Is Latin America a vision of Europe's fenced future?

Europeans should look at the hassles faced by other continents before they thoughtlessly toss out Schengen's decades of free movement.

I'm spending this weekend at Iguazu Falls, the mammoth waterfalls at the border of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. It's a truly spectacular sight, more powerful than Niagara and wider than Victoria (the falls, not the queen).

Perhaps even more interesting than visiting the falls has been exploring the three towns at the 'triple frontier', Foz do Iguacu, Puerto Iguazu and Ciudad del Este. It is essentially one large urban conurbation spanning three borders. I've taken to collecting visits to sites like this. It's my fourth triple border, after NL-BE-DE, CH-FR-DE and CH-LI-AU.

Carnival on the Ilha da Magia

For my tenth carnival, I went with the island of magic.

I’m in Florianopolis, Brazil this week, an island city in the Southeast part of the country well-known for its exuberant carnival celebrations the week before Lent.

It’s actually the tenth carnival I’ve been to. Over the past decade, sort of by accident, I started going to a new destination with a well-known carnival at the start of Lent every year. Last year I was in Venice, and in the years before that I was in Cologne, the Canaries, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Binche, Maastricht, Nice and New Orleans.

Carnivals around the world

Today is Ash Wednesday, a day when Roman Catholic areas can witness in equal number people with ashes on their forehead and those with bags under their eyes. It is the first day of lent – the 40-day fasting period leading up to Easter. But it is also the day after Mardi Gras and the carnival week, a period of revelry which can lead to some serious hangovers at the finish.

This year I went to the carnival celebrations in Cologne, Germany – the largest street festival in Europe (pictured above). I think I’m going for a record at this point – I’ve now been to carnivals in six cities on three continents (I’m not sure if that’s a brag or an embarrassing confession). The carnivals that I’ve seen in Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, New Orleans, Venice, Binche, Maastricht and Cologne have all been remarkably different – reflecting the diversity of the global Catholic community.

An American asked me yesterday if Europeans celebrate the “American holiday of Mardi Gras.” In fact it’s Americans who are celebrating the European tradition of carnival, with Mardi Gras just being a local New Orleans variant. Carnivals have been celebrated in Europe in the days before Lent begins for 1,000 years. The term comes from the Latin carne vale, which means “goodbye to meat”. Traditionally during Lent Catholics were supposed to refrain from drinking or eating rich foods such as meat, dairy, fats and sugar. They were also not to engage in any partying or celebrations, to mark the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness. So in the days before Lent, all rich food and drink had to be disposed of.

From Portugal to Brazil (and back again)

It's a bit of a shock to the system to be back in cold, rainy London after two glorious weeks in sunny Brazil. And unfortunately I mean that literally. Foolishly I thought I could get away with not bringing a jacket, and was forced to shiver my way home from the airport Tuesday in just a jumper. Now, of course, I have a cold.

It was an amazing trip, and really interesting - especially in the way we bookended it with some time in Portugal. We got a really cheap flight to Brazil with TAP, Portugal's national airline, but it required a 24 hour stopover in Porto on the way there and another stopover in Lisbon on the way back. So it was a little colonial recreation, if you will. This theme for the trip was heightened by the fact that the first port of call was Salvador, the capital of Brazil during the colonial period. The city is billed as having the largest collection of colonial architecture in Latin America, and it didn't disappoint.

New survey shows what Obama's up against

I realise I've been writing about North America a lot lately, and that's only going to shift to the Southern variety over the next two weeks while I'm in Brazil. I'm flying to Porto, Portugal later today to spend a some time there before flying to Salvador, Brazil tomorrow. It will be a very colonial-type journey, retracing the steps of Portuguese sailors hundreds of years ago as they made their way to the first Brazilian capital. It's a history dork's delight! My boyfriend and I will be in Salvador for five days, then we fly down to Rio de Janeiro for Carneval. I'm very excited. I've actually never been to South America before, so it should be very interesting. Come to think of it, it will be my first time south of the equator!

I probably won't be writing for the next two weeks, so here's something to ruminate on while I'm gone (and once I'm back I'll stop writing about US politics so much I promise). Just in case you forgot what Barack Obama is up against in terms of domestic opposition, take a look at this survey released this week by the non-partisan polling firm Research 2000. The group polled a random sampling of American citizens who are self-identified Republicans and found that a shocking 39% say President Obama should be impeached. What should he be impeached for exactly? Well the rest of the survey results would indicate what they believe his crimes are:

Brazil devours its mother tongue

By decree of a law passed last week, Portugal will no longer use Portuguese.

Well, not the same kind of Portuguese anyway. In a highly controversial vote that’s been debated for many years, the Portuguese Parliament has effectively changed the written language of Portugal to the type of Portuguese used in Brazil. This new standardization requires a change in spelling for hundreds of words and adds three new letters to the alphabet. All books will have to be republished in Brazilian Portuguese, and school curriculums will now be taught using the new language standardization.

The change was enormously controversial because it was seen as a matter of national pride by the former colonial power. But the seven other Portuguese-speaking countries in the world - Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, East Timor, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, and Sao Tome and Principe – had already standardized to Brazilian years ago.