls are specific, contained venues - hardly the city-wide display of sinfulness that so many Americans seem to imagine - and I question whether the behavior at Carnaval balls is really that much different from at any normal club.

Overall, my impression of Carnaval was that the media makes a far bigger deal out of it than it really is. I tend to be easily shocked, and all throughout Carnaval I kept expecting to be shocked by transgressive behavior, but that never really happened. Since someone as mild as I am can get through Carnaval without feeling the least bit uncomfortable, I think the media makes it into something far different from what it actually is. However, writing about how people calmly stand around talking with their friends doesn't make for a very interesting story, so instead they twist the truth to make it sound more exciting. Plus, Americans have come to expect sensational stories about Carnaval, so it makes sense that the media caters to their expectations. All that truth-twisting and sensationalizing sure makes for one inaccurate picture of Carnaval, however.

I'm happy I had the chance to be here for Carnaval. I never thought I'd have the opportunity, since hotel prices go sky-high during it, but living with a host family easily solved that problem. I liked participating in the blocos, and I loved going to the Sambodrome. being able to experience everything firsthand was really cool. However, I don't have any great desire to return to Rio for another Carnaval in the future, and, with the exception of the Sambodrome parade itself, Carnaval won't go down as one of my favorite memories of Brazil. It was simply too unspectacular. To be honest, I was a little relieved when it was finally over because it meant that the hordes of tourists who'd come specifically for Carnaval were finally going to leave.

Leblon Beach

at Leblon beach

Carnaval Monday

Monday night was the best part of Carnaval for me. Laura and I had tried to purchase tickets to the samba parade in the Sambodrome online, but they sold out just as we were in the process of ordering them. I was really disappointed because getting to experience Carnaval in the Sambodrome is, for most foreigners, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. However, I happened to be talking to my French friends about it the night before, and they said they were going with some Peruvian PUC friends to the Sambodrome Monday night to try to buy tickets outside the stadium, so we went along with them.

The subway let us off a few blocks from the stadium, but there were already lots of people everywhere. We passed lots of members of samba schools who were either wearing various components of their costumes, or else carrying them in large garbage bags. There were also people handing out plastic flags to wave during particular samba schools.

It wasn't difficult to find ticket sellers; it seemed like they were every 200 feet or so. One of the Peruvians did most of the negotiating, but we ended up walking around almost the entire stadium before we found tickets with which we were satisfied. It was great - the ticket I ended up with was about $50, almost $150 cheaper than the ticket I had tried to buy online!

We had tickets in the grandstand of Sector 1, which is where the samba schools first enter the parade route. On the other side of the stadium are covered boxes, and tickets there sell for upwards of $1000. Because the Sambodrome is only used for its official purpose for a few days each year, in the off season the covered boxes are used as public school classrooms.

Sunday night and Monday night are when Rio's best samba schools perform. Six schools perform each night as part of a competition, and the six highest-placing schools out of those twelve get to parade again the following Saturday in the Parade of Champions. Three of the schools that we saw Monday night, Salgueiro, Portela (my favorite), and Mangueira, went on to the Parade of Champions. Salgueiro was the overall champion, too, so I'm glad I went to the Monday night parade! Other samba schools parade at different times throughout Carnaval, but Sunday night and Monday night are the parades that get broadcast across the country on TV.

The parade was every bit as amazing as it gets made out to be. Each samba school consisted of drummers (the bateria) out front, and then alternating succession of dancers and floats. Each float seemd to be more beautiful and impressive than the last, and I used up an entire memory card taking pictures. It was difficult to take pictures of the dancers, though, because they danced and spun almost constantly, so many of the pictures turned out a little blurry.

Carnaval parade floats are no ordinary floats. Most of the samba schools come from poor neighborhoods, but they invest a huge amount of money in the Carnaval floats and costumes, and as a result they are an immense source of pride for the communities. A couple of the floats had acrobats twirling on ribbons or bungee cords, and at least one had a TV screen playing something. One school had floats that were a giant eagle and a giant wolf, and as they went by they played the call of an eagle and the howl of a wolf over loudspeakers. I thought that was a cool touch, especially since the eagle call was so eerie, and we could hear it before we really even saw the float. Since it was one of the samba school's very first floats, if not the first, it made for quite a dramatic entrance.

