The Legend of Brazilian Short Shorts

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Many of you are aware of our recent travels to Brazil a couple of weeks ago.  My family and a couple of other random families flew to Rio for three nights and Curitiba for seven nights to attend the wedding of Maite and Felipe.  Maite was a foreign exchange student that my parents informally adopted when my bro and I were in college and they kept touch all these years.   It was a wonderful trip and a good time was had by all.

 HOT PANTS!

 

So naturally, going to Rio, we wanted to assimilate with the culture.  Sweater Man (Joey Wollin) and I thought this entailed wearing hot pants and Speedos.   All the travel books said we would look like assholes if we didn’t wear these things on Copacabana Beach.   Yes, there were lots of hot pants and Speedos there but Frommers was wrong.  Boring-ass long conservative American board shorts are perfectly acceptable there.

 

But that didn’t stop us from throwing out the vibe and throw out the vibe we did. You’re pretty much in a constant state of throwing out vibe when wearing those bad boys.  Chicks love a good high thigh farmer tan.  I was really self-conscious about wearing them at first, but all it took was a couple Caprihanas and I was doing jumping jacks all over the place.

 

I thought these were the sexiest photographs ever but then I remembered that THIS is still on the Internet.

Caprihanas are the national cocktail of Brazil.  They are delicious and they have lots of alcohol in them.  Beer and Caprihanas are really cheap in Brazil.  Like close to Cropsey’s cheap.  Thanks, Exchange Rate!

The rest of the week was a blur.  We did all the tourist stuff in Rio, surfed Ipanema beach, flew to Curitiba, went Anthony Bourdain style on some smaller Brazil towns including this crazy little new city for rich people that I forgot the name of but I’m calling it New Miami, went clubbing, and finally had it capped it off by the most epic wedding ever. 

 

I thought open bar was the best you could do at a wedding.  I was wrong.  Private waiter at every table that fills up your drink with wine or whiskey or champagne or beer after taking a sip is now the best you can do at a wedding.  And have this service available until 5:00 am.  Brazilians really know how to party.  I would kill to see the bar tab from this thing.  I would kill to see the flower bill to tell you the truth.  Like I said, it was crazy balls and I appreciate weddings now.

I was a hot mess by the time the week was over.  Hungover as hell, at the airport on the way home, I was eating an ice cream drumstick thing with a wrapper and I was sort of leaning over my chair in the waiting area eating it.   I had the wrapper on the ground next to my feet.  I was totally going to throw it away when I was done.  But then this Brazilian cleaning lady came by and picked up the wrapper right by my feet and gave me the stink eye.  I don’t speak Portuguese but I know stink eye when I see it and it is universal. 

I deserved it.  That lady thought I was a jerk American who thinks he can litter wherever he pleases because USA is number one.   Since I was already guilty of the crime, I was ridiculously close to snubbing out my ice cream cone on the floor with my foot and then signaling the lady to come over to clean it up.  I started thinking about this and then I started laughing hysterically to myself for about five minutes straight.   Jess just stared at me and then moved over a couple of seats.

Next time I travel abroad, I’m totally going to litter everywhere and be the littering American that doesn’t give a shit because he’s the tops.  That will make one hell of a blog post.

Also, by “surfing Ipanema” I mean my brother rented a surfboard and we took turns laying on our bellies in the ocean while gawking at the locals because we couldn’t stand up on the surfboard to save our lives.  But yeah, we surfed Ipanema.