Adventures in Guanabara

Going past (not in) Guanabara Pizza in Leblon the other day, I realised I have been here nearly six months. I've eaten there twice, and both times had a brush with something a little terrifying.

Pizza here is extremely popular but it falls somewhat short of what Italians might refer to as pizza. It's generally thick with cheese but no tomato base, although still addictive in its own way. Guanabara Pizza is something of an institution since it stays open until the wee small hours, although I didn't realise this the first time I went and ended up sitting at the table with a character straight from The Godfather. I thought they had kept the restaurant open just for us.

The next time I went when a friend was visiting, and we were harrassed by an old dude who seemed quite sweet and friendly, but then wouldn't leave us alone, tried to pay for our meal and eventually threatened my friend and had to be removed by the management. Since things come in threes, according to legend, I'm afraid to set foot in the place again.

On the second occasion, the old fella was ex-military, and it only occurred to me later on that he would have been at the peak of his career during the military dictatorship here. Since Cariocas don't seem to be overly beloved of rules, it's easy to forget they had one here. It's usually cited as the reason for the realms of realms of Kafka-esque bureaucracy that swamps and suffocates everyone, but lately some friends have drawn other interesting parallels.

Some say the gun-obsessed culture derived from that time, when the army was in charge and to have a gun was to have status. An engineer student of mine pointed out that the inability to plan, even in business, comes from a time when there was such upheaval people realised there was no point in planning ahead too far and instead focused on being adaptable to the unpredictable changes they constantly had to weather. I had another, older student once who railed against the US obsession with forward planning in business, but perhaps he had cut his teeth in testier times. Without huge economic instability, forward planning is horribly possible.

It brings me to my own plans; I'm thinking of coming back for a bit and doing some qualifications in Portuguese, then heading back here. For six months, I've been diving forward into the vortex of Rio de Janeiro but maybe now it's time to accept as much forward planning as I can bear. And return to England during the winter. How did this happen??