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I'm going to Porto Allegre, Salvador de Bahia & Rio, followed by possibly Brazillia or Sao Paolo with my Dad (he's a healthy spry 59, I'm 32). We got everything booked, and We'll be going to follow the French National Team for 3 weeks. We've got everything booked (hotels except for Rio where we booked an apartment), but I'd like to know what shouldn't be missed out on while in Brazil. We speak French/English/Spanish, but we'll probably learn some brazillian beforehand with pimsleur tapes, but how necessary/helpful will that be (how multilingual is brazil)? Any food we should be on the look out for? Any tips on finding fun sports bars to watch games that we aren't going to? Anyone ever been to a world cup? I have no idea what to expect at one.
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Jan 22, 2014 21:39
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| # ? May 18, 2024 02:37 |
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They speak Portuguese in Brazil, so I am sure you can probably get by pretty well knowing French and Spanish.
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Jan 26, 2014 19:25
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I specifically got the Brazillian Portugese tapes, I heard that it's different enough like american english to british english... didn't mean to sound that stupid in the OP.
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Jan 26, 2014 20:23
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I've only spent time in Rio and (mostly) Sao Paulo and for touristy stuff Rio is by far the best, I imagine it will be uncomfortably packed during the WC. For Rio some extra security precautions may be necessary, take taxis whenever you can and don't wander about in the dark if it's not at a beach or tourist spot. It may sound a bit overblown but there are a lot of desperate armed criminals that are used to seeing juicy foreign targets and will hold you up at gunpoint in Copacabana no problem. You need to be a little more careful than the usual don't be an idiot thing. Just be prepared to hand over all your stuff and maybe not take a camera or phone late at night. This is for outside WC premises, past security with lots of people about it'll probably be fine. Sao Paulo is a lot safer because tourists aren't expected there so there's only regular crime to worry about, I guess that may change during the WC heh. It has great bars and clubs but you sort of have to know where they are and I'm not sure where the stadium is. I went to the crappy Palmeiras one that was somewhat in the city but if it's Corinthians you're like an hour and a half away. There's absolutely nothing touristy in Sao Paulo - maybe the church in the old city center but there's also some creepy vibes (at least when I was there) but I liked walking around Av Paulista and getting food in the Japanese district (right next door). My experience is that Brazil is firmly monolingual, English is useless outside your hotel but you should be able to get by with Spanish. When I lived there my Cuban roommate never bothered learning Portuguese I think. Brazilian pronounciation is a lot clearer than Portuguese so should be easy to pick up. You'll probably already sick of beans in the 3 weeks you're there which is the staple, but try asking for the best local Churrascaria. It's salty spit-roast meat where they cut the meat straight on your plate as a gimmick, absolutely delicious. The huge amount of salt probably isn't healthy but gives a very distinctive taste. Never been to a world cup but knowing Brazilian organizational skills I imagine there's plenty of waiting involved. Don't worry too much as there'll be tons of dudes with coolers hawking drinks around. If you don't mind me asking, how much did the 3 weeks set you back with game tickets?
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Jan 27, 2014 02:33
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I've been to three separate World Cups with varying results. The cheapest one was the US '94 since it was at home and Dallas hosted 6 games, so I got to see all of those. Went to France '98, but didn't get any tickets, just enjoyed being there for the most part (tickets were hard to get without knowing what you were doing and we were already spending enough money just to get there, so we enjoyed France without actually getting to any live match). Germany '06 was also pretty great, but only got to see one match (thanks Suqit). We had tickets for a 2nd match pulled due to the craziness of the ticketing procedure (one of the names submitted for a ticket had already been denied elsewhere, so our ticket application was then thrown out, oddly enough it was Suqit's name that caused this to happen through no fault of his own, since I was the one applying). My advice, since you are already going, see if you can find tickets through an org in Brazil, seems like tickets would be cheaper (unless you go through the FFF, which would likely be best for getting tickets to the French games, but maybe limiting in what you actually get) I think if you already have your itinerary chosen and you are going to be following France anyway, if you get tickets, that will be the bonus. Catching the local flavour will be pretty fantastic anyway, so enjoy that. Due to this being in decidedly not quite first world country compared to the ones I've seen, I have no advice about what Brazil will be like (other than take Pvt Dancer's advice and be safe) Our US tickets in 1994 were the cheapest, Germany was well expensive and we never got any in France (but the ones I tried to get was the opening match, Scotland played Brazil at the Stade de France and the cheapest we could find were $200 per ticket, so we said no and still went to the stadium and had more fun outside the stadium than we ever could have inside, and there were fan vids, so we saw all the action inside too)... I expect Brazil will do something similar to what France and Germany did outside each stadium, so even if you don't get tickets, you'll like have a good time at the games, but I'd check out each venue you might be hitting online somewhere to see if they tell you what sort of activities will be happening
