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On the Avenue - Strolling São Paulo's Main Drag
Photo © Michael Sommers.
If you had told me 10 years ago that in the midst of January I might long for a change from hot sunny weather, tropical beaches, and festas galore, I would have said you were nuts.
Call me louco (some of my friends did), but after two months of beach-sprawling, festa-
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Pastéis in the Rain
Photo © Michael Sommers.
I’m still in São Paulo, which is being subjected to precipitation of epic proportions. According to the cover story of this week’s Veja (the Brazilian equivalent of Time magazine), over the last 40 days more rain has fallen in Sampa than in the last 63 yea
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Brazil Scores Big with Museu de Futebol
Photo © Michael Sommers.
Ever since I heard friends – female friends, female friends who hate soccer – rave about Brazil’s spanking new Museu de Futebol, I’ve been dying to visit the place. The Museu de Futebol is located in São Paulo’s Estádio do Pacaembu, a fab
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Brazilians Shun Film in Favor of the Real Lula
Photo © Michael Sommers.
They say that art imitates life. It thus stands to reason that as Lula, head of the Brazilian government, enters the final year of his presidency with approval ratings of over 70 percent, a feature film about Lula’s life should be breaking box office records. Ho
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Campos do Jordão: Brazil's Switzerland
Photo © Michael Sommers.
One of Paulistanos’ favorite getaways from the big city is Campos do Jordão (literal translation: Fields of Jordan). Only 2 hours away from São Paulo by car (3 hours by bus if you happen not to own a car – which is not the case of most people who frequent “
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Nothing Could be Piner
Photo © Michael Sommers.
One of the things I was most looking forward to seeing when I made my recent trip to the Serra da Mantiqueira was the rare and unusual araucaria tree. A native of the mountains and high planes of southern Brazil, the araucaria angustifolia (to go by its full official
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Reacting to Black Orpheus
Photo © Michael Sommers.
I’m ashamed to confess to that up until a week ago I had never seen one of the most iconic Brazilian films of all time: Orfeu Negro (Black Orpheus). Actually, the film was a Franco/Italian/Brazilian co-production. French director Marcel Camus’ screenplay (
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To Give… Or Not to Give… (Is that the Question?)
Photo © Michael Sommers.
I’m back in my adopted hometown of Salvador after close to 6 weeks in São Paulo, and as usual I’m suffering from a bit of culture shock. Although in some ways Brazil is quite unified, in other ways it’s so crazily diverse that traveling from one state, region, or even
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Street Sweets: Cocadas and Bolinhos de Estudante
Photo © Michael Sommers.
A friend of mine spent a weekend on the “Ilha” (i.e the Ilha de Itaparica– the long, narrow island only a ferry-boat away from Salvador across the Bay of All Saints) and brought me back a very sweet gift: cocada. Actually he brought me 6 of them (pictured above). Alth
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Escape to Toque Toque (São Paulo)
Photo © Michael Sommers.
One of the most interesting aspects of traveling around and researching a travel guide such as Moon Brazil is the stories one comes across of people who unexpectedly, and sometimes radically, abandon “conventional” lives in search of alternative ones. Often, this entails t
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Escape to Toque (Alagoas)
Photo © Michael Sommers.
It was only when I finished writing my last blog entry, Escape to Toque Toque (São Paulo), that an interesting coincidence dawned upon me: only a few months ago, I had escaped to another remote and paradise-worthy beach by the name of Toque in Brazil – only the Toque in qu
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One Last Escape (Alagoas)
Photo © Michael Sommers.
In the past two blog posts, I’ve focused on trips to Brazilian pousadas owned by people who abandoned conventional lives for the lure of setting up shop in a secluded patch of paradise. This third (and final) post in this “series” centers on a woman who has not only transf
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Favela Rising in Brazil
Photo © Michael Sommers.
Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva is the latest to endorse the growing phenomenon of Rio’s “ favela tourism” – a trend that has generated lots of debate (the concept of “touring” favelas has both fierce proponents and critics) and which I explore at some lengt
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The Lap of Luxury in Brazil
Photo © Michael Sommers.
Recently I landed what many people (including me) would consider to be a dream gig – reviewing luxury hotels in Brazil for an American-based site called Luxury Latin America.com. Naturally, reviewing a luxury hotel means getting to stay in a luxury hotel, something that mo
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What Do Passover and Pernambuco Have in Common? Fluden!
Photo © Michael Sommers.
The other day, my mother sent me an e-mail entitled “fluden!!!”, in which she declared, triumphantly, that she had succeeded in tracking down a recipe for the perfect Passover dessert. For those of you who haven’t a clue what it is, fluden is a traditional Jewish sweet (al
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Brazil’s Moving Up in the World
Photo © Michael Sommers.
When I first moved to Brazil over a decade ago, the expressions “First World” and “Third World” were frequently bandied about: not only in the media, but among people in their day-to-day conversations.
Journalists were constantly decrying Brazil’s shameful signs of “Third
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Historic Rainfall in Rio de Janeiro
Photo © Michael Sommers.
When most people (myself included) conjure up Rio de Janeiro, the images that come to mind are inevitably sun-drenched beach scenes backed by luminous blue skies. However, Rio does get its share of rain (how else to explain the lushness of all those mountains?) – and, inev
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In Praise of Culinary Differences
Photo © Michael Sommers.
The other night I gave a dinner party at my home in Salvador. I invited five close Bahian friends to whom I was “devendo” (owing) a home-cooked meal. In Bahia, unless you’re talking very upper crust, dinner parties are not very common. Instead, you get enormous mid-afterno
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Rio’s Corcovado Out of Commission
Photo © Michael Sommers.
Last week’s historic rainfall in Rio de Janeiro wreaked havoc upon the Cidade Maravilhosa. By the week’s end, the torrential rains had caused the deaths of 66 people in the capital (and over 250 people throughout the state), almost all of which were due to landslides that
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The Best Beaches in Rio de Janeiro
Beach culture is a huge part of life in Rio. Photo © Mike Vondran, licensed Creative Commons Attribution
Life in Rio is inseparable from the city’s many beaches, and you’ll find strips of sand to suit your every whim. Here is a list of 10 beaches that you can count on to correspond with your mood
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