Jack Soul Brasileiro

Just a cool soundtrack for the weekend... This is a very cool song by a brazilian singer (Lenine. He was actually born in Recife, where I come from) which is very famous also in France. Last year he did a major tour in Europe and one of the concerts in Paris was filmed and released as a DVD called In Cité. A must have!!!!!

Enjoy it, and have a nice university break!

Still talking about my country

I found this television ad that shows a little bit of Pernambuco's attractions: the beaches and the Carnival. And the soundtrack is the regional's anthem sung as a frevo (which is a kind of music typic from Carnival)!!!

Soundtrack for the last post

Recife, the Brazilian Venice

Since I mentioned Recife at my last post, I thought it would be interesting to give some other informations about where I come from.

Recife is the second largest city in the Northeastern Region of Brazil, the largest metropolitan area and one of the most important cultural, economic, political and science-minded city in this Region. It is the fifth largest metropolitan area in Brazil and the capital of Pernambuco.

Surrounded by rivers and crossed by bridges, Recife is full of islands and mangroves that magnify its geography. It is known as the Brazilian Venice, thanks to its fluvial resemblance with the European city, and is considered one of Brazil's cultural capitals.

But I think that the most famous thing frm Recife is our Carnival.. But this is a theme for another post.

Enjoy your weekend!


(you can read more at Wikipedia)

"The biggest anything" syndrome

The idea for this post came to my mind while I was reading a newspaper from Recife (the city where I grew up in Brazil). In ten pages I saw "the biggest", "the greates", "the best" associated so many times a local manifestations and personalities that is difficult not to laugh thinking how big is your ego... =) Well, we have some reasons to be proud of our history, but sometimes it's too much!

Here below I show you 3 reasons to be proud of... And one not to.


The biggest Carnival manifestation :


The cities of Recife and Olinda hold the most authentic and democratic carnaval celebrations in Brazil. But the largest carnaval in all of Brazil is Galo da Madrugada, which takes place in downtown Recife in the Saturday of carnaval. More than 1.5 million people smash each other to follow the eletric "trios" and dance the frevo!!! (consider that there are 1.515.053 people residing in the city and 3.646.204 people in Metropolitan Area)


The biggest indoor arena for concerts (in Latin America):



The Chevrolet Hall has a 2700o m2 area, 1000 m2 only for the stage!!!

The richest ecosystem in the world:


The mangrove is a very complex and rich ecosystem on which we can find the largest variety of vegetal and animal species per m2. A mangal is a plant community and habitat where mangroves thrive. They are found in tropical and sub-tropical tidal areas, and as such have a high degree of salinity. Areas where mangals occur include estuaries and marine shorelines.

A curious thing is that we can find mangroves all over the world, but it is so typic in Recife that we even have a cultural movement that took inspiration from it. It was created circa 1991 in reaction to the cultural and economical stagnation of the city. The movement largely focuses on music, with the result being a mixture of local traditional styles such as maracatu and ciranda) with the imported culture of the MTV generation (rock, rap and hip-hop). The original movement named itself mangue bit, mangue referring to Recife's mangroves and bit to the computer bit central to the movement's electronic music influences.


The biggest unemployement rate from all Brazilian capital citiesl:

Such a shame. 16,5% of the population in Recife doesn't have a job. And the worst is that lots of experts say that if we used our touristic potential in a structured and organized way, we could arrive at 8 or 9% only.

Reverend & The Makers @ Berlin

Ok, this will be a "tourism/music/gastronomy" post. =)

The thing is, I can't dissociate Berlin from all the great food I ate and the concerts I went! And since I'm going to be there the 3rd November, I thought it would be great to comment my programme for the weekend:

First of all, the "Reverend and the Makers" concert. They're a new group from England, and they remind me of early Depeche Mode. At their mySpace site you can listen to 4 songs; "Heavyweight champion" is my favorite one. The concert will take place at the Lido, a small club that used to be a cinema.

And then, well, I'll be in Kreuzberg, so... Mini-pizza + ice cream + T-shirts + books, so I think that I'll come back to Geneva absolutely poor ("I'll work for food"!!). =)

Emo

I'm still feeling very emotional, as you can guess by this little picture above. It's hard not to feel nostalgic about home after spending 20 days in there, among my family and friends (and, wow, we have summer down there!).

Well, if anyone is interested in discovering where I come from, the Embratur's (the Official Agency for Tourism) is a great place to start. They have pictures and infos about Brazil, its cultural's manisfestations, itineraries and so on.

