There is a pretty good choice of TV stations here. There are a number of national channels which have local news and magazine content and countless cable and satellite options. Flavia has cable supplied by a local company who provide various packages depending on your interests and how much you want to spend.

A lot of the entertainment is almost the same as in Europe but in Portuguese. We have shopping channels, premium movies, cartoons, MTV, Discovery Channel lots of old movie channels, religion, three sports, and endless regurgitated old serials, CNN (in English as well as Portuguese), Fox News, Bloomberg etc. The similarity is probably because it is the same multinational companies controlling the media. Rupert Murdoch is here with Sky TV, various US corporations and Globo which is the Brazilian equivalent of Murdoch’s News International Corp.

There are some interesting differences.  There are three channels showing live debates in the legislative chambers of the State Government, The Senate and The Chamber of Deputies. There are also two channels which seem to show cattle and horse auctions 24 hours a day. There is no general news and entertainment  station dealing with Just Vila Velha or Greater Vitoria.

One interesting feature is the University Channel. The three local universities have a joint channel where all content is created by them. Each university creates its own content and has several one hour slots each day. The programs are anything from infomercials touting for new students, concerts and recitals, experimental projects by students, university news and productions as part of academic courses in journalism, TV production, music etc.

The other unusual item is the  legal channel which is the house journal for lawyers. It all looks pretty serius stuff with endless discussions of current legal affairs. It does not show trials.

Foreigners are reasonably well provided for. We receive the overseas or news versions of the main TV channel of the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Germany, and Portugal plus CNN and Fox News in English.. TV programs are all dubbed but movies are mostly shown in their original languages and sub-titles.

The Brazilian TV and movie industry is big and they produce a wide variety of programs. A lot of familiar formats with a Portuguese accent are here. Local versions of Big Brother, X Factor, The Apprentice and many others are popular. Soaps are just as important as anywhere else and the current big hit is about an extended family based in both Brazil and India. Churrasco and saris make an exotic combination.  Of course soccer is an obsession here and I  could (but don’t) watch the big matches of the week from a dozen different countries.

So, as with many things, Brazil is much like any other country.

Several things this week have made me think about noise in Brazil, especially the sound levels of music. Certainly it is no worse than Spain which I find to be a very noisy country and it is probably no worse than in England but there are some differences.

The cult of the noisy motor cycle that plagues Spain does not seem to exist. There the youngsters compensate for their lack of horse power by disabling most of the silencing. The rock concerts and clubs here are as loud as anywhere but they do not over-amplify the calmer music like Jazz or soft rock. What does surprise me is the neighbouring building about 30 metres away. Half a dozen time a year they have a party with very load music starting about 4pm on a Sunday and lasting for five or six hours. It is very hard to make yourself heard in maybe 50 or 60 apartments. I wonder if anyone complains.

On Friday evening the annual Romaria or pilgrimage of Nossa Senhora da Penha took place. This involved some 12,000 people walking 14km in a procession. We watched for around an hour and I was very impressed but the “trio elétrico”. This is a large lorry fitted with a stage, amplifiers, light show and and speakers the size of small cars. They are mainly used in the carnivals but can be rented at any time of year. Unfortunately I did not have my camera handy but the general idea seems to be to make your ears bleed and turn your liver into water. This will give you the general idea

On a similar note we went away for the weekend to eat sururu in Iriri – I just had to say that, it rolls off the tongue so well. Sururu is the Portuguese for mussels and Iriri is a very nice beach resort about 85km south of here. We had just got comfortable on the beach when this Jeep rolled up. Young Brazilian men are just as likely to have million decibel sound systems in their cars as any other young men. They are very generous and like to share their music with the whole world; they are probably in a hurry as they will be totally deaf in a few years. This character took his fetish to another dimension. We moved away but even 100 metres away it was loud.

This week nothing much happened so I will just point out a few things they do differently here. Some are better, some worse and some just different. Some are quite important and others trivial and they are in no particular order.

On the road
Traffic lights have two red lights; presumably to allow for a broken bulb.
Cats eyes (the studs in the road) are four times the size of European ones. They really do encourage lane discipline as nobody wants to drive over them.
Speed bumps (known here as suspension breakers) are like mini mountains and often quite well concealed. I think that these account for the almost complete absence of low slung sports cars.
Speed cameras are everywhere. On the edge of town they are just before traffic lights, at the lights and again 100 metres later. Speed up to almost catch the lights on green and you can get three fines in 20 seconds.

In the shops
Pharmacies will often deliver medicines at trivial cost. They open seven days a week and late in the evening, there seems to be one in every street competing strongly on price. Not many medicines seem to need prescriptions. Judging from the number of pharmacies and the queues in some it is safe to assume that Brazilians really like medicine.
Supermarkets always have someone at the till to put your shopping into bags. Often they will also push the trolley to the car. Usually there is free coffee (near the coffee shelves) and often also cheese, salami and other promoted products.
Tradesmen have little shops and can fix watches, phones, printers, TVs, washing machines, toasters and all the things Europeans tend to throw away when they break after the guarantee period finishes. You can buy the exact number of screws you need at the screw shop. It can be cheaper to get a dress made to measure than buy a known brand.

