Carnival in the U.S.A.!

Who said that we would not have “Carnaval” here in the U.S.A.!

Carnaval (or Carnival in English) is the biggest popular celebration in Brazil. It’s a 4 day party, starting on Friday and finishing on Tuesday and in some places like Bahia the end of Carnival is not until Wednesday. Here, it was different. The party started Friday at 10 p.m. and finished at 2 a.m. It was short, but it was still very good.

The Carnival was in Champaign, a city with a good size college (University of Illinois). The host bar was Radio Maria, downtown. The place was crowded!

My wife and I went there with another Brazilian couple, and as soon as we arrived, even before we entered the bar, we heard Rio’s funk. It was a strange way to start the Carnival (Where was the samba?).

Shortly after we entered, around 11:00 p.m. the samba and axé music started. Instead of a band they had a DJ playing the songs. The guy mixed different kinds of Brazilian music, from Rio’s funk to axé to Sertanejo.

Another positive point was the number of Brazilian people inside the bar. I didn’t know that Champaign has a lot of Brazilian students. It was easy to listen to Portuguese there. We stayed until the end, exactly 2:00 a.m.

I think we need to visit Champaign more often to meet other Brazilians!