Well, Carnaval just officially started. They've been doing a lot of pre-game stuff though the past few weeks, but last night (I think), was the first night. Its not really my thing. They have these street parties called "blocos" where theres a band thats often times on a truck, then they move down the street and the crowd follows. One of those things you kind of have to see I guess. Anyway, basically just a huge crowd of people drinking and sometimes singing and dancing.

Last night we started at one of the blocos near my house at 7pm, it was me, Santiago, and Rachel and we were supposed to meet people there. Of course phones didn't work because of the crowds, so we couldn't find anyone till I think around 11. Hung out on the beach with them from then till around 12:30 when we decided to go to Lapa. Lapa is a part of town where they have a street party everynight. Took us forever to get there because we first had to collect everyone then wait for the bus, I don't think we arrived till after 2, not sure though. Hung out in Lapa for around 4 hours. Rachel got robbed at one point, it was someone else's bag with nothing really important in it though. So that took a good chunk of the time. Two brazilians we were hanging out with help us go look for the dude, but theres no way we could have found him anyway. At that point it was around 4 or 5 I think. Before the night started we said we would stay up until a big bloco that was in the area started, at 9. So around 6 we left Lapa, to go to the area with the bloco. Got to the place and found a bench, then me and a guy named Jarrett went to walk around for a while, since we have 3 hours to kill. That little hour or so walk was probably the highlight. It was early morning in the middle of the city, a really cool time to be out since everyone was setting up for the bloco and the sun was just coming up. Before the bloco started we started talking to some brazilians again that said they would kinda show us the bloco (not that you really need someone too, but its always nice to have brazilians around) so we hung out with them for a bit, but soon decided to go off on our own. Bloco started around 9 and we we left before 10. It was just another moving crowd with music playing behind us. Got back to my house around 12.

So after getting a 3 hour nap I decided to post another entry. Overall, not a fan of Carnaval, but that probably comes to no surprise to y'all. Just way too many people in way too small a space drinking way too much. But I did speak a lot of portuguese, so that was actually really cool.

So, that was only the first night, and it goes for a week. Not so sure the rest will be that full, mainly theres a lot of waiting around and waisting time, not really my thing. And I'm not usually a fan of staying up for 24 hours. Anyway, I'll let y'all know how the rest of it goes.

And sorry about lack of pictures, my current excuse is that I'm letting someone borrow my camera since they got theirs stolen. As soon as I get it back I'm sure I'll manage to find another excuse, but one day I'll post something.