Apartment blocks
Security is paramount and almost all the buildings in middle class areas have 24 hour guards and high walls. Nobody gets in or out without the guard’s permission.
Shared facilities are common here. Flavia’s apartment, like mine in Spain, is around 30 years old and has much more land than more modern blocks. The neighbours share a basketball court, two barbecue areas, pool and changing rooms, beach volleyball (which is a bit derelict) and a room for parties and meetings. The underground garage has an area for storing bikes and a compressor for tyres and lilos. Newer buildings often have no land at all but the ground and first floors have barbecues, party rooms, gymnasium, sauna etc.
Apartment sizes are much larger than in Europe. 120 square metres is small and 150 to 200 is very common. Penthouses are as large as 600. There are some smaller apartments but not many.
Maids room and service area and kitchen. Often take up to 50 metres (my apartment in Spain is 75 metres) They all have a large cupboard without windows called the maid’s room. Even a London estate agent would be too embarrassed to call it a bedroom. There is a tiny bathroom with a shower over the lavatory. There is also a large scullery with laundry sink, washing machine, clothes line tumble dryer etc. Nobody I have met has a resident maid and it does strike me as a terrible waste of space.
A chimney over a metre square goes up the centre of the buildings and internal bathrooms have windows into the chimney. Some people have also put in windows from the kitchen. This can add up to a very interesting combination of sounds and smells wafting between apartments. The bathroom door must always be kept closed!
Dogs and cats are allowed but their feet must not touch communal areas. They have to be carried from the apartment front door to the street. This accounts for the large numbers of toy Poodles and absence of Great Danes. The Brazilian pet owners are much better than Europeans at clearing up the mess their dogs make on the pavements.

Bureaucracy
It is terrible! A bit like Spain 20 years ago (and England in 10 years’ time?). So far I have not had much to do with it but recently read that it takes 50 pieces of paper to start a new business and you should allow six months for the formalities. According to a TV program this week many legal processes are still open 20 years after starting

Food
Staples are rice and beans. Flavia says that it is correct to serve rice at any meal unless pasta is served. I think I would add that it is probably also correct to eat beans whenever rice is served unless fish is part of the dish. Bread is mostly eaten for breakfast in little french rolls. If you can afford it it is with butter cheese and ham. Plenty of potatoes are sold but french fries are not often served in restaurants. My roast potatoes (with beef and yorkshire pudding) went down very well.
Restaurants In previous posts I have talked about self service restaurants which I love. Mostly these are open for lunch only. In the evenings they become conventional restaurants or cafe/bars. A meal is often three times the price we pay for lunch for two and is big enough for three or even four people. This is very restricting when you are a couple. If there are more people you have to all agree on what to eat. Smaller portions are often available but it is not cheaper to have two small portions than one mega-meal

That is it for this week. sorry, no pics as I could not think of much that would go with this article. We have just booked two weeks vacation in Salvador, Bahia starting on 31st May. This is a very interesting city, the third biggest in Brazil with wonderful beaches all around and beaten for life, music and art only by Rio.

We arrived in the evening and Flavia’s cousin Monica met us at the airport and insisted on driving us around the centre of the city and showing us the floodlit buildings.

This is by far the best time of day to get a brilliant first impression of the city. It really is spectacular and is worth the long trip just for this.

Brasilia was conceived a long time ago but in the early 1950s President Kubitschek appointed Lúcio Costa as the urban planner and Oscar Niemeyer as the architect to realise the dream of a new capital city. Even 49 years after the inauguration of the city centre it still looks very contemporary, spacious and uncrowded. The clever layout of the city meant that originally there were no traffic lights at all. There are a few now and occasionally the pedestrian wishes that there were more as he ponders crossing six lanes of traffic between him and his destination.

The original design was for a city of half a million people. There are now five times that plus another couple of million in nearby satellite cities. The concept was a city shaped roughly like a bird or aeroplane. The cockpit and front fusilage is the centre of government and is the equivalent of Westminster and Whitehall in London. The rear fusilage houses lots of different sectors such as banking, hotels, embassies, churches, medicine etc. The two wings are residential laid out to a strict formula with wide roads, lots of open spaces, and easy access to local shopping, entertainment, schools and all the requirements of modern life.

Around this is a very large artificial Lake Paranoá (not paranoia) which fulfills three functions: reservoir, leisure and humidifying what used to be a very dry atmosphere. The city is on a plain one thousand metres high which gives it a very nice climate, not often too hot or too cold and two seasons: wet and dry.