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Jan 28, 2014 11:30
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I wouldn't totally overlook Sao Paulo. When i was doing my research i saw lots of negative opinions of the city and I almost skipped it... i'm glad i didn't. I thought i would stay for 2 days but extended that to a week and wanted to stay for longer. Yea, it's a bland looking city but if you look past that, the real gems are there if you go out exploring. I would suggest finding a local through couchsurfing, there are many hosts available and willing to show you around. Unfortunately i don't remember which areas i went to as i was taken around. Sao Paulo reminds me of NYC and has amazingly good food, bars, clubs and general entertainment. I think this city deserves the title "the city that never sleeps" over NYC, there's just so much energy in any given day. But like the poster above, you really do need to know where you're going or else you're going to feel disoriented and feel like nothing's going on. So it's highly recommended to mingle with the locals. In my experience, you're easier to get by with english in Sao Paulo than in Rio. Also the food and service is by far the best in the country. Food in SP: The quality of food and service in SP is #1 in the world. If you're a foodie do not skip SP under any circumstance. It is better if you visit Rio first and THEN visit SP or else you have set the standard too high to enjoy anything else the country has to offer. Eat as much pizza as possible in Sao Paulo, it's considered one of the best in the world. Every weekend, over 1 million pizza's are sold in the city. They even have a Pizza Day in July. Bras is a good one to check out. Churrascaria's are all you can eat bbq steak houses. Check out Vento for first class all you can eat bbq. They even pick you up/drop you off to your hotel. Brazilian food to try: Feijoada - if you like beans and pork stew Coxinha - highly addictive fried chicken dumplings Acai - perfect snack or even as a meal replacement, very refreshing Cakes/Sweets - Find a good bakery and try out the sweets, portuguese tarts (natal?) and brigadeiro. Be cautious when you order juices, they pour incredible amounts of sugar in their already sweet tropical juices.
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Jan 30, 2014 09:01
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Thanks for the tips, sorry I haven't replied in a bit, forgot about the thread... I don't exactly as my dad is the one footing the bill, (he's the one that really wanted to go), but I'm guessing ~8k including plane, hotels, and the apartment in Rio while we're there. We already have tickets to the group stages and Ro16, he applied for them about 1.5 years ago through the FFF. If Ukraine had won in the playoffs, we'd have tickets to follow Ukraine. He was originally going to go with my step mom, but she didn't really love the idea of roughing it, or going to games, and hanging out in cities, so she suggested he go with me. I happily obliged. Well, all this talk of Sao Paolo makes me hope that France places 2nd in the group, especially since that would likely lead to a tasty France-Argentina tie. I'm not super worried about crime as both me and my dad have a tendency to blend-in almost anywhere we go, and we're not going to bring anything we're too attached to. We head from locals that it's better to travel with a photocopy of your passport than the actual thing itself, and it's not a bad idea to have a dummy wallet with 50 reales and a some bullshit cards you can just hand over, just incase.
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Feb 27, 2014 07:11
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Armagnac posted:I'm not super worried about crime as both me and my dad have a tendency to blend-in almost anywhere we go, and we're not going to bring anything we're too attached to. We head from locals that it's better to travel with a photocopy of your passport than the actual thing itself, and it's not a bad idea to have a dummy wallet with 50 reales and a some bullshit cards you can just hand over, just incase.
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Mar 3, 2014 21:59
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Anybody have any tips on Manaus? My friend and I are catching two games up there because it was the only spot in the country we were practically guaranteed tickets.
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Mar 9, 2014 22:53
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Saltin posted:This is what I do in Rio too. The fake mugging wallet. Also, assuming you are two white Europeans, you will not blend in at all. Just keep your head screwed on and leave the valuables behind and you'll be fine. I've never been to Rio, but everyone I know from southern Brazil is white as gently caress (albeit tan). Maybe just because they're the ones rich enough to leave the country, but I kind of generally had the impression that the upper-middle and upper class Brazilians were like 70% totally white European looking. I kind of think they'd only not blend in if they went to favelas or something.
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Mar 11, 2014 17:41
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With regards to food, don't miss out on Moquecas (a type of stew) while in Salvador. When people think of Brazilian food they generally think of feijoada or barbecue, but the truth is that the food in Bahia is mostly different types of seafood and it is absolutely delicious.
