Day Sleepers

Rio.

Sao Paulo. Land of Rape and Honey.

Rabid fans in Buenos Aires. Run away.

The upscale restaurant situated in the heart of Sao Paulo conveniently named for a Brazilian slum. The favelas in Sao Paulo (not far, actually, from this very establishment) are constructed primarily of mud and garbage, and are plagued with disease and crime. Well, I'm hungry...It's like going out to eat at a $75 per plate spot called 'project housing,' 'boxcar,' or 'under the overpass.'

The only thing even approaching the inanity of that would be the churrascaria (Brazilian steak house, translated means trip the meat fantastic I believe) that we found ourselves at in Rio. It was like Medieval Times only without the knights and horses and any of the other good stuff. It was basically a room full of people gorging themselves on meat until they fell asleep at the table. They left these little cards at each place setting to set a pace to the outrageous amount of food that was nearly shoved down your throat. It became a bit of a joke to distract the person next to you and flip their card over while they are refraining from swallowing any more beef. It was short lived but fun, and upstaged only by the cab ride back to the hotel in which the driver insisted on driving the legal limit (90km/hr) with no headlights on. He came very close to having a back seat filled to the ankles with medium rare meat.

Nicer from the air...

The information sheet that is passed around to hotels these days calls us 'day sleepers.' It is the truth for the most part, but I'm still not sure if I should take offense. It sounds an awful lot like 'mouth breather' to me.















I am pretty shamelessly addicted to coconut juice these days. It's safer to drink than the water (which I am convinced flows directly from the toilet to the tap in South America), and it's delicious. Bobby is convinced that it has given him the trots for nearly a week, but I disagree.

The sheer volume and frequency of flights this past month or so (18 as of today) is baffling, exhausting, and to some, downright infuriating.

We take our comic relief when we can, and often in short and distant intervals. Following a delayed flight to Rio we arrived at the hotel late, dirty, hungry, tired, cranky and a dozen other not so good things. I think we would have broken had our drum tech and tour manager (both ample-sized men) not decided to step on the same side bar of the van at the same time. The sheer mass was enough to buckle the steel and make a sound like a tornado ripping through a skyscraper. I actually thought that the van was going to split in half. Our Brazilian guides, as you could imagine, were less than impressed by our uncontrollable laughter.

Damn straight.
















Another show...

And yes, another disaster...