El Gaffney

100% Real Brazilians

Let me introduce my new Brazilian amigos… From left to right: Caroline, Me, Junior, Danielle, Adolfo. No, they’re not just random peeps from the street (or beach in this case). I met them through Caroline (pronounced Cah-roh-lean-ehy), who is Brazil’s brand manager for Kanina dog food and thus, one of the people with whom I worked. Still with me? She works with Danielle who’s dating Junior (I don’t know his real name) who’s friends with Adolfo.

Yes, the name Adolfo makes me a bit uncomfortable, but I managed to shift my thinking so that images of Ralph from the Muppet Babies would be triggered rather than those of that guy with the strange moustache. Don’t ask me how or why. Or do. I’m not sure. I just know it wasn’t because he was playing piano.

Anyway, here are the facts, diary style: We had a great afternoon at Prainha, a remote beach half enclosed by big green mountains. To get there, we passed trough Barra, an area that looks a lot like Miami and where people were kitesurfing. (Not where all the beautiful people come to be gay. Yay. Huh? – okay, that’s from an obscure Bruno/Ali G segment.) I tasted açaí, a typical brazilian fruit, prepared with granola and drank a Skol beer. After the beach, Junior drove us to a small seafood restaurant where we ate bolinho de bacalhau, a portuguese dish prepared with cod. On the way, we heard brazilian music: Seu Jorge (Life Aquatic), Gilberto Gil, Roberto Carlos (not the soccer player) and Zeca Pagodinho. We also heard 50 Cent, Chemical Brothers, MIA and The Rolling Stones at my request.

Details of our evening coming later tonight…

Tags: beaches, brazil, Friends, travel

Yes, I Said Copa, Copacabanaaa

Is it wrong that upon seeing this beautiful hotel, I was immediately taken back to 2 places: 1. My Bar Mitzvah reception in middle school – I started reciting the song in my mind and became EJ the DJ mixing it right into Macho Man; and 2. My couch in high school – where I was watching Can’t Hardly Wait. That’s right, who’s gonna want you know, A-man-da? Somebody. More like nobody. You really got me there Mike. Fag! Well, thanks Barry Manilow for this hit and for that song about your dog. Remember: music and passion were always in fashion.

Tags: beaches, brazil, hotel, travel

First of Many Beaches

Second if you count the little one in Botafogo where the training took place. I know what you’re thinking though… and yes, there was cause for the ellipses after water in the last post. After making my way through the 6 layers/rows of umbrellas between the volleyball courts and the ocean, here was the scene. No, that’s not David Hasselhoff swinging from the helicopter, and no those are not Germans either, but they rushed to the scene as if both were the case. And all this hype for what I was later informed is a relatively routine occurrence: the current is so strong, waves big and undertoe severe, that people get swept out to a point beyond which they’ll be able to swim back (unless we’re talking about Liz or Genna) and have to be rescued/scooped up like fish in this giant net and flown the 50 feet or so to be dropped off back on shore. And yes, Jimmy, that is a Hines Ward jersey bottom mid-left of photo. Once again, this is Copacabana Beach.

Tags: beaches, brazil, travel

Point Is, They’ve Got Us Beat

I was going to continue posting reasons Brazil will continue to dominate the international soccer scene, but one, I ran out of ways to tie it into dreams; two, I . Three, and most importantly, when I went to Copocabana Beach two days ago thinking I’d hop into a social game of soccer volleyball (sports being the international language and all), I went to the court which seemed to have the least athletic looking players and much to my surprise, they were all 50x more skilled with this lighter and bouncier ball than I would have prayed I’d be. Thus, I saved myself, and the U.S., the embarrassment, took the picture above, and kept moving toward the water…
Note: It’s called futebol here, but as I would have written in a new post, we just sound silly calling it football (same goes for boots, pitch, nil, and many other phrases uttered by Rob Swain).

Tags: beaches, brazil, soccer, travel

Reason #76646

They don’t dominate the all-you-can-eat “Brazilian steakhouses” like we do. I may not have posted the 11 lb. weight gain from my previous dining experience at Churrascaria Plataforma (thanks, Katz for bringing a scale to the restaurant), but when you look around and see you’re the only one who is still “green-buttoned” it says something. And that something is: “You are a fat American pig.” (See the name of the restaurant, and its classy logo, above.) I’ve been washing all dinners down with their infamous (like El Guapo) Caipirinhas. They have all the bob flavors.

Tags: brazil, food, restaurants, steakhouse