Yesterday I met Renato's good friend Paulo, his wife Patricia and her friends Fernanda and Vanessa. Patricia took me to the girls' night out with her friends - they are wonderful girls!! We went to a samba school which is close to the centre of Rio, in Salgueiro. Unfortunately I didn't enjoy it... For me it was a samba disco with fat men shouting in the microphones on the stage and drunk men trying to have a dance (dance in their definition). I don't dance with drunk men so I was standing there, dancing samba a little bit but it was too crowded and loud to really enjoy the experience. So at least I know now, samba schools are not for me!! Apparently it was a very good one, it won last year's carnival competition. The girls told me that samba schools are like football teams, they compete at the carnival and have their fans who support them, just like in football. Right after the carnival, schools start preparing for the next year's carnival.
We had some interesting conversations in the car, for example the girls explained to me what motel in Brazil is. I believed it was a cheaper version of hotel, but how wrong I was... Motel is for couples who look for intimacy and as they are not married and live with families, they can't really meet anywhere else. The girls admitted they all went to motels.
The average time is 6 hours in a motel and there are different standards. Some rooms are with jacuzzi, some with mirrors on the walls, some are cheap and basic. In Brasilia, which is a region where the capital of Brasil is, there are some motels with machines instead of receptionists - so if a politician wants to go there, there is no embarassment, you just speak to the machine and it gives you a ticket and room number for the selected hours. Hmmmm...