My favorite floats, however, were on the ones that often came near the end of a school's parade. These floats would shoot confetti into the air, and sometimes they had fog machines as well. I liked the confetti because it made everything seem even more festive, and it was how I'd pictured the parade in my head. We were about eleven rows from the top of the huge grandstand, and the confetti reached us even there. Paul caught one of the little pieces of silver foil to save as a souvenir.

Fireworks marked the start of each school's parade, and the giant TV screen at the end of the stadium would show singers down on the parade route. They would sing live for a little while, and then the music would switch to loudspeakers blasting the samba school's song. The words to all the songs were printed in the program so that people could sing along.

There's a tourist section somewhere in the Sambodrome, but we were in one of the regular Brazilian sections. A few people were wearing festive headbands, but most people were just dressed normally. Some were wearing shirts specific to a samba school, and others had on the colors of their favorite school. The impression I'd had previously of Brazilians at the Sambodrome was that it was just one crazy party where everyone danced all night long. In actuality, most people watched the parade calmly. Some people would move a bit with the music, but very few people were really dancing. A girl below me would break out into samba every now and then, but even she watched calmly for the most part. The atmosphere was far from boring, but it wasn't as frenzied as I'd imagined it. It makes sense that it was that way, though. The parade started at 9:00 p.m. and lasted all night, so to maintain an extremely high energy level for that long of time would have been absolutely exhausting.

Each samba school took more than an hour to parade through the Sambodrome, and the only breaks in the music were after a school had passed through and the route was being cleaned before the next school started. Streetsweeper vehicles and guys with brooms would come out to clear the debris, and one time one of the guys paused from his work to perform his own samba routine for the crowd. It was really funny.

As far as basic services go, I was impressed with how the Sambodrome was set up. In addition to men walking around in the stands selling drinks and popsicles, Sector 1 had one place selling food and drinks and another selling just drinks (in order to reduce the food line). I was amused that the food place was selling hot dogs and cheeseburgers, just like in the US. Brazilian hot dogs are usually served with a sauce that I don't care for, but the Sambodrome hotdogs came with packets of ketchup and mustard instead, the only time I've ever seen American-style hotdogs in Brazil. There were lines to get food and drinks, but they weren't unreasonable.

Apart from the food, the bathrooms also seemed capable of handling the amount of people in Sector 1. There were two sets of restrooms plus an additional line of portable toilets. The lines to the restrooms weren't bad, either, and the portable toilets looked unused. Assuming the other sectors are set up like Sector 1, the Sambodrome seems quite capable of handling the amount of people it holds.

We left the Sambodrome at about 4:30 in the morning, before the last samba school had even started (most people don't watch all six schools). Outside the stadium there was another party going on in the streets, still going strong even at the early hour. We walked to the nearest subway station and took the subway to the stop nearest our neighborhoods, and then we took a bus the rest of the way home. It generally isn't safe to take buses at night, but we were a large enough group that it didn't really matter. It was 5:45 before I finally got home, and it was already light by then. I guess that's one way to avoid walking home along deserted streets at night - simply wait until the sun comes up before going home.

I'm so happy that I got to see a parade in the Sambodrome. It's such a famous part of Brazilian culture, but I never thought I'd have the chance to see it firsthand. I'm really lucky that I got the opportunity to go, especially since as of the day before, I still had no ticket and thought all hope was lost. I'm so thankful the stars aligned in my favor!

at the Sambodrome!!!

we got free hats!

the green, yellow, and blue form one half of a Brazilian flag

the Taj Mahal!

fireworks at the beginning of a school's parade

the huge eagle float

acrobatic drummers attached to bungee cords

the bateria of Salgueiro, the winning samba school

Salgueiro's bateria

Carnaval Sunday

On Sunday Laura and I went to the Hippie Fair (a huge artisan fair) in Ipanema. It had nothing in particular to do with Carnaval, but it was one of my favorite places to spend money last summer, and Laura wanted to see what it was like. I was also hoping to find some sort of Carnaval souvenir, and sure enough, I found a pretty blue Carnaval mask. That came in handy a little while later when we stumbled upon a bloco going through Ipanema. The goal seems to be to cram as many people as possible into a single area until everyone feels like sardines, which makes for a rather interesting and sticky experience when it’s in the 90s and super humid. I’m thankful I’m a girl and I don’t sweat much, but even so I got covered in enough other people’s sweat to make up for it. Ew. All part of the fun, though, I guess. We paraded along the avenue that runs along Ipanema beach, and this bloco was far bigger than the one in Leblon. It was just a sea of people everywhere. The stretch of beach along Ipanema and Leblon is probably my favorite place in all of Rio, so it was cool to get to participate in a bloco there.

