My First Brazilian Carnival

     The last time I blogged, I was focusing on my adjustment period at my internship, TORO Investimentos.  I can say to date that I have successfully adjusted and feel at home and integrated with my team of consultants at TORO.  I have a weekly task list of things to do, which keeps me busy but also gives me freedom to do my assignments as I see fit.  In other words, they have given me a sufficient amount of tasks to do while giving me enough freedom to engage in work I find most relevant to getting the most out of my internship.  For example, on days where the market is excessively volatile, I can sit in with one of my colleagues and observe how he engages in options trading.  In doing so, I have gained invaluable experience in terms of understanding the decision making of financial consultants.  Moreover, I have come to understand how financial consultants interject principles of finance and economics into their decision-making.  In addition, on days when my fellow consultants have meetings with clients, I occasionally help out in terms of putting all of the correct paperwork together.  Unfortunately, this constitutes a lot of filling in blanks in PDF files but I know the experience will only serve me well for the future.

     Furthermore, the Brazilian holiday Carnival (February 8-12) has come and gone since my last blog post.  For my first Carnival experience, I decided to go to a beach on the coast of Parana (the same state Curitiba is located in) with one of my host sisters, her boyfriend, and four of their friends.  On the night of February 8^th, we all packed our things and headed to the supermarket to buy all of the necessary food and beverage for the holiday weekend.  We decided to leave Curitiba at midnight in order to avoid the inordinate amount of traffic on the highway during a typical rush hour during the weekend of Carnival.  We made it safely in great time, put our things away, and rested up for the weekend ahead.  The next morning, everyone else arrived and the celebrations began. 

     Unfortunately, the weather did not serve us well and it rained off and on during our first two days on Matinhos beach.  As a result, we only went to the beach off and on during the first two days when the weather allowed it.  Luckily, our beach house was only three blocks from the beach so it was only a 5-minute walk, which came in handy especially when it started raining.  My host sister’s boyfriend, Eduardo, brought his fishing gear so we went out fishing a couple times and that was an experience to say the least.  It was my first time literally fishing off of a beach, a concept I could only laugh at when I first encountered fisherman casting off from the sand.  I had gone fishing before, usually on a boat but occasionally off a pier, so the concept of literally fishing from the beach left me in a bit of a quandary.  Having nothing else to do, I willingly went with Eduardo to fish off the coast, and even tried my hand it.  To nobody’s surprise, we came up empty handed and in all honestly I don’t think we had a chance from the get-go, but it definitely is a story I will be telling over the foreseeable future.

     Carnival turned into a much bigger learning experience then I had initially anticipated.  Despite the fact that my host sister and her boyfriend spoke a bit of English, their friends did not and as a result, I didn’t speak a word of English throughout the duration of the holiday.  There were moments in the various conversations we engaged in where I knowingly had no idea what was being talked about nor what was going on.  At the time, I felt as if I was in over my head but as I look back and reflect on those experiences, I realize that my Portuguese has gotten infinitely better as a result.  I didn’t experience the glamour of the festivities of Carnival, as one would expect to see on television emanating from Sao Paolo or Rio de Janeiro, but I am totally okay with that.  I experienced Carnival through the eyes of normal, hard-working Brazilians who just wanted to get away for the weekend and enjoy their time together on and off of the beach.

     After the first couple of days, the weather got much better and we had two fun-filled days at Caioba beach, just a few kilometers away from Matinhos.  At night, there were countless festivities on the streets in Matinhos and Caioba, celebrating Carnival, the holiday that celebrates the last few days Brazilians can consume meat before Lent commences.  We ended up driving home on Tuesday the 18^th, and I needed a whole day to recover on that Wednesday before returning to work on Thursday.  It was truly an experience I will cherish for the rest of my life.  In all honesty, I hope to return to experience Carnival in the future to experience the lavishness of the festivities in Rio de Janeiro.