Daily Life in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The Art of the Facebook Status

Sometimes I wonder why I bother reading facebook statuses. 90% of them are super annoying. Especially the ones that include TMI, or consist of whining about illness - complete with detailed symptoms, or my pet peeve - people complaining about their kids on fb (maybe they aren't behaving because those parents are spending all your time on facebook.... just an idea?) other annoying examples include the ones which are fake, braggy, projecting an image that is nowhere close to reality... but I digress. 

Every so often there's a brilliant status update that reminds me of why I wade through these loads of other garbage... and more often than not, the ones which fall into this latter, special category which generally make me cackle with glee, are written by my college friend, G.

Here's today's:

Don't you love it when someone who lives in the burbs, has kids, and whose biggest challenge and excitement in life is programming their pvr proclaims adamantly "I won't own a minivan!" Good call - I'm sure the shape of the box you're driving is really holding you back from being Indiana Jones or Bear Grylls. Take a look in the mirror there stretchpants.

Seriously I love this. I also love statuses which announce births or other fun life events, tell hilarious stories of kids saying the darndest things, contain news references I would have otherwise missed, spark interesting debate, are helpful, or are just all around hilarious.  

Anyway totally not Brazil related obviously, but just thought I'd share.

G, I nominate you to teach the world a course called "Creative Status Updates 101" - sadly needed!

 

 

Skype Conference Calling

That's right, expats, you can say it once now instead of spending your sundays telling the same stories multiple times! Skype now has a conference calling feature. Download the new version.

Hidden Pousadas Brazil Launches a New Web Site

I have spent countless hours researching "where to stay" in Brazil. There isn't much written. It's not always reliable. Usually I am a big TripAdvisor user but it's not used enough in Brazil to be as useful a resource as it is in other countries. (Not to mention that it seems hackers skew it at times. Here's an example: while Togu is a cute little spot, my apologies to the lovely people at Togu but it is DEFINITELY not the #1 best restaurant in Rio, yet on Tripadvisor it has apparently somehow achieved that status).

Since finding a place to stay can be incredibly frustrating and a wild goose chase  Hidden Pousadas Brazil has been a fantastic resource for me. I've stayed in a few of the properties featured on the site such as Pic It consists of reviews you can trust, of amazing little spots around Brazil.

My only complaint? It is a boutique web site, meaning it only concentrated on a few special properties which are highly recommended. However, web site founder Alison McGowan has now launched a sister site, Pousada Hotel Brazil, featuring information and reviews of a much wider scope of all sorts of pousadas around Brazil. Check it out!

Twittering? Tweeting? Twittered?

I'm a twit?

Don't answer that!

I've started twittering. Being stuck in the apartment waiting for repair people this week, well, I did get some maintenance done on the blog and wrote some entries which will show themselves soon. To keep up with DRL in realtime, check me out on twitter - my name is dailyriolife, how original, I know...

There is a feed in the column to the left as well.

Speaking of Travel...

Still on the road here...

I will be posting detailed travel reviews of our trip and all of our many destinations when I get back, but in the meantime can I just say how much I love Tripadvisor, and the New York Times' travel section of its site and Globorati?

We ended up booking our trip fairly quickly and used just these sites for information, and every recommendation has been awesome. Restaurants, hotels, you name it. I will definitely be paying it forward by writing detailed reviews on Tripadvisor to benefit other travelers.

Tripadvisor is not always very complete/accurate for travel within Brazil as the number of posts are limited especially for not as well known destinations, so be sure to post about your favorites and not so favorites! For other destinations in South America it seems to be used a lot more, and is therefore much more useful.

New on Ipanema

An internet kiosk on the beach!

Stalker's Paradise

Have you checked out this Google Latitude thing? It is a feature on Google Maps on that can be used with your blackberry or PDA device to share your location with others. We use Google Maps a lot here in Rio on our blackberries and now Mr. DRL and I can also stalk one another on Google Latitude. Also a good tool if you lose your cell phone (assuming no one's nabbed it). Now I can just check my handheld to see where he's stuck in traffic now (assuming he has his with him) and not call him to find out. Which is good because yesterday he received a ticket in the mail for talking on the cell phone while driving!

As much as it is a great tool for families, etc. I don't plan to ask all of my friends to join me on Google Latitude. Seems a bit odd!

Consolidating Telephones... every expat's dream.

A number of American friends use Vonage to talk to people back home. It allows them to have a US number, so that friends and family can dial a local number and get them here in RIo.  Great concept!

Skype has a similar service where you can pay an annual rate to have a phone number based in one of 20 countries (Skype currently offers this system in Australia, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Italy, Mexico, Romania, UK, Brazil, Dominican Republic, France, Hungary, Japan, New Zealand, Sweden, the US, Chile, Estonia, Germany, Ireland, Korea, Poland and Switzerland). Unfortunately for us, as you may have noticed, Canada is not on the list. Click here for more details.

Despite the fact that we don't have a "skype number" - we still use skype a lot to talk to people back home. I must say it's great to see the faces of our loved ones, though we do experience a high number of dropped calls with Skype. We also have a landline here. And now, three cell phones between the two of us. Neither of us has bothered to learn to setup our voicemail box on our cells since we've been here. We also still have a phone line in our house in Canada, granted my sister uses it. Since it's still somewhat connected to us, I do have an email alert set up for the voicemail box, I receive an MP3 of each one. Come on, really, how many does one person need?

