Friday, February 29, 2008

Beira Mar ..

is for Fortaleza what Copacabana is for Rio.

But the city beaches are not very clean; so the tourists and middleclass people take a taxi to praia do Futuro, if they want a swim.

Avenida Beira Mar follows the city praias (ca 6km) in Fortaleza.

On one side hotels, skyscrapers, restaurants and the city.

On the other side the Atlantic ocean, with sand and barracas (stalls) and a nice promenade walk.

And in the middle of Beira Mar is the aterro, a big place with sand, used for sports and concerts.

Sometimes filled with 100 000 people at a free concert, with good music.


I almost every day take a walk on Beira Mar.

It takes me one and a half hour, and is always a lot of fun.

And every day and every hour, Beira Mar shows a different face.

Sunday at noon for example, the favela people take over Beira Mar.


A big ship floating around on Beira Mar.
You just see a little bit of it.


Pay one Real and you can have outdoor training


A new nice restaurant.


A baglady, always on the same place on Beira Mar


A "silver" boy sleeping in front of everybody


The big "teatre" is used for free yoga, in the morning

A girl is washing her clothes and gets clean water from some windowcleaners


Two workers who have been doing nothing for two weeks.
Who is paying?

A copy of a MG from something like 1940

A nice lady who makes most business on Beira Mar sells food for 0.50 Real

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Fortaleza

Fortaleza is a town with about 2.2 million persons in the northwest part of Brazil.

It´s situated in the state of Ceara, who has a long coastline with some 50 praias.

It’s close to the equator, and has about the same climate all year around, with 24 – 32 degrees centigrade.

January to May it is raining, sometimes heavy, but mostly early in the morning, than the sun comes back.

Ceara has something like 350 sunny days a year, and is sometimes called the state of sun and light.

The people in the rich states like Rio and Sao Paulo, see often the northeast part of Brazil as poor and retarded.

And lots of tourist from the south, comes to Fortaleza in July, when it’s cold and rainy in the south of Brazil.


Brazil has 190 million people and about the same area as USA, excluding Alaska.


The people of Brazil are friendly and easygoing but prefers sometimes football and carnival before working.


The big cities in Brazil have ”favelas”, big areas occupied by poor people.

Some of these are ruled by “organized crime”, and to these favelas, like some in Rio de Janeiro, ordinary police hardly goes.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Introduction

This blog will be about my life in Fortaleza, Brazil and my adjustment to a new and very different country.

I’m 63 years, have a pension from Sweden and am married with a Brazilian girl on 47.

In my grownup life I have been working with computers, traveling a lot and living about 10 years in Brazil (Rio and Fortaleza).

This blog will be about actual happenings, but to protect people (mostly gringos) I will sometimes exchange names, nationalities and dates.


I’m here because I feel good in Brazil and with the Brazilians.

But living in the third world, can sometimes be very frustrating.

Corruption, criminality and poverty make life here difficult.

But 99 % of the things here are positive.

And if you follow some basic rules, you can often escape the bad things.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Continuation on my Swedish blog ..


A very nice waitress working in restaurant BistrĂ³ in Cumbuco, not far from Fortaleza.


I am now trying to move my old blogg from Expressen to Blogger.

My Swedish blogg ”Leva i Brasilien” will now be called “Living in Brazil” and will be written in English.

If you want to read the old parts in Swedish, the URL is:


http://blogg.expressen.se/fortaleza


Please accept some experiments and errors, in my new blog.

And as I am not a native English speaker, I will sometimes mix prepositions and will use the wrong words.