In Brazil again for Carnaval!!
Trip Start
Jan 01, 2009
1
23
134
Trip End
Dec 31, 2009
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Tres Lagoas,
Brazil
Monday, February 23, 2009
It's Carnaval time again here in Brasil...and once again, I'm working for it. Last year was in Porto Seguro, which parties pretty hard for Carnaval...but not until the official Carnaval is over. Basically, after Carnaval, all the bands and performers that were performing in Salvador for Carnaval, all go to Porto Seguro to continue the party.
But in Três Lagoas, there's not much of a celebration at all. There IS a little area near the university that was having a celebration. It's pretty close to the hotel, so I walked over there on Saturday night after dinner to see what it was about. It was free to go inside, otherwise I probably wouldn't have bothered. And security was surprisingly tight. There were about 15 guards who frisked and used a metal detector wand on everyone that came through the gate. They were also checking ID, but I don't know what the criteria was for entry. I saw several roving bands of 12 year old kids walking around.
The crowds weren't all that big, and there was the standard bossa nova group playing on stage. So it didn't seem to be all that special. Some of the Finnish guys had come over earlier so I looked for them for a while. Gave up though after about 20min and decided to leave. It was nowhere near as interesting as the "cross-dressing" parade that we witnessed in Porto Seguro last year.
Now hopefully we will have most of the workers here on site today and Tuesday. A lot of the workers are from around Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo...so they've got a pretty good incentive to not show up. Which apparently happened around New Year's. The contractor promised to be working on Dec 31 and Jan 1, but more supervisors showed up than even welders(we normally have about 1000 welders onsite for erection work). And we're getting closer and closer to the time for start-up, so we can't afford to lose any more days.
Speaking of which, I'm going to be working 7 days per week (as long as I get to stay in Brazil) for the next month or so. So my updates won't have as much fun traveling in them. But I will keep trying my damnedest to keep writing.
By the way Mom and Theresa, sorry I didn't call on Sunday. I was working in the morning and then dead tired so I went to sleep around 2pm. I'll call tonight.
