World Cup 2014: Check out most interesting things that tourists said about Brazil!

Was asked to Joe and 11 other foreigners who visited Brazil during the World  Cup 2014 what they found most interesting or different here compared to their home countries. The answers were varied, but a point was repeated in almost all the interviews: a positive surprise to the cheerful people and their receptive way. Check out below what tourists said: 

(Photo: Chilean Richard, American Joe, Estonian Elsa and Swiss Lukas Bärtschi - their personal archive)

The american Joe Bauman found it strange to see everyone put something that looked like sand in their food. That's how he discovered the “farofa” and turned a fan of it (he said it tasted like bacon). - "I started putting farofa on everything" he said.

- Brazilians drink a lot. All social engagements involve friends and beer.

- I found it strange to see that many middle class families have maids. In the U.S., only the rich have. I was a little uncomfortable to see that a stranger was going to make my bed, wash my clothes or prepare my breakfast.

- Brazilians love to give food to the visitors. It's the way they take care of you.

- I was impressed to know that adults are required to vote. In the United States, have shamefully low rates of turnout in elections. 

- I was amazed at the natural beauty. The mountains, beaches, vegetation, everything is different from where I live. I could not believe there was a park the size of the Tijuca in a big city like Rio.

- I was impressed to know that so many constitutions were created in the country and that the current version received so many amendments. It is very different from the U.S. Constitution, which is very old and has been modified a few times.

- I found kind of gross to see that here they toss the toilet paper in the trash [and not in the toilet]. Isn't there a bad smell? 

- There are many American TV shows, but all of the 1990's. I found it funny to see that Brazilians love the show "Friends", which isn't broadcast in the U.S. for over ten years.

- Brazilian women seem to love the "gringos". Weird, huh? But I found it great. Incidentally, my favorite part of Brazil, of course, were the Brazilian girls. I fell in love. More than once. I'll definitely return one day to Brazil to meet my future wife.

- The heart and soul of this wonderful country are Brazilian. They wanted to show me everything and make sure I had a good experience - and I certainly did! 

Florent Garnerot, Canada 

- On the beach, Brazilians are facing the sun, and not the sea. I found it interesting! 

- Brazilians meet friends, drink together and share the bill. In Canada, each pays what consumes. 

- Here, couples kiss and show affection in public, which it does not happen in Canada. 

- Women always wear jewelry, makeup ... They are very fashionable

- When I want to meet friends in Canada, need to plan at least a week in advance. They need to talk to their wives, etc.. In Brazil, it is much more spontaneous 

Jesih Luka, Slovenia 

- Brazilians speak loudly, almost shouting, and very fast. 

- You eat A LOT. Very much. I spent a week with a Brazilian family and always had some food or fruit on the table.

- In Europe, everything is calmer. In Brazil, when people sing the anthem, they cry, sing loudly and with great emotion.

Richard Diaz, Chile 

- I was surprised to see how quickly you make friends here, both in the slum and in the most exclusive condominiums.

- I realized that men are very macho. They treat their partners as employees, especially in relation to household chores.

Adam Burns, Pete Johnston and David Bewick, England 

- We found it strange to see that here you eat chicken hearts. 

- Brazilians are very alive and full of energy. They are always moving. 

- They also smile a lot. 

Mohamed Moulkaf, Argeria 

- In Algeria, there are no women who drive motorcycles. 

- Almost all the shops here parcel your purchases in several times without interest. I like that. You can pay the same price parceled up into ten months. 

- The bank guards are armed in here. There, it's not like that!

Kyle Dreher, Canada 

- When you meet someone, give two kisses on the cheek. This is very different from the handshake that we do in Canada. 

- Loved the "coalho" cheese with oregano on the beach! And corn too! Every day I ate. 

- In Brazil, people enjoy life and live the present more than in Canada. There, everyone is very focused on work, money and status. 

- In the shantytown near where I was staying, fireworks was set off every hour, day and night. At first, I thought they were gunshots, but then discovered that it was a sign that the drugs were coming through there. I got used to.

Rodrigo Escobar Rebolledo, Chile

- Kindness, the way to welcome people, the joy and simplicity of the Brazilian people were what caught my attention. We were so well welcomed in Cuiabá, that this struck me. You ask something and they show you everything , also they invite you to barbecues 

- They always have a smile to show. We also Chileans are cozy, but we are more serious, formal, quiet. 

- The girls are beautiful, affectionate and friendly. I want to one day have a Brazilian wife. 

- Brazilians are very relaxed, even more than it should sometimes. Friends ask for gathering "tomorrow at 10 am" and no one appears. 

- The bad part was finding much work unfinished, at least in Cuiabá.

Elsa Saks, Estonia 

- It was strange eat rice and beans. At first I thought: "Is it serious?". But I ended up finding it super delicious.

