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
Corcovado Reopens
Late last week, Brazilians sobbed and beat their breasts as they mourned the tragic and unexpected elimination of the Seleção at the World Cup in South Africa. Bars continued to do booming business, but table talk revolved around post-game analyses that minutely dissected every wrong move that led to the Brazilians' loss to the Dutch. Amid the atmosphere of a collective hangover that reigned throughout the country, there was, however, one bright spot: the re-opening of visits to Rio's Corcovado. more >>
Pipoca Tale No. 3
The third and final story in this trio of Brazilian pipoca (popcorn) tales deals with Valdir Novak, a 37-year-old pipoqueiro (popcorn man) from the southern Brazilian state of Paraná. Undoubtedly, tales similar to Valdir's could occur in many places, but for some reason his story strikes me as utterly Brazilian. more >>
Pipoca Tale No. 2
If only BP had thought to make some popcorn, maybe this catastrophic Gulf of Mexico oil spill wouldn't have been quite so catastrophic.
At least, such is the rationale of Brazilian oil giant Petrobras.
Brazil's leading supplier of oil and gas, Petrobras is the world's fourth largest energy company and the biggest company in all of Latin America. It is also a global leader in the development of advanced technology for – (ominous drum roll, please) – deep and "ultra-deep" water oil production. more >>
Pipoca Tale No. 1
This week, as I was perusing the Brazilian press for online coverage of the World Cup, I happened upon an interesting stat: whenever it's Copa do Mundo time, sales of pipoca (popcorn) explode throughout Brazil.
Pundits are estimating that pipoca sales are going to increase by a whopping 30 percent. If there's any doubt that Brazilians' love of pipoca transcends all socio-economic barriers, one need only observe the wide variety of World Cup popcorn products on offer. These range from the verde e amarelo–– (green and yellow) paper and plastic popcorn buckets sold at R$1.99 discount stores to special edition boxes of PipoKopa – popcorn coated in gourmet chocolate – launched by Kopenhagen, an upscale Brazilian chocolatier. more >>
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