I enjoyed the chance to see a bloco in the daytime, and the light was better for taking pictures, as well. This bloco apparently had political leanings, because one of the signs on the truck read “Obama is black, but he went to the White House.” Another sign had something about Bush, but I couldn’t understand what it said. Even so, it just going to show how much more in-tune Brazilians are to the American presidency than Americans are to any foreign presidency. Our presidents are so well known that they even show up in the popular culture of Carnaval. On the other hand, if Lula, the Brazilian president, showed up on a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade float, everyone would just be really confused.

Laura and I stopped back home for a few minutes, until we got a text from some friends who said they were in Ipanema. Though we’d just spent the afternoon there, we went back to meet up with our French friends, Mathiu, Vianney, Paul, and Chris. On the way we happened to get on a bus full of very energetic party-goers about our age. They were drumming on the backs of the bus seats and singing at the top of their lungs. At least one person was drinking a can of beer on the bus, as well. As I was walking to an empty seat, I got a drunken kiss on the arm from some Brazilian guy. It was so loud and crazy, and I have never felt so American in my life. Laura and I had no idea what they were singing, so we couldn’t very well join in, and instead just sat awkwardly silent near the back of the bus.

The two of us seem to stick out like sore thumbs wherever we go. Laura has very light blond hair, so I’m sure that doesn’t help matters, but Julieta told us we have “American faces,” so it seems that no matter what we do, we’ll always look American. Apparently one of the Carnaval traditions is that Brazilian guys pay more attention to girls than usual. So often as we were walking along, guys would call out “Hello, American girl!” or “Speak English?” A few of the bolder ones grabbed our arms and tried to get us to talk or dance with them.

After we met up with the French guys, we went and found a pleasant place to sit on Ipanema beach. Carnaval is one of the only times during the year that the beaches are actually safe at night. As usual, there were lots of people everywhere, talking and drinking beer provided by the vendors who wandered around the beach. There was a strange lack of music again, and people didn’t seem particularly animated or festive. It was nice to sit and watch the waves, and my feet appreciated the opportunity to rest since they were covered in blisters and sore from walking for hours on end the previous two nights. It just seemed once again to be strangely unexciting.

the bloco

a close-up of the truck, with the Obama sign visible

a bird's-eye view

some of the bloco-goers

more of the bloco-goers

at the bloco with my new mask!

butterflies!

Carnaval Saturday

On Saturday night Laura, Mat, and I went to a bloco in Leblon. Blocos are formed by all sorts of groups, and aside from the official samba parades in the Sambodrome, they are what makes Carnaval special. The samba parades require expensive tickets for admission, but the blocos are free and anyone can join in. The bloco in Leblon had a group of drummers, the bateria, out in front, and then a truck with a platform filled with singers following behind. It proceeded at snail pace for a couple blocks, right in front of where I lived last summer. So many people crammed into the street that at times my arms got pinned to my sides. Either it was nearly impossible to move at all, or everyone got shuffled along at whatever pace the crowd was dancing. Unlike the laid-back atmosphere of the night before, the energy level on Saturday night was very high, and everyone was singing and dancing and just having a wonderful time. Most people knew the words to the songs the bloco was singing, and they sang at the top of their lungs.

The best part was getting to be right in the middle of it all. I’ve studied Brazilian music in some of my classes, so it was so cool to be marching right alongside a real Carnaval bateria, so close that at one point I had to be very careful not to get hit with one drummer’s mallet. In a bateria, each type of drum plays a different rhythm, and then all the rhythms mesh together into a complex final product. At times there is a call-and-response element to their playing, and I was excited to hear that one of the calls the Leblon bloco used was exactly the same as one I’d been taught in a class. I think it would be awesome to get a chance to rehearse with a bateria in the off-season just for fun (I played percussion in high school, so I’m already familiar with drumming), but unfortunately, baterias seem to be almost exclusively male. In the Leblon bateria, I saw a single girl with a tambourine, but she was definitely the exception. That’s really too bad, because in situations like blocos, drums can hold a magical, almost enchanting power over a crowd that nothing else can pull off. They’re powerful, but sadly girls are just out of luck.

