Parties in Rio Are Good for Those Looking to Hook-Up During the Games
With the temperature mild and the city crowded with tourists, the 'carioca' (as Rio is locally referred to) night is completely boiling. At Olympic parties, there is always room to make friends, find a crush, date, partner, or who knows, dream of getting married.
"I worked as a volunteer at the World Cup, but no husband showed up. So now my hope is the Olympics." With this plan, actress Eucimara Linda, 29, from São Paulo, shakes loose her hair on the dance floor of the Rio Scenarium in the Lapa neighborhood. "I'm only leaving Rio married", she says, sure that she will be a hit with foreigners.
Eucimara doesn't have any problem with Brazilians, but she prefers gringos. Among their advantages she sees the chance to get to know other cultures and to improve her English. Leaving aside the rationality of her criteria for choosing, she recognizes that the "chase" also matters.
It's 3:45 am on Sunday morning and the bars in Lapa are packed full. In the middle of the boil, carioca promoter Christiane Godoy, 32, explains what she isn't doing here: "There are folks who look at you thinking that you are a delegation wannabe, that you are looking for a passport with a visa. That's not it. I'm an independent woman who pays my own way."
Having just said this she exclaims: "I like tall, blond, blue-eyed, and preferentially Scandinavian men. I fall easily for Fins, Swedes and Danes".
The schedule for hot event locales varies. Things heat up at the end of the afternoon on Sunday at Baixo Gávea. On Monday, it's Pedra do Sal day. On Tuesdays, get-togethers take place in Ipanema.
During the weekend, it's at Lapa that the romancing is happening. On any day, the Olympic night-out happening place is Live House, in the Olympic Park.
Like a good German, without abandoning his beer glass, economist Mario Bäcker, 30, says that Brazilian women "are impulsive, love the beauty salon, and if you don't control them, buy clothing every day".
On the other side of the dance floor, Stela Novaes, 30, from São Paulo, says that in addition to watching the Olympic gymnastics she isn't missing the parties. "I am getting to know other tongues, literally."
On her first stop in South American, American Melina Sinessiou, 29, admires the men, while watching the pulsating bodies at Pedra do Sul, an icon of carioca black culture. "They're heterogeneous. By their looks they could be Americans, Indians, Mexicans or Europeans."
Translated by LLOYD HARDER