Enter Google Voice, which was unveiled last week.

What does Google Voice do?

• unifies your phone numbers (you can have just one number for the rest of your life!)
• transcribes voice mail messages
• blocks telemarketers
• eliminates need to check multiple answering machines (home, cell, office, etc.)
• allows you to organize text messages like emails
• Saves you money:
  
  • cheap international calls
  • free conference calling

No word on when it will be available to the masses but I am willing to bet that the expats will be early adopters of this new technology!

Splendid Splendia

I've been using this site Splendia to find hotel rooms for my guests and for myself over Christmas. It features unique, boutique style "Luxury and Character hotels" from all over the world and is a central bookings system.  The rates are also quite good!!!!

What I like best about it is that the site only uses a selection of pre-screened hotels, and it allows you to enter in your dates and where you'd like to go and then it shows you what is available.

A word of warning : if you are booking in a hurry, skip the destinations that only allow you to send an "inquiry" to the hotel rather than ones which allow you to book immediately.  In my experience this saves you a lot of run around.

There are a good selection of hotels in Rio & Buzios on the site - check it out!  I highly recommend booking this way for people who don't speak Portuguese as it is possible to do it all in English.

GPS in RIo

I strongly urge people to be careful if driving in Rio and relying on GPS. Ever seen the episode of the Office where Michael drives into a lake because the GPS tells him to? Well, let's just say you could get yourself into a lot more trouble than that in Rio.

Recently, three Norwegian men had their GPS set to "quickest route" on their way back to Rio from Buzios, the GPS led them into a favela, and their car was shot at, the driver was wounded but luckily survived.  The incident is being blamed on a faulty GPS system but I think it probably genuinely did show them the "fastest route"... not that it was a safe one!

Incidentally I know some people who were making the drive to Buzios and accidentally had their GPS set to "no tolls" so it directed them to go all the way around the bay rather than taking the Niteroi bridge. They quickly realized this and saved themselves several hours of travel in the process! (The toll is definitely worth it!!)

The Importance of Being Important Is Important to Some People.

Disclaimer: This post is intended to be quite tongue - in - cheek and harmless... sometimes it can be hard to convey this in the blog-o-sphere so I just wanted to be clear :)

I was just catching up on some of the blogs I read when I have time, at which time I came to the crushing realization that I am apparently not an "important blogger in Rio" - it's shocking, I know. ;)

I am not sure what the criteria was to make the list, it wasn't clear, so I took a few seconds to do some self-reflection and look at my blog from a semi-objective viewpoint to analyze this situation.

Maybe it was my entry on the Amway soap...(which I still do not have, by the way) yeah, that was pretty irrelevant...

...I guess so was the one about Men's Behaviour While Sick, although I think that is an international problem so there's your relevance to Brazil ??? ...  No?  Ok...

Wait! I bet it was the one where I put the photos of my wedding dress! Yes that is neither important OR relevant to Brazil! (Although people did ask for them).

So hmmmm... should I rethink some of my content to try to make the "important" list?

Well... after much reflection (as you can read!) I am actually really okay with not being on this particular "important" list. I would like to see who is on it though - and would love to read their blogs about Rio, as I thoroughly enjoy all of them that I do read!  I sure couldn't find that many before I moved down here (when I was REALLY looking for anything I could get my hands on)...

After years of writing about "very important stuff" like mergers, how this new snake oil can cure cancer, EBITDA, Earnings Per Share, and the newest tech products to hit the Consumer Electronics Show, waste water treatment, Market Caps, Bridge Financings, and most important of all, software to help streamline the accounting processes in the upstream oil and gas industry (yawn!), oh and how can I forget - the mutual fund pages for a bank (something no person alive could or would ever read!!!), I am thrilled to death to be writing about the very fun topic of real life as a foreigner in Rio for even a limited audience, knowing that some of what I put out there helps families make the transition in moving here, to Rio de Janeiro.  I think that it's important ;)

Oh Facebook...

You are a funny one...

I read an article this week on Narcissim + Facebook.  I know, it took someone that long to make the connection?  According to the article, which is about a study conducted by the University of Georgia, facebook profiles can reveal the self-adoring.  You don't say... wow that is some groundbreaking research!

"We found that people who are narcissistic use Facebook in a self-promoting way that can be identified by others."

Hmmmm really? I don't think that it is a coincidence either that people only want to show themselves in the best light or highlight the most interesting/exciting life events they have going on.  There are also a lot of facebook narcissists who post everything that they do... and update every five seconds

i.e.)
Katie is on the phone
Katie is shopping!
Katie is exercising

Now, this all strikes me as funny because in order to be updating her status, isn't Katie actually just sitting there on facebook, simulating having a life???

Now, I don't think I would go so far as to blame facebook for creating narcissists (and neither does the article) but it is certainly a great enabler of them (because users figure all of their 500 friends are a captive audience who actually want the 50 updates a day on what's up).

Disclaimer: Yes I am a facebooker.  (And a blogger. Droga, that probably makes me a narcissist...)