Brazil Blog
About this blog
Thrill of Brazil is a travel blog all about Brazil written by Moon Brazil author Michael Sommers. Michael blogs about Brazil travel, culture, and more. He welcomes questions, comments, and story ideas.
Recent Posts
- Care for a Drink with your Film? (or a Film with your Drink?)
- Brazil’s Homegrown Tourism Boom
- Brazil's Best and Write-est
- Making House Calls in Rio (Part II)
- Making House Calls in Rio (Part I)
- The Dawning of Brazil's B&B Age
- Rio's Alternative Points of View
- Taxi Trouble in Santa Teresa
- Obamas Take to the Campaign Trail in Brazil
- Plans and Punctuality
- Reliving Tropicalismo - On and Off Screen
- Food and Lodging that Make the Grade
- The Making of Moon Living Abroad in Brazil
- U.S. is Number One Source of Immigrants to Brazil
- Best English-Language Blogs about Brazil
São Paulo’s World Famous Traffic Jams Starting to Spread throughout Brazil
Lately, everybody seems to be stuck on – if not stuck in – traffic. more >>
Da Boca do Brasileiro (II)
Da Boca do Brasileiro means “Out of the Mouth of a Brazilian” and is the title I’ve chosen for a regular monthly feature of this blog. The idea is to let Brazilians do the talking by recommending their favorite things to see, eat, and do while also providing some insider dicas (tips) they think might be useful for gringos. more >>
Bye Bye to Salvador's Beach Barracas
Brazil has famously been called a “crab culture” due to the fact that roughly 70 percent of the population lives along the country’s sprawling 7,400km of coastline. It follows that, for many Brazilians, the country’s endless (and often very beautiful) beaches are a major source of livelihood and leisure, and are intricately tied to a quintessential Brazilian lifestyle.
Like those of many coastal cities, Salvador's beaches – whose 70 kilometers of urban coastline range from small coves, lapped by the placid, lake-like waters of the Bay of All Saints , to the open Atlantic waters of the non-stop “orla” that runs from Barra to Stella Maris – are an integral part of the city’s identity. more >>
Rio's New Hotline for Grammatical Emergencies
It’s funny how one develops intimate relationships with languages.
English is my mother tongue; I was born with it and schooled in it. As a child, I read voraciously, and I went on to study English Lit at university, before becoming a writer. To me, English is as natural as breathing, and I love it for its flexibility, malleability, and streamlined simplicity, not to mention its no-nonsense practicality.
Then there’s Brazilian Portuguese, which from the outset completely seduced me. Its musicality, sensuality, and sonority easily threw me for a loop, while the unexpected poetry and offbeat humor of its many slang terms and colloquial expressions (liberally spiked with Tupi and dashes of Yoruba, English, and French) never cease to make me grin.
When it comes to grammar, however, I’ll take English over Portuguese any day. more >>
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