473 - Florianopolis tips, English without loanwords, and reggaeton born again
Hola from Buenos Aires! I’ll write up tips for the place next week when I leave.
I reposted last week’s nudity shaming story to Facebook and got slammed as a cultural imperialist. Did you all think the same and just not speak up? :P
I need to work on my writing skills, if the post I meant to write analyzing a hypocritical culture norm reads as me defending my right to be naked anywhere….
‘If the readers don’t get it, then the writer didn’t get it.” as the saying goes.
Meanwhile, here’s my travel tips from the last month spent in Florianopolis:
We stayed in Barra da Lagoa, but I would not recommend staying there unless you’re a hardcore surfer during the season. It’s a tiny beach town without ATMs or services beyond basic markets. Walking straight to beaches and hikes was nice though.
Instead, stay in Lagoa or Campeche, which are more built up and still close to the lagoons and beaches.
Beware the insane traffic that occurs around Lagoa in the summer! Cars are bumper to bumper for miles on a one lane road and can add an hour to a 15 min drive.
I took kitesurfing lessons with Paolo and surfing/foil lessons with Evandro, both of whom are great.
Floripa centro has even more infrastructure and nice restaurants, though has an empty downtown vibe on weekends.
A few hours away you can whitewater raft near Santo Amaro, and up north theres the resort town of Balneario Camboriu or the largest concentration of Germans in Brazil in Bluemenau. Not worth a detour unless you’re already nearby, IMO.
I used Airalo to get an eSim for data instead of trying to get a CPF tax number with the government using this method. If you want to buy anything online or in apps, you’ll need a CPF, which apparently isn’t that hard.
Tech
I completed VC turned coach Joe Hudson’s Connection Course this week, and I highly recommend it.
I’ve sampled many flavors of self development and this one stands out, both for it’s lack of woo-woo and upselling. The content is solid, and it’s priced at $300, well under his other offerings.
My favorite exercise was one where you tell your partner what dark fears would trigger you the most, and then hold a space where they forcefully tell you what that critic in your head whispers, but it hits different coming from another person.
History
You might know that English has 30% French and 30% Latin words, but did you know there’s a dialect that removes all foreign words from the language?
It sounds like a Nordic fantasy language, what with ‘askthings’ instead of questions and the like. But also quite understandable!
Rob’s channel here is full of similar juicy language facts, like that English used to have gendered prepositions like every other Latin language.
Fun
I recently learned that reggaeton superstar Farruko, most recently famous for a song about popping pills and partying, had a come to Jesus moment on stage in Miami last year and refused to sing the lyrics, instead preaching about God and saying he’d retire.
No wonder the audience was upset after paying for a pricey ticket and getting that!
I wonder if he even told his crew or staff - seems like not. Sources since then say that he’s coming back, which wouldn’t be surprising. What a thing to happen on stage though.