Holidays | Portuguese Language Blog

Posts under "Holidays"

Easter in Brazil

Apr 2 2010

Páscoa (Easter) in Brazil follows the Catholic European tradition, with processions, church services, and religious rites. Minas Gerais in particular is famous for its lavish processions and traditional festivities. However, Brazilian Easter also follows the Western tradition of Easter eggs, the Easter bunny for children, and a big family celebration. Semana Santa, or Holy Week, is not only one of the most important times of the year for Christians, but is also a time for people to be with their families or to travel.

Want to see what it’s like during Easter in Brazil? Check out these videos!

Semana Santa in Minas Gerais

Easter procession in Recife

Preparing bacalhau for Easter

Making chocolate eggs

The Six Ton Easter Egg

Posted by Rachel 2 Comments

Apr 1 2010

Easter eggs and chocolates are very popular in Brazil, and you’ll find chocolate eggs of all sizes in grocery stores and department stores during this time of year. Sometimes, stores will have raffles for enormous chocolate Easter eggs, but this year, a mall in Florianópolis, Santa Catarina topped them all: it built a 6 ton chocolate Easter egg.

Photo: Beiramar Shopping

According to Globo, the Beiramar Mall used 2.3 kilo bricks of chocolate and took nearly two weeks to create the 4 meter-tall giant Easter egg, now on display at the mall. On Friday, the egg will be broken down into smaller pieces and distributed to local charities. The project was a joint enterprise of a local supermarket chain and Nestle, and last year, the mall also created a giant egg, setting the world’s record for the largest chocolate Easter egg at 2.8 tons. This year egg will likely set records, too!

And not to stray from our language lessons…since egg is ovo, and Easter is Páscoa, Easter egg in Portuguese, is simply enough: ovo de Páscoa. [oh-voh gee PAH-ss-qwah]

Carnival in Recife

Posted by Rachel 3 Comments

Feb 16 2010

While the international media tends to focus on Rio de Janeiro’s Carnival, there are actually many more Carnival celebrations in Brazil worth seeing.

Photo: Recife Guide

One of those is Recife’s Carnival, one of the largest traditional celebrations that attracts partygoers not only for the music and dancing, but also for its historic roots. It also has the world’s largest bloco, a Carnival band that navigates through the streets with revelers.

There are plenty of places to explore Recife’s Carnival online, so here are some suggestions:

Portuguese Blog – overview from 2009

A gringo in Olinda blog – first hand accounts in English

Recife Guide blog – comprehensive explanation in English

Official Recife Carnival website – Portuguese

Terra – news, photos, and videos in Portuguese

É, Carnaval!

Posted by polyana No Comments

Feb 12 2010

When most people think of Carnaval in Brazil, they think about the big parades in Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo with their decorated floats, gorgeous women dancing samba and adorned in [just] glitter, and percussion bands. Others also think of the carnaval street parades in Bahia where the biggest Axé stars parade around in floats with their bands and screaming and dancing party-goers are at their sides for days on end.

What most people don’t know is, Brazilians still celebrate to this day, the most original form of carnaval, the carnaval de rua – literally “street carnaval.” These festivities usually last from the Friday-Tuesday before Ash Wednesday of every year.

Many small towns in the Northeast, such as Recife, and Ouro Preto in Minas Gerais are famous for their carnavais de rua where they parade around in blocos. There are bands and parades and costumes but the people who make them come alive are the carnaval goers themselves! Many other smaller towns in the interior, or countryside all over the country celebrate carnaval this way, and this year I’m going to join in on the folia!!

Some Carnaval vocabulary:

- Escola de Samba – Samba school – the organizations that put together individual parades in Rio de Janeiro & São Paulo

- Bloco carnavalesco – A group of people who parade during Carnaval in a semi-organized fashion, usually wearing the same costume

- Carro alegórico – Carnaval floats

- Sambódromo – Architectural space where Carnaval parades are held. Usually made up of stands and catwalk-type space for the parade

- Abadá – costume carnaval goers purchase in order to take place in blocos carnavalescos

Hope you all have a wonderful Carnaval!!

Carnaval!

Posted by Rachel No Comments

Feb 12 2010

Carnival celebrations are already in full swing and get into high gear this weekend. If like me, you can’t make it to the festivities, there’s plenty available online to experience Carnival from afar.

Beija Flor’s 2010 Samba (reigning Rio champion)