calvisson-leblon

People commonly say that “Brazil is not for beginners”.   It means that there are such bizarre and unique situations in which only a native can understand and deal with it.   In terms of Brazilian oddity standards, Rio beats all the other cities.   The reaction of its inhabitants is typically a blasé shrug.   Lately, the catalogue of attention-grabbing news has unexpectedly outraged or amazed the Cariocas. A major happening was Madonna’s Celebration Tour concert.   An estimated 1.6 m revelers flocked to Copacabana Beach to wish the Material Girl a happy 40 year-long career anniversary.   I was not one of them, I went to bed early.   Not only was the concert free, a milestone in the entertainment business, but it took place peacefully in a city notorious for its commonplace violence.   Rumor has it that Madonna was paid a US$ 3.3m fee; Itau Bank sponsored the concert (US$ 12m, an estimate), with the states and city of Rio providing a tenth of tha...

  I missed the earthquake by a day and a half and could have flown back to Rio with a specially printed t-shirt boasting that “I survived NYC earthquake”! These t-shirts are a tribute to the resilient city and to the capitalistic dynamism of its quake survivors! By West Coast standards, an earthquake of 4.8 magnitude is small fry.   California’s San Andreas fault presents a far major earthquake risk because it forms part of the tectonic boundary between the Pacific and North American plates.   On the other hand, in the New York and New Jersey region, earthquakes are mild but common; they are linked to the Ramapo fault line which sits far from plate boundaries.   Although a tectonically calm region, a 5 to 6 magnitude earthquake could occur.   A rattle of this magnitude could cause major damages to the aging infrastructure of the very densely populated region.   Anyway, the locals should keep their cool, April 5 earthquake was the strongest in 139 years. ...

Rio’s Carnival is the world’s greatest street party, top tourist attraction, and money maker, but it has an underbelly: the iconic samba schools are time-honored money laundering machines.   A well-known fact which has been part of the Carnival folklore for decades.   Brazilians have tolerated it; crime is so commonplace that people have become blas é . On Monday night, February 12, the glamorous, semi-naked queen of the samba school Mocidade de Padre Miguel, Fabiola de Andrade did something extra curriculum: she threw 100 sexy panties to the female spectators in the grandstands of the Marqu ê s de Sapuca ỉ Sambadrome.   Sapuca ỉ is the iconic samba parade avenue designed by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer in 1984.   Fabiola is the wife of Rog é rio de Andrade, the Mocidade boss.   She lamented her husband’s absence, Rog é rio was home, in house arrest with a GPS bracelet.     Another famous GPS-bracelet-wearing-samba-school boss was also unable...

People say it in a jest, to express a belief of good luck.  If God is Brazilian, Heaven is in Brasilia, Brazil’s capital.  The city’s inhabitants have the highest incomes of the country.  Far from being dull and devout, Brasilia’s lifestyle is entertaining, self-indulgent and borderline decadent.  In Brazil, God is notably indulgent with his flock; He has safely and comfortably accommodated the most chosen among the chosen in the three palaces of the Pra ç a dos Tr ê s Poderes (the square of the Three Powers): the legislative, judicial and executive arms of the state.  The chosen people are the legislators of both the Senate and the Lower Chamber, the Congress.  After benefiting from decades of unlimited pampering, these select people have become immutable, unchallenged and indestructible.  They have morphed into a self-cloned tribe, a nepotistic oligarchy insulated from the Brasilia’ hoi polloi and the rest of Brazil.  In Brazil, politicians h...

  that Brazilians drink caipirinha instead of champagne ! This was the tongue-in-cheek advertisement for the film Napoleon.   It, very well could have been the case, if Napoleon had not been defeated at Waterloo.   The flawed Ridley Scott film has everyone debating and researching Napoleon’s epic story to uncover the true Napoleon.   Since more than 60 000 books have been written on the Corsican, it is an impossible feat.   Each author has labored to drill down into the character to the point of reinventing him.   Napoleon’s cultural legacy is nearly as significant as the political impact he had on the society of his time, in Europe and beyond. In 1807, Napoleon’s army invaded Portugal (Napoleon delegated the invasion to one of his generals).   With British help, the Portuguese Prince regent fled Lisbon and landed on Brazil shore which, literally, was Portugal’s gold mine.   In Rio de Janeiro, the prince may have tasted caipirinha for the...

In my view, the Faroes Islands are the last frontier country of Northern Europe.   Be prepared to a change of scenery, above ground as well as underground!   We will get to that later.   The islands are not yet swamped by tourists.   30 years ago, I visited Iceland, and I was keen to compare the two Nordic countries. Iceland and the Faroes archipelago are both volcanic, but their likeness ends there.   Iceland volcanism is alive and well while it is dead and flat in the Faroes.   In the Faroes, the thick black basalt layers are quite old; the lava seeped through kilometers-long earth fractures 54 to 58 million years ago.   Following successive glacial periods, the erosion sculpted this mammoth basalt plateau into the rugged landscape which astounds us now. This awe-inspiring scenery caught the attention of the James Bond franchise.   In the series’ last film, No Time to Die , the unfathomably scenic Kalsoy island was chosen as the backdrop for ...

  Competing sisters over their Roman heritage and cultural attractiveness!                     Actually, these two settlements existed before the arrival of the first Roman legions during the 2nd century BCE.   Their names are probably of Celtic origin.   Arelate means “in front of the marsh”, the extensive marshlands of Camargue in the Rhone River delta.   It is Western Europe’s largest delta and France‘s largest wetland.   Nemausus was named after Nemos, the name of a local Celtic god.   The Romans quickly and peacefully annexed the whole of what is now southeastern France; they named their new province Gallia Narbonensis or Narbonese Gaul.   It encompassed what is now Occitania and Provence.   Today, Nemausus/Nimes belongs to the Languedoc/Occitanie region and Arelate/Arles is in Provence-Alpes-C ô te d’Azure.    Nemausus and Arelate owe their fortune and success to water.   A...