Carnaval: Let the Party Begin

     It's Super Bowl 50 Weekend in the States.  Fans are stocking up on snack(junk) food, BBQ items, booze of all sorts, and fan gear-hats, scarves, sweatshirts, horns, and other items too ridiculous to name.  The rest of the world,  the Western world that is, prepares for Lent with the pre-Lenten debauch known as Mardi Gras, named in french for Fat Tuesday.
     The most famous, of course, is Rio de Janeiro's version.  There, the locals drop all pretense of restraint or mores, and celebrate as if there is no tomorrow.   The vast majority wake up sometime later this week and go through their selfies to see what happened that they cannot recall with anything resembling clarity.  Ipanema Beach, Copacabana and other local names resonate with revelry and revelers.   The traditional parade items: monster-sized floats with monster-sized heads abound and highlight all the parades and festivities.
     Our Minister of latin American Affairs could very well be lost in Rio.  He has been on scheduled vaca since last week.  We have not expected any communication during this time.  No doubt, he is taking notes of his observations of this cultural event.  We do expect photos to appear in his filings soon.   They will then be posted for locals in Tahoma.

The ferry Building in San Francisco at Super Bowl City