After the bloco ended Mat went home, but Laura and I decided to try to meet Paulina in a neighborhood called Lapa, which is known for its nightlife. It’s across town from Leblon, so we took a taxi because all the buses in the Leblon area were messed up since there were so many people blocking the streets. Lapa is so popular that, at least at night, the streets are closed to cars. A huge white aqueduct runs through the middle of the neighborhood, and the arches are its iconic image. The neighborhood is quite a bit sketchier than Leblon, and theft is a definite problem, but that by no means dissuades people from going there. Laura and I knew the address and name of the place where we were supposed to meet Paulina, but we couldn’t find the street and Paulina’s cell phone battery had died, so we decided it was a lost cause. We wandered around by ourselves for awhile (though Lapa really isn’t the greatest place for two American girls to be wandering around alone) until by chance we ran into four American guys from PUC that we knew. They all also just happened to be from West Point, which was all the more convenient for us. Who better to go around a sketchy neighborhood with than military guys? There are lots of clubs and bars in Lapa, but there are also vendors selling beer on the street, so tons of people just stand around outside, talking. We did that for the rest of the night, and once again I was surprised at how little music there was. We were standing right outside a club of some sort and I could see the musicians playing just on the other side of the window, but I couldn’t hear them at all. A few guys with drums went by at one point, adding a little bit of festivity to the air, but overall the atmosphere just seemed a little boring. Lapa seems to be The Place to go at night and people are always talking about it, so I was surprised that it wasn’t more exciting, especially during Carnaval.the bloco truck

the bloco truck

the bateria

the bateria

the bateria

the bateria

cross-dressing Tinkerbells

some of the people at the bloco

some of the people at the bloco

We ran across some American guys and asked them to take a picture for us. One was from Minnesota (almost Wisconsin, when you're on the other side of the world), so he decided to jump in the picture with us.

one of the beer vendors, with the Arches of Lapa on the back of his shirt

a kiosk selling masks

Carnaval Friday

Friday night marked the start of the Carnaval festivities. Another US girl from PUC named Laura and I have been sticking together for the most part, and we met up with some other international PUC students in Leblon. We were originally planning to go to Ipanema with a Canadian PUC student and a couple (non-PUC) Irish guys we’d met on the beach that afternoon, but arranging a suitable meeting time and place proved to be too complicated, so we stayed in Leblon (where Laura lives) instead.

Carnaval seems to be a bit like a Brazilian-style Halloween. Some people wear full costumes, with anything from the Flintstones to the Devil. There was even one guy dressed as God. Cross-dressing is somewhat popular, and guys seem to have fun with that. Most people, though, opt for either a festive headband of some sort or just normal attire. I got a kick out of the festive headbands; most looked like things girls would get at an 8-year-old’s birthday party. There were lots of Minnie Mouse ears, princess tiaras, and headbands with antennae that had stars, hearts, or other things attached to the tops. Vendors either walked around or sold from kiosks to all the people who didn’t happen to have a pair of spare mouse ears or something of the like lying around at home. Laura and I decided on a couple of star headbands. We kept laughing because we looked so ridiculous, but there were plenty of other people our age wearing exactly the same thing. Carnaval has such a reputation for being risqué, but most people’s choice of costume is ironically innocent and child-like.

Laura and I went to a party on a street called Dias Ferreira that had been closed to traffic. The original street was so packed with people that you could hardly move through the crowd, and the surrounding streets were full of people, as well. Most of the people were just standing around in groups, talking and drinking, and vendors were selling beer (and the occasional Coca-Cola or water) every hundred feet or so. With so many beverages being consumed in the same place, the streets were soon littered with empty bottles and other trash. It was pretty disgusting to have to walk through. The city does an excellent job of keeping Leblon’s streets clean normally, and on Saturday it looked like an effort had been made to get the mess under control. Leblon’s streets looked decent just in time for them to be littered again Saturday night. Being a sanitation worker during Carnaval must be a rather disheartening occupation.

The strangest thing about the street party was the extreme lack of music. For all that Carnaval and samba are connected, the absence of any music whatsoever was quite noticeable. Even in the US I think there would’ve at least been loudspeakers or something set up.

At one point a group with drums did start playing in one of the adjacent streets. People started dancing and it was fun until the police set off pepper spray to clear out the people so the cars and buses could get through. I didn’t get hit with the pepper spray, but that was the end of the music.

It was so nice to be able to stay right in Leblon. Since I lived there last summer I was already familiar with the area, so even though there were huge crowds of people and it was somewhat chaotic on the streets, I never had to worry about losing my bearings.