And just to make you dream of beach and sun, here's a picture of Recife, where I live:

"The slowest train in the world"

You might imagine that, being a Brazilian, my entire body shivers just to imagine the snow that is to come during winter... Brrrr!!! And you can deduce that I'd be the latest person on Earth to organize a trip to the Alps, in the middle of the snow!

Well, you're wrong: this winter I'm truly motivated to take the so-called "slowest train in the world" (The Glacier Express, by the way) and amaze myself with the outrageous panorama. And don't worry, I'll be comfortably sit inside the train, where is warm enough!

In fact, here are some informations about the two circuits proposed by the Rhätische Bahn:

The Glacier Express: Goes from Zermatt to St. Moritz and vice versa."Pass at 2’033 metres in altitude. A panoramic trip through the Alps in the heart of Switzerland.he Glacier Express travels a beautiful route between the sights of the Graubünden holiday region, the sunny Valais region with its glacier landscape, and the beautiful regions of the South." Don't you feel tempted????






The Bernina Express: "The greatest alpine delight in Graubünden: There is twice as much to see as before along one of the most beautiful railway routes in the world - on board the Rhaetian Railway panorama coach. The journey begins in Chur, continues along the Albula route into the Engadine and keeps on going - without cogwheels - over the Bernina Pass down to southerly Valposchiavo, over the spiralling viaduct at Brusio and on to Tirano."


Aren't they cool, these small red trains?

Berlin to eat =)

Hello everyone!
I'll not only talk about things I've been doing in Switzerland, but also in my trips to the countries nearby (specially Germany, personal interests...). Yesterday I was chatting with a friend and she asked me about nice places to eat in Berlin, so here are some indications:

Rasas - Indian Restaurant
A cosy and pretty atmosphère just in the middle of Charlottenburg. I have really good memories of my wanderings and walkings through this neighbourhood, and it's natural that you get hungry after all this exercise so... Enjoy it!!!! (I strongly recommend the Khumbi Gosht - lamb with mushrooms in a spicy sauce)

Brasserie Desbrosses @ Ritz Carlton
Don't get amazed, it's a restaurant inside the 5-star hotel Ritz Carlton, but it's still affordable (specially if you go there for lunch and ask for one of the menus). Perfect for impressioning your girlfriend - and still having some money left at the end to pay the parking. I had the baked goat cheese on rocket leaves with roasted pine nuts, roasted beef with bacon served with vegetables and 2 sauces (it's only made for 2 people!) and mille feuille of caramelized apple with ice cream and passionfruit sorbet... Unforgettable (and it costed us 90 euros for 2 people)! And if you can still walk after eating, you're at Potsdamer Platz - cinema, theaters, shopping, it's all there!

Yellow Sunshine
A healthier alternative to all the Berliner's Currywurst: go grab a vegetarian one! (and I mean it, it's hard to believe that there's no meat inside Yellow Sunshine's wurst) The menu is 100% vegan, bio, eco, and even the energy they use is environment-friendly! I chose the Vegan Cheeseburger with french fries, freshly made orange juice and a chocolate muffin for dessert. Enjoy also a walk through Oranienstraße and Wienerstraße, it's a very indie neighbourhood with lots of small cafés, artists and shops (I fell in love with some T-shirts there - still have to go back to Berlin to buy them!).

Back to the action

Nice weekend: cinema, hedonism and nature!
This beautiful picture you see is from "Le Salève", where I went to yesterday. I had to go to France to have this amazing view of Geneva and the lake, but it was worthy: the fresh air, the sun, the quietness really recharged me, now I'm ready for another "brain-killing" week!
For more informations about the Salève, just click here.

Ideas for the weekend

Here I am again with my texts and my ideas. This time I wanted to talk about thing to do in Geneva this weekend and I had absolutely no idea of what to write when I received this e-mail from one of the Master's participants talking about the Short Films' Night (check out the programme here). My hero!!! It was really what I needed now, a nice evening by the cinemascope lights, just trying to get inside the caracter's lives, toughts, feelings... So, see you there???

A great song from Depeche Mode!

Welcome to my blog!

Hello everyone!
Due to my first "Internet and new Technologies" class I'm supposed to create and administrate a personal blog, thing I've never thought of before (prejudice or laziness, I still don't know). I hope you enjoy reading what I'm going to post here during the next days (in English, so that everyone can understand it). I'll try to give you a glince of my life in Switzerland, places I see, people I meet and so on... Hoping that it won't be as boring as it sounds!
And for a nice start, here's a cartoon that can explains my mood on these days... I'm feeling very very emotional, even with automatic doors.
See you at the next post!