Dream Job?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,270603,00.html

To some, a dream job. To others, the road to dependency. You decide.

Cervejas

While in Brazil, I was fortunate enough to sample some of the local brews. Well, "sample" might be understating it. Brazilian beer is good. Really good, in fact. The beer is always served at the perfect beer temperature - just to the point when little ice-crystals start floating around in the glass. Refreshing, crisp, and delicious.

My favorite local bar was "Dekave", just around the corner from our house. I would say about once a month or so, when we had had just about enough of work for the week, a good friend and his wife, and Sweetie and I would head over to Dekave for a few "baldes de cerveja" (Buckets or beer). Picture this...a shiny aluminum bucket, filled with ice; and nestled snugglely in the middle of their ice blanket are 4 or 5 cold, cold beers. The waiter pours the beer into your glass with skill to leave the perfect head on top. Drink. Repeat. The waiters have this style there of instinctively knowing when your glass is about 1/3 empty, and as if on autopilot, come over to top of your glass. By the time this has happened a half a dozen times, you have no idea how many bottles of beer you have consumed. Oh, well. When the bill comes, you'll have some idea, if you can still perform long division at that point. We all had a lot of fun at Dekave, and although I don't remember every night, some of my fondest memories from Brazil are of those good times, just letting the hours drift by with just the right mix of friends, conversation, and beer. Sadly, Dekave closed her doors a few months before we left Brazil, but given our friends had left Brazil as well, it wasn't the same anyways.

The beer we drank was mostly Bohemia. It's one of the most popular beers in Brazil. Brazil doesn't seem to have the limitless variety of micro beers you can find here, but you won't be disappointed by their mass produced varieties. All are much better in my opinion than beers like Budweiser, Miller, or Coors. I would say the lowest on my Brazil list would be akin to an Amstel Light in quality. I'm not a beer classifying expert, but I believe they were all lagers. Also, there is no such thing as a "light" beer in Brazil. "Light" and "Dark" only refer to the color, not calorie count.

My list of favorites:
1. Bohemia - best taste, generally slightly more pricey than the rest, but worth it.
2. Antartica - great taste, seemed to have more of a "kick" than the others.
3. Brahma
4. Skol - at first I didn't like this one, but it grew on me. It's one of the cheaper beers too.
5. Honorable mention: Xingu. Xingu ("Shin-goo") is a dark beer, almost sweet in flavor, it's not one to drink if you plan on drink more than a few in a night, but once in a while it hit the spot.

"Imports" in Brazil are not as popular. You could find imported Budweiser at Wal*Mart, but since I won't touch the stuff here, I couldn't imagine drinking it there. Heineken could also be found, and actually for cheaper than you can in the US (there's apparently a Heineken brewery somewhere in Brazil). There was a German beer, Erdinger , that could be found somewhat widespread in town. It was quite expensive compared to the others, but it was really the only imported beer we drank while there. (Side note, I found this beer today at the local liquor store and bought a 6-pack. Funny that a German beer would be the catalyst for this post about Brazil).

Here are some beer commercials from Brazil. TV in general is quite a bit more revealing than the US (see post on Boa Noite, Brazil), but these are tame and should not offend my more sensitive readers.

These are in Portuguese, so if you don't speak it, you may have some trouble getting the jokes. But, the visuals should be enough to give you the idea. The first two are my favorites.

Basic premise of the first one: This guy goes to eye doctor because everything he sees is square (square used as a metaphor for routine, ordinary, plain). After drinking a Skol beer, he begins to see circles everywhere - it's a miracle! The lovely eye doctor's assistant says "no...not again...he's cured".

In the second one, another guy, hearing about the good fortune of his buddy, tries his luck at the eye doctor's, pretending not to see circles. However, the lovely assistant is on vacation, so a different assistant is on duty. Hilarity ensues. At the end, he says to the lovely model, "Dona Carminha, come back from vacation, for the good of science!" Well, maybe it looses something in translation...

Enjoy.

Copa

I was fortune enough that my last day in Brazil (13/Jun/2006), was also Brazil's first game of the Copa do Mundo (World Cup). Fortunate in that I at least got to experience one game of the Copa, Brazilian style. Here's how it went...

As you no doubt understand, "futbol" (pronounced "foo-chee-bowl" there)is religion in Brazil. Next to the 85% who claim to be Catholic (this is another interesting thing, 85% Catholic but I don't recall anyone going to church, ever), almighty Futbol is 100%. Each Brazilian male, and a healthy percentage of females, is required by law to have a favorite soccer team, and support them vehemently and to debate until words fail anyone who supports a rival club. Since the weather is nice year-round, so too are the soccer leagues. I never quite figured out how the leagues work - there just seems to be games on TV nearly every night. At the gym I went to, there was either a soccer game or novela playing nightly, but a soccer game of a local or regional team always trumped the novela. Period. Rumor had it that wearing the wrong team's colors into certain sections of the big cities is reason enough to rumble.

Brazil's first game was against Croatia. Croatia's not exactly a soccer powerhouse, but, hey if they made it to at least start the Cup, they had to be decent. About a month before the games, the schedule of work delays and closings appeared. The first game was at 4pm, so the plant closed at 2, just to make sure everyone had enough time to get to the bar, friend's house, or local restaurant where they and their friends/co-workers/family would gather to watch. The more games Brazil plays in, the more time off from work for everyone, so this is additional incentive to cheer for the home team. Not just my company either...every company. Stores lit up Green and Yellow starting about a month before, with as many Copa promotional tie-ins as possible. One sterotype that is proven true in Brazil is their love of the game, and their ability to play it. They recognize that the world recognizes this too, and they love it all the more. The Copa, in a very real sense, is Brazil's national pride on the line.

As game time approached, traffic slowed to a trickle, the streets cleared, and all that could be heard was the murmur of crowds and extermely loud party-favor noisemakers. Some noisemakers were powered by hydraulic cylinders, just to be sure. I met up with about 10 or so co-workers and headed over to a local watering hole. We were lucky to get an upfront seat, close to the ad hoc movie screen and projector setup for the game. Soon after, the beer started flowing, and the party was on. The game wasn't I believe Brazil's best effort, but they won 1-0. The crowd went wild at the goal, like you might in the States if your team scores a 50 yard last-second Hail Mary pass to win the game 24-23. Great stuff. Work and social life mix more than I find they do here, and watching a much anticipated soccer games is no exception. Thanks to my friends in Brazil for indoctrinating me in the ways of the Copa.

Altough I left Brazil the next day, I still followed their games. Of all countries to loose to, they lost to France and were denied getting out of the first round, something never before dreamed possible. Brazil and France are not at odds with each other as say the US and France are, but there is a bit of a rivalry. Argentinians consider themselves like the French of South America, and the Brazil/Argentina rivalry is well-known, therefore by default France is not a favorite of Brazil. When France eventually lost to Italy during the championship game, I felt better.

And so it went, my first and only Copa 2006 game in Brazil. Maybe for Copa 2010, I'll be back.