- I liked the cheese bread. So good! Loved it. 

- Musicians are not paid by the bar where they play, but by the cover charge that customers pay. 

- Brazilians eat dinner late. It is normal to eat at 22 hours. (10 pm)

- Brazilians are not good in punctuality.

Lukas Bärtschi, Switzerland 

- It was great to see everyone on the street wearing yellow clothes, from an elderly lady with hat of Brazil to a child wearing a Brazilian selection shirt. 

- We were surprised to see how everything was well organized. The bus to the stadium, the information for the airport, everything worked fine. 

- A lot of people struggled to speak English. When I was in Brazil before, six years ago, no one spoke a word. 

- It was very special to see that each stadium served typical food of the region. And all were very tasty. 

- People are all glad and receive you with open arms.

Daniel Lane, England

- Brazilians often wear very tight clothes.

- People arrive late for everything. 

- They hug much more. 

-They say "Good beach!" to people. - People are more religious - usually we're just very religious when we want one thing: for example, that our team advance in the World Cup.

George Woolley, U.S.

- People applaud the sunset on the beach in Rio. That would never happen in the United States.

- Be able to drink beer in public is also something that does not happen in the U.S., except in places like New Orleans. 

- The fact that people are so happy to be alive is something very different and palpable.

article written by Flávia Mantovani

G1 Globo, São Paulo

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT BRAZIL YOU MIGHT LIKE TO KNOW

There are three words we hear a lot when we mention: "I am Brazilian" – Samba, Rio and Soccer. It's understandable that those are the main reasons why we’re known abroad but there’s much more to Brazil than half-naked girls and soccer. And a couple of other things while we’re at it – no, we don’t speak Spanish and we definitely don’t live in the jungle. So here are some nice and interesting facts about Brazil you might like to know.

• Yes, samba is a Brazilian music but we don’t listen to it all the time. There are also some great Brazilian singers and bands playing other rhythms, such as pop rock and MPB (popular Brazilian music).There are numerous great MPB singers. One of them is Caetano Veloso, an amazing songwriter and singer who took part in the musical movement Tropicalismo at the beginning of the Brazilian military dictatorship, Roberto Carlos, Chico Buarque de Hollanda and others. Ana Carolina, Marisa Monte, Daniela Mercury, Ivete Sangalo, Maria Bethania, Gal Costa are some female representatives of our music. We also have Bossa nova, a style of music popularized worldwide by João Gilberto,Tom Jobim and Vinícius de Moraes with The Girl from Ipanema.

• We Brazilians also love watching TV. Soap operas are made Hollywood-style and usually last for 8 months.

• We are nice, friendly and are very tactile. If you’re talking to a Brazilian they will probably touch you on the arm or pat you on the back, but it doesn't mean anything – we do it without even noticing. That’s something we missed a lot when we move abroad: human warmth and hugs. English isn't spoken widely but if you are a foreigner in Brazil people will try to talk to you even if they don’t speak English or your native language. They will try everything from sign language to speaking at you very loudly in Portuguese to try and communicate with you. Again, this is completely normal – Brazilians just love to talk and get to know people. But while the official language of Brazil is Portuguese, you will find that 82% of the people speak English. The Spanish tongue makes up another 10.7%, with Asian and Pacific Island languages also being spoken there.

• The current Portuguese-speaking world community comprises approximately 250 million people. It is the eighth most spoken language on the planet and third among western languages, after English and  Castilian Spanish. The Brazil's currency is Real (R$).

• The large majority of the houses have internal water tanks, and the main reason is because the public water supply may not be reliable. For that reason tap water is not drinkable. The hot water for showering is produced by an electrical heater attached to the shower head, wired at 110 or 220 volts. The showers wires are earthed, so don’t worry and enjoy your shower.

• Toilet paper waste is usually not dispensed in the toilet bowl, the reason is mainly due to the water pressure and the way the buildings were constructed. So, if you do not want to have a flood in your bathroom, try to remember to dispose toilet papers and any other objects in a small basket or trash/rubbish bin provided in the bathroom instead.

• São Paulo is the largest, most populous, and financially important city in the southern hemisphere.

• Brazil currently has a strong and solid economy. The country is a major producer and exporter of various types of goods, mainly minerals, agricultural and manufactured commodities. The areas of agriculture, industry and services are well developed and are currently in good time for expansion. Considered an emerging country, Brazil occupies 7th place in the ranking of the largest economies in the world (2012 data). Brazil has an open economy and inserted in globalization. (search: suapesquisa)

Months ago the curious observation that a Frenchman living in Belo Horizonte made ​​about Brazil became viral on the internet and later it was the turn of the largest news network in the world - CNN - did the same (their focuses on the social habits) .

