Gringos in Cariocaland

Santeri and I spent our first proper day in Rio de Janeiro checking out the classic Copacabana and Ipanema beaches (in cloudy weather, unfortunately), watching some surfers and futvolistas (beach volley played with no hand contact allowed - the players use their heads, chests, knees and feet to control the ball, and somehow manage to make it look easy), and trying out a few classic Rio eateries.

For lunch, we headed to a place called "Good News", which offered a huge buffet of sushi, feijhao, eggs, rice, salad, fish, chicken, and several different meats. The twist is you pay by the kilogram, regardless of what exactly you eat. I went relatively light (salad with eggs and a bit of chicken) and ended up paying about 10 reals or 4 dollars. Santeri´s more Atkins-inspired meat extravagance cost maybe 8 dollars. Not bad at all.

After wandering along the fine white-sand beaches for most of the afternoon, we grabbed caipirinhas at the Garota de Ipanema, the bar where the classic "Girl from Ipanema" song was born. We then took a cab to the Botafogo neighbourhood, to follow several friends´recommendations to eat at the Porcao ("Big Pig") restaurant there. Upon arrival, we immediately realized our board shorts and flip-flops fell a little short of the dress code, but the staff were great about pretending not to notice. We were shown to our table, ordered our wine (an Argentinian Malbec) and waiters immediately started bombarding us with offers for different dishes. The concept is basically you pay one fixed price, then get all the food you can eat. The twist is, unlike a traditional buffet, here they actually bring the food to you at your table. The challenge, as we quickly found out, was to figure out what the best meats (since meat really did make up 90% of the meal - doc Atkins would be so proud!) were and not fill up on the lesser stuff. We had a tip, again from our French-Brazilian expat buddy Guillaume, to go for Picanha Nobre, which indeed turned out to be one of the best dishes of the night. It´s a thin slice of rare beef, a cut I haven´t come across outside Brazil and Argentina. Aside from Picanha, we we stuffed ourselves with Filet Mignon, lamb, pork, and a dozen other meats as well as onion rings, fries, fried banana and manioca to throw in some carbs. Needless to say, we were absolutely full at the end of the evening. The whole bonanza cost about EUR 50, which is certainly pricey by local standards, but might get you just one good steak back home - here we had the equivalent of 6 for the price of 1!

After a quick shower back at the hostel, we rounded off the night by checking out Rio Scenarium, a funky take on a nightclub. They had a live band playing a mix of samba, forro, bossanova, and whatever else they could think of, and the decor was interesting to say the least: collections of old clocks, paintings, huge painted vases, life-size dolls, and a 1920s Ford convertible to start with. The place was pretty empty by the time we got there (around midnight), and we learned that during the week even Rio completely quiets down by 2am. Well, that´s one stereotype dispelled - apparently even Brazilians need sleep if they have to get to work the following morning. Had a couple of interesting chats with some locals, and got back to our hostel by 2am, to recharge before another hard day of lying on the beach.