I loved the city and my only reservation is that many of the buildings are in need of maintenance or restoration. For example the cathedral is a brilliant concept, looks wonderful from a distance at night but closer inspection shows that a lot of the stained glass is broken and missing. Similarly the Praça dos Três Poderes (Portuguese for Square of the Three Powers) In the words of wikipedia :
“The name is derived from the encounter of the three federal branches around the plaza: the Executive, represented by the Palácio do Planalto (presidential office); the Legislative, represented by the Congresso Nacional (National Congress); and the Judicial branch, represented by the Supremo Tribunal Federal (Supreme Federal Court)”. For more information see here

All this sounds wonderful except that the square now looks a bit bleak and one of the Niemeyer buildings is permanently closed. It is a brave man who orders the demolition of a Niemeyer building but this will have to happen to some of them. Even though it is a United Nations World Heritage Site the occasional bad building will have to make way for a new one.

On a more personal note it was a very nice trip. Once again Flavia’s extended family were very hospitable. Monica is a doctor but the morning after we arrived she went off on a course and returned a few hours before we left. We looked after the cat in lieu of rent. Her flat is very conveniently located for the city centre being a 15 minutes bus ride. The taxis are reasonably priced and all fares are on the meter so getting around was not a problem. The centre is very hard on the feet as the buildings are often a long way apart.

May 1st was a national holiday and there was a big party in the square under the TV transmitter mast. This is a little like the Eiffel Tower and there is an elevator to a viewing platform 75 metres high. This is well worth a visit to get the best view of the city. We did not attend the party but saw it on TV. The City Hall provided a very big churrasco with lots of live music all free of charge. Tens of thousands of the poorer people attended and had a fine time. During the day teams of dentists, doctors, hairdressers, masseurs, manicurists and other personal care professionals gave free services to all comers. Some people queued for five or six hours.

We met up with Flavia’s cousin Marcelo and his wife Juliana who is expecting their first child. He is a Lt Col in the army and recently arrived in Brasilia after a couple of years in Guatemala. We went to the leisure sector around the lake and enjoyed a tropical storm while having lunch in one of the many restaurants. It is a very beautiful area spoiled only by yet another handicrafts market for Flavia to spend too much time and money

Talking of markets we also went to the very big imported goods market (popularly known as Feira do Paraguai). Much as I hate shopping I was impressed. It is very large and seems to sell just about anything you can carry. I was surprised at the extensive pirated software openly on sale. Even in Bangkok they are not quite so open. I was not tempted as it was all for Windows and almost free is too high a price for me.

I think I might start being more polite about TAM. The tickets were paid for with air miles and my trip to Brazil from London was enough for two return tickets. The flights were on time and without incident. The only complaint is that the outward journey had a three hour stopover in Belo Horizonte turning a two hour journey into nearly six hours. If anyone comes to Brazil with TAM make sure that you first register with their frequent flyer scheme.

It is easy to ramble on for hours as there is so much there. I had better stop now.

PS

I forgot the The Juscelino Kubitschek Bridge. It is a recent addition and totally in the spirit of Brasilia. There are lots of very nice new buildings complementing the older ones.

The other day I went next door to see Flavia’s mother. As it was a weekday at 10.30am I was surprised to see her ten year old grandson Hugo there watching TV. They explained to me that he only went to school in the afternoons from 1.00 to 5.40. Older children attend the same school but from 7am to 11.40.

There are similar arrangement at the University where Flavia’s daughter studies, this depends on the course, demand, facilities etc Last year Jana attended in the afternoons and evenings while other students study in the mornings. This has the obvious advantage of using the teaching facilities much more intensively than in Britain. The other advantage is that it allows students to take either morning or afternoon jobs to finance their studies. These hours can certainly help the parents of younger children who want to work part time.

In Brazil there is the system of “Lei do Estágio” or the law that covers the work experience for those in higher education. Students are required to work part time in employment related to their degrees. It is a similar idea to the British “industrial year” but the students work for four hours a day and study during the rest of the day. They receive the minimum wage and insurance cover but no employment protection. This idea might not go down well with British students as the Brazilians do not have nearly so much time for beer, sex and rock & roll.

So far I do not fully understand the system but can see that it works in different ways. I have heard of estagiarios who refuse to do any work at all because they have good family connections. Others seem to work hard and learn a bit about the world outside of academia. No doubt some are treated as a source of cheap labour. The work is supposed to be supervised and relevant to the subject being studied but it is not always easy to meet the requirements of the employer and the university. It seems to be a system that would be worth studying in Britain. Certainly the idea behind the system is excellent even if it does not always work as well as it should.

The other striking difference in education here is the vast number courses for adults. Most civil servants and other public employees have strong financial incentives to study. Most people seem to be doing some sort of course to accumulate more points to enable them to move to the next pay grade. This does lead to a very well educated work force.

The problem is that a lot of the study is totally pointless. Flavia scours the internet for suitable courses. Recently she found an advanced course in Portuguese punctuation and accents (which can be very tricky) which gave credit for 40 hours of study. Being very well educated she and several colleagues signed up and paid for the course and took the tests after a few hours of revision. They passed and the cost of the course will be more than repaid by the salary increase. A few years ago she studied very hard for five years to obtain a law degree. One would think that The Appeal Court might find some way of using the law degree of one of its administrators. She is in the same job as before – but with a higher salary. It seems so wasteful.

We have just come back from Brasilia where we spent the May 1st holiday weekend. As soon as I have time I will write an article about it.