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Mar 19, 2014 02:52
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Saladman posted:I've never been to Rio, but everyone I know from southern Brazil is white as gently caress (albeit tan). Maybe just because they're the ones rich enough to leave the country, but I kind of generally had the impression that the upper-middle and upper class Brazilians were like 70% totally white European looking. I kind of think they'd only not blend in if they went to favelas or something. The native upper middle and upper class in Rio generally look like European Portuguese/Spanish. There are fifty million shades of brown/tan/whatever in Rio, but honest to god the only white anglo people I met are expats. When you stand on the streets there if you are a white anglo pasty dude like me you stick out.
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Mar 19, 2014 15:47
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Saltin posted:The native upper middle and upper class in Rio generally look like European Portuguese/Spanish. There are fifty million shades of brown/tan/whatever in Rio, but honest to god the only white anglo people I met are expats. When you stand on the streets there if you are a white anglo pasty dude like me you stick out. It's not only about skin shade. Brazilian fashion and body language are distinctive enough from the US and Europe that even in Porto Alegre, home to a huge population of Polish and German descent, it is very easy to tell who is Brazilian and who isn't.
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Mar 19, 2014 19:05
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I've spent some time in Brazil. It's a wonderful country, but as others said, you do need to be more aware when walking around. If you have an intuitive 'Sketchy' meter it will definitely help. It saved a friend and me from being mugged when when decided to not take a little trail from a beach in Búzios, and we watched two guys coming out saying they got mugged from a guy with a machete a few minutes later. On another trip, it helped us recognize something was about to go down and to seek cover when CORE Police had a ten minute firefight a block away in the Pavão-Pavãozinho Favella. The favella is butted up a half block away from the main road in Copacabana, and it's easy to go from middle class to absolute poverty before you know it. The Favellas have kids watch out for Police and you can hear several fireworks go off when they start the raid. They also do this for football matches; so try to keep tabs of when a game is being played. Keep an internal pocket in your shorts with a copy of your passport, cash and phone. An external wallet or just a clip with an expired ID, a small amount of cash and expired cards is a great idea. The only time I ended up wearing an internal pocket was during Carnival. Two of my Brazillian friends did not do this and had their cell phones stolen. With all the influx of people for the World Cup, it's a good idea to wear it daily. Not to try scare you from visiting, but you do need to be on a bit more of an alert. Tropa de Elite and City of God are pretty good primers into the sketchy world of Rio. The historic center of Salvador is a great visit. There are over 365 churches and Salvador is one of the oldest cities in the western hemisphere. It was founded sometime in the 1500s and the architecture and traditions from African and Portuguese descendants mix in an amazing way. You do need to be a bit more aware in Salvador than Rio. Unlike Rio, which has its Favellas on the outskirts and grouped together, the whole city is a mix of massive apartment complexes and Favellas. The historic center can be described as a bit rough, too. As far as the language, you'll be in good shape with all the languages your group can speak. Learn as much Brazilian Portuguese as you can, but a lot of people speak Spanish. Quite a few people would be offended if you try to speak only Spanish to them; so, get the basics down. If you find yourself lost for a word and default to Spanish, most people can understand you. The pronunciation and dialects change quite a bit over the country. From Rio de Janerio and North, the 'd' characters have more of a 'j' accent. For instance, bom dia is bone jee'ah. From the Sao Paulo south, they have more of a 'd' pronunciation with bone dee'ah. You'll be understood in both areas with either pronunciation, but it will throw you off when people start pronouncing things like de boa as jee bowah. If you are into architecture, go to Brasilia. São Paulo can be a bit boring if you don't know any locals to take you to the cool spots in town. With food, I'm a huge fan of Bahian Cuisine. You need to try moqueca and farofa with rice. Its an amazing dish, but be prepared for the ensuing food coma that comes with a heavy meal. Rio has amazing international foods and some of the best Sushi that I've ever eaten. Most of the small shops will have a tiny TV or Radio, and you can catch the game that way. I don't remember too many typical western style sports bars with TV's everywhere. I do think you could find something close at a place called Stalos thats located at the corner of Xavier and Senhora de Copacabana in Rio. Also, expect some things to work half the time, and some non-professional employees in the north. People working will have a conversation about their weekend or the girlfriend to another co worker while a huge queue builds up. It's a Bahian thing. All said, Brazil is an amazing country and worth any risks. edit: Also be prepared to take multiple showers a day or risk having the locals calling you a stinky gringo. Entone fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Mar 25, 2014 |
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Mar 25, 2014 15:46
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I just wanted to post here to say that if any goons are in Belo Horizonte for the world cup, feel free to contact me. My family lives a couple of blocks from the stadium and I will be staying with them for the duration. I will be attending 5 of the 6 games there as well, so if people have a hard time figuring out the city, or just want to grab a cold beer before the game, let me know.
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Jun 8, 2014 01:48
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| # ? May 18, 2024 02:37 |
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How was everybody's trips?
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Jul 3, 2014 08:22
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