He wrote somethings that he observed in Brazil. Most of the things they wrote (Frenchman and CNN) are true. Here, combined, that's what they wrote:

1 - In Brazil, the year begins "after Carnaval". Parties are important ("Brazilians produce two of the biggest bashes the world has known in Carnival and the New Year's Reveillon celebration.").

2 - In Brazil, you can't touch the food with your hands. In McDonald's, hamburger is eaten inside a napkin. Every table of bar, restaurant or snack bar have a distributor of napkin and toothpick. But those napkins are almost plastic, nothing smooth or nice. The goal isn't to clean your hands or mouth but is to pick the food with hands without leave paper food in hands.

I agree in parts. It isn't very cool to touch the food in Brazil, but there are some foods that some Brazilians eat with hands. It isn't strange to eat launch or pizza with hands, for example. I think the napkin's part is right.

3 - The juice bars are amazing("they're surrounded by so many varieties of exotic fruits the rest of us have never heard of -- caju, camu-camu, pitanga -- Brazilians are experts in the creation of especially tasty fruit drinks, or sucos" CNN journalist comments).

4 - Brazil is an outdoor world ("From the sidewalk cafes, to backyard barbecues, to beaches up and down the long coast, to the wild interior, Brazil is a place to be outside. Beaches, jungles, waterfalls -- it's here, often on an epic scale.").

5 - There's an enormous gap between rich and poor.

6- Here in Brazil, most the men do not know how to do day to day tasks: cleaning or use a washing machine. Do not know how to cook, only at the level of survival: cooking rice or pasta. Don't know how to fix a shirt button. Also do not know things that are considered off as extremely masculine like changing a car wheel.

6 - Brazilians are the only people that eat rice and beans everyday. I really don't understand why other people don't eat it everyday, because it is so healthy.

Photo: celiarabelo

Photo flickr Julio Preuss

Photo: asadeltanorio

Photo: hangglidinginrio

A Brazilian comment:  The country is continental in its dimension and diversity. So, Brazil is a very large country and because this some things vary from region to region. As for the body language, it plays an important role in the Brazilian culture, yes, yet most Brazilians are unaware of the fact that it might be "scary" for some cultures, like the American, for instance. The custom of kissing both cheeks when introduced to a person or to greet a friend varies from state to state: in São Paulo for instance, it's kissed only one cheek, only once. The 2-kiss thing is from Rio. In some states, they kiss in the cheeks three times. Stereotypes apart, I would say that most of it is accurate. And there are plenty of other local rhythms that even Brazilians don't know quite well, which obviously were not mentioned here.

Finishing with some other few things:

• In Brazil it's very common to go to the restaurant and serve up your food by the pound. It's called "the restaurant per kilogram" (or pound, as some purists), providing the agility of fast foods but with a much more varied menu and price per weight, allowing the consumer to choose not only what to eat, but also how much will spend. It serves a variety of prepared foods that the client chooses, as a buffet, but you are charged according to the weight rather than consumed per person or per dish. Per kilo restaurants are common where there is a concentration of commerce and offices, such as shopping malls, and are a common option for quick lunch for employees. Many of these restaurants only work per pound during lunch, and close or move to a la carte service outside this period .

Photo: alimentacaoforadolar

Photo: JoedsonAlves

Most people usually eat outside the home - 30% of Brazilians, for example, eats out at least once a week and of this group, 60% are overweight. This is because in the restaurants per pound, the food choices and varieties are always much larger than those available at home, which can lead to exaggeration. The first tip to avoid overeating is to look at all options from the buffet before serving.

• Brazil has 60% of the Amazon in its territory. And no, we aren't destroying everything the way the international media shows - and exaggerates. There are many great and preservation projects.
• Do not spend the whole time making caipirinha (Brazil's national cocktail, made with cachaça -sugar cane hard liquor-, sugar and lime), or on the beach, or playing soccer or partying and carnival every day, all year. And not everyone loves Carnival! Sorry, but in Brazil people work and work very hard! (even for little gain).
• We are not all Indians or blacks, Brazil is a mix of offspring. In the South, for example, there are lot of German descendants.
• We do not have monkeys and exotic animals in all homes (perhaps in some... LOL)
• No heat all year throughout the country, including in the South we have negative temperatures.
• Despite being a relatively young, with "only" 500 years, Brazil welcomed with great hospitality the various cultural events brought from Europe, Africa and Asia. This miscegenation provided a multifaceted aspect of our culture, including religious practices, popular demonstrations and food habits. In the northeast, for example, we find strong African influence  and in the south, the influence is notoriously European.
• And despite being "young" we have HISTORY! From good to bad, since colonization, monarchy, republic, slavery, revolution, dictatorship and so on.

Caipirinha: Photo wikipedia.org