Arrived in Rio! Go Samba on pause until April 2023.


I'm in Brazil for 6 months improving my Portuguese and playing as well as learning about the culture. I'll be sharing experiences, photos and videos here so stay tuned! During this time the retail part of Go Samba will be on pause. Thank you for your patience!

View from my the first place I'm staying. That's Pão de Açúcar there in the background. And one of my favorite plants, Bougainvillea, in the foreground.

This is the view from the first place I'm staying. That's Pão de Açúcar there in the background and one of my favorite plants Bougainvillea in the foreground. 

Living in Brazil for 6 months has been a dream of mine for a while. I've been slowly saving my pennies over the last 5 years to make this happen. Before I left people who don't really know me asked "Oh, you're going to Brazil for 6 months... What's his name?" Which is a little disappointing that people would think that the only reason that I'd be going for this long would be for a dude. But for the folks who know me they know and have seen how I have been setting up my life to make this happen for myself. 

I decided to get an AirBnB for the first month that I'm here even though it is a more expensive route to go but I wanted the peace of mind of having a place to stay when I got here. The plan was, once I'm here I would then look for an apartment by word of mouth. But a friend helped hook me up with an apartment being rented out by his neighbor before I even left, so it all worked out.

If you're thinking about taking a longer trip here you can use AirBnB or if you speak Portuguese the site olx.com.br (which is kinda like the Craigslist here) can be useful. 

 I brought a 360 degree camera with me. This is me trying it out and showing my place to folks at home. 

Açai and a coffee!

Açai and coffee. I'm not much of one for food pics but...

Election season is hot

I arrived in the middle of the hot election season. Voting starts today. Everyone is telling me to stay at home today in case of protests. I'll go for a run this morning but stay at home the rest of today. 

Michel Beija Flor

I got to meet one of my favorite repique mor players at Batuque Digital, Michel from Beija Flor! I'm hoping to get a private lesson on repique mor here in the next week or so. Beija Flor is where the repique mor got started, and Michel is one of the masters!

Mestre Rodney from Beija Flor Samba school

I also had the pleasure of meeting Mestre Rodney from Beija Flor. He taught a workshop at Batuque Digital. He's really well known for his ability to tune a bateria. Everyone lauds the tuning of Beija Flor's bateria and a lot of that is due to Mestre Rodney.

Thats a little of what I've done in the first few days here. 
Let me know if you all have any questions!

 


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