[Rhodes22-list] Biggest Party In The World

[Steve Alm]

Brad, 

By
> the time we got to Rio all I could do was sit in a
> chaise lounge at the hotel pool, order beer, and drool
> over the view and eye candy walking down Ipenema
> Beach.

Were we supposed to feel sorry for you?  8-)

If you ever do get to Brazil for Carnival, be sure to have a travel agent
help you and do it way, way in advance. Like a year.  Especially Rio.  You
literally have to book a table otherwise you'll never get a seat or be
served.  The grand experience would be to book a seat at the parade stadium
in Rio.  The parades go on for miles outside the stadium, but that's where
they really pour it on for the judges.

We have Dish Network's international package.  It's a fixed mini disc aimed
south east.  We cannot get the American stations from that satellite--it's
only the international channels.  Globo is about all we watch on it.  We
have your favorite, Time Warner for the American channels and high-speed
internet.  Last I checked, Direct TV didn't offer Globo but maybe your CCTV
box will do the trick if you can find the satellite.

Slim

On 2/7/05 6:06 AM, "brad haslett" <flybrad at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Slim,
> 
> Thanks, you've given me the excuse to buy that
> motorized mini-dish antenna I want.  We have Direct-TV
> and DSL, (I friggin hate Time-Warner and every other
> cable company), and a fixed dish pointed to CCTV
> 4(Beijing TV).  The CCTV box can pickup broadcasts
> from all over the world but right now its fixed on
> just the one satellite.  On my farm I had one of those
> "mother-of-all-dishes" set-ups but they're not allowed
> in my subdivision.  Is yours a full size system or a
> mini-dish?  Movable or fixed?
> 
> My one and only trip to Rio was not a pleasant
> experience but that wasn't Rio's fault.  I had
> ruptured a disc in my back about two weeks prior but
> didn't know it.  I came out of the water on a slalom
> ski and it felt like someone stabbed me in the back.
> Some liquid pain-killer out of the cooler got me
> through the rest of the day.  The next day I was in
> intense pain so I went to a "doc-in-the-box" and he
> said I pulled a muscle and gave me muscle relaxers and
> pain pills.  This Rio trip was coming up and I really
> wanted to fly it so I quit the drugs and flew the
> trip.  We spent 48 hours in Manaus, on the Amazon, on
> the way down and some of the extra-curricular
> activites there only agravated the back situation.  By
> the time we got to Rio all I could do was sit in a
> chaise lounge at the hotel pool, order beer, and drool
> over the view and eye candy walking down Ipenema
> Beach.  When we got back to Miami my crewmembers
> literaly had to carry me off the airplane.  I spent
> two days in MIA recovering to the point that I could
> non-rev home.  They replaced me with a crew-member
> thatthe company flew down on one of the corporate
> jets.  When I got home and had an MRI my L4-L5 was
> ruptured and I had surgery.  Haven't made it to Rio
> since.
> 
> The second missed approach at a Carnival experience
> was in Caracus, Venuzala.  We stopped in San Juan and
> they had the 727-200 fully loaded with fuel.  "Why so
> much fuel for this leg"?  Global Operations Command
> (GOC)explained (they didn't mention a word of it when
> I left home) that the air-traffic controllers were on
> strike in Venuzala and they weren't sure we'd be
> cleared to land.  We got there and the military was
> running the control tower.  Everything seemed normal;
> shitty as usual.  We spent the day lying by the pool
> overlooking the gulf but separated from the locals by
> a chain-link fence.  The local kids sell Polar beer to
> hotel guests in tomato-juice sized cans for a quarter.
> The cans are small so they will fit through the holes
> in the fence.  That night we escaped the compound for
> some local flavor.  I got back to my room about 2am
> and was just about to fall asleep when the phone rang.
> It was GOC explaining that the company had suspended
> operations to Venuzala and they thought United and
> American would the next day.  We had reservations on
> an American flight in 5 hours and were told to get out
> of the country while we still could.  The second
> officer said, "it's Carnival week!  Let's get stuck
> here".  The F/O and I had trips coming up and felt we
> wouldn't get paid if we didn't follow the plan.  We
> had no ground transportation because it was an ad hoc
> dead-head so I tried to call back to the "brain trust"
> to schedule something on the 1-800 number.  I got the
> phone menu, press 1 for this, 2 for that, and just
> stared at the rotary dial phone.  We bummed a ride
> from an American crew at the hotel and checked in for
> the flight.  The ticket agent said "this is Carnival
> week, this flight has been sold out for months".  "No
> mam, we're positive space, look up the agreement".  "I
> don't know nothing about any agreement, I just know
> you're not going on this flight".  So we left the
> country 6 hours later and "celebrated" Carnival at the
> airport terminal.  When we checked in for the second
> flight and checked the bags, the agent said, "I don't
> understand, you're going to Nashville, he's going to
> Kansas City, and he's going to Chicago, all on the
> same reservation, this doesn't make sense"  "Forget
> about it lady, we're all going to Miami, we'll take
> care of it from there".
> 
> Oh well, some day before I die I'll really make
> Carnival.
> 
> Brad Haslett
> "CoraShen" 
> 
> --- Steve Alm <salm at mn.rr.com> wrote:
> 
>> The biggest party/music festival in the world is
>> going on right now in
>> Brazil--Carnival!  It goes on for a full week, 24/7
>> and culminates in a
>> frenzied finale on Tuesday--Fat Tuesday-- the day
>> before Ash Wednesday and
>> the beginning of Lent.  We have a satellite dish and
>> we get the Brazilian
>> broadcast station, Globo.  They've been showing the
>> parades from all across
>> Brazil and these are the most over-the-top
>> productions I could ever imagine.
>> They make the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade look like a
>> high school homecoming!
>> Maybe someone more internet-savvy than me can come
>> up with some sites that
>> show live feeds or streaming video.
>> 
>> The parades are a competition and a sequence of
>> "samba schools" as in
>> "school of fish" for the way they swim through the
>> streets. They're
>> developed and rehearsed back in the vast favelas
>> (slums) and comprise
>> thousands of people in each one.  They have a
>> specific underlying theme and
>> one song that prevails in the whole school
>> accompanied by hundreds of
>> drummers and dancers.  It can take up to an hour for
>> each school to pass,
>> and there are dozens of schools in every parade.
>> The floats, costumes and
>> music are unbelievable. Sometimes the whole float IS
>> the costume for one
>> very important person, or maybe the costume is a
>> beautiful woman dressed in
>> a fancy hat and some paint--that's all.  Some
>> costumes consist of nothing
>> but glue and glitter.  There's no shortage of T & A.
>>  8-)   And bless
>> Globo's heart, they show it all.  Most costumes are
>> so elaborate you can't
>> believe it.  These poor, poor, poor people collect
>> beads, sequins, fabric,
>> etc and spend the whole year hand-making their
>> costume.  After it's over,
>> they carefully take their costume apart and save
>> every bead for next year's
>> costume.
>> 
>> Virtually every business closes for Carnival except
>> the bars, hotels and
>> restaurants.  Everybody just goes for it!  If you're
>> not in the parade or
>> watching the parade, you're out on the street anyway
>> partying you butt off.
>> There's nothing like this anywhere else in the
>> world.  Feliz Carnival!
>> 
>> Slim 
>> 
>> 
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> 
> 
> 
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