Laura and I had walked there by ourselves, aiming to meet up with the rest of the group in front of a particular bar on that street. However, when we got there it soon became evident that about 200 other people had had the same idea, and even though we tried texting and calling a girl from that group, it was clear there was almost no chance of finding them in the crowd. We walked around by ourselves for awhile, until by some miracle we actually did find them awhile later.

It was a fun group to hang out with. Laura and I were the only Americans, and then there were two Chilean girls (Paulina and Julieta) and a Brazilian girl (Natalia), and then one guy each from France (Mathiu, or Mat), Peru (Carlos), and Germany (whose name I don’t remember). There was no single language that everyone spoke well, so it was amusing trying to figure out which language to use with which person. Laura and Mathiu could speak English better than Portuguese, the German guy could speak both, Paulina, Julieta, and Carlos spoke mostly Portañol with varying degrees of English, and Natalia seemed comfortable with all three. I really enjoyed talking to Julieta and Paulina because I love Portañol. Portuguese and Spanish are so similar that my mind really has to work to distinguish which is which. It’s fun to be able to listen someone speak a mixture of the two, without bothering to figure out which word goes with which language. I would usually reply to Julieta and Paulina in Portuguese, but in the event that they didn’t understand, I’d translate it into Spanish instead. We had a wonderful little language mosaic going. It was awesome.

Back Again

Very few people have the opportunity to study abroad in the same place twice, but so far the second time around has been even better than the first. I'm basically repeating what I did last summer, but I can't believe how different it feels this time. Most of it simply comes from the confidence I've gained by already having done everything once. It was so strange knowing exactly where to go and what to expect in the airport, and then being able to look out the window on the ride to my apartment and recognize where I was and predict where we were going next. Even arriving at my apartment was funny. Last time my fellow passengers and I were apprehensive about the security of our neighborhoods, since of course Rio's violence is always so emphasized. To be honest I was a little afraid to step out of the van and into the heart of Rio for the very first time. This time, however, I just jumped out with a smile, so happy to be back.

My Neighborhood

I'm living in the neighborhood of Gávea, which is next to Leblon, where I lived last summer. Sadly, my new apartment is not nearly as close to the beach as the old one, but it's only about a ten-minute walk from my university. I'd say it's a pretty fair trade-off, especially since it means I'll save a ton on bus fares. I'm a lot luckier than some of the other people I've met. One guy is stuck across town, far from both school and the beach, and another girl is living with her uncle way out in Barra da Tijuca. Though still part of Rio, Barra is isolated from the main parts of the city because it's located way on the other side of some mountains. The girl said it took her about an hour and a half to get to school. I'm quite thankful for my ten-minute walk!

My Family

I'm living with a woman and her son. Many of the students live with single elderly women, and that's what I was kind of expecting. I was rather surprised to find out I had a little brother! That possibility had never even crossed my mind. Ilma, my host mother, is probably in her 30s, and Lucas is 12. I've been perfectly happy with my living arrangements so far. We live in a mostly residential area, and I was pleased to find that this building doesn't have a porter. In my old apartment building you had to buzz an intercom to be let in by the porter, but it often turned out to be a bit of a hastle. I'm quite happy to just have a set of three keys instead. There's one for the outside gate, another for the main door, and then one for the apartment itself.

Return to PUC

I'm studying again at Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, or PUC for short. The orientation was not exactly thrilling, but it was nice to have the chance to meet some of the other students. There are a lot more countries represented now than there were last summer, which I of course think is really cool. Among the countries represented are England, Germany, Portugal, France, Italy, Canada, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Chile. There were only about 30 of us at the orientation, but there are about 270 other international students on campus. I spent much of the time with a guy from Tennessee, and I also talked a decent bit with a girl from Canada. These first few days are always strange, knowing that there's a perfectly decent chance I won't end up friends with any of these first people I get to know. It's a start, though. There's one other person here from Wisconsin, but I don't see he and I becoming friends. There's also another girl here from OU, but I've yet to meet up with her.

Carnaval

Carnaval starts tonight, with huge celebrations all over Rio. Since it's linked to Lent, it goes through Tuesday night, and then there's Ash Wednesday the next day. Carnaval is such a huge deal here, and everything seems to be put on hold until after the festivities are over. The director of the orientation kept saying, "After Carnaval do this, after Carnaval do that..." People here wish you "Bom Carnaval" ("Good Carnival") like they would "Merry Christmas." It sounds like it will be lots of fun!