Samba Sister.

My friend Rendi, whom you may recognize from this post.  What a babe, huh?

Here's a funny little fact about my life.  Of all the rich, beautiful global cultures out there, there are two that have fascinated me my whole life: 20th century Brazil, and Victorian England.

Honestly.  Could you pick two more disparate entities?  It's like claiming your two favorite foods are Butterfinger Chocolate Cream Pie, and, celery.  Suffice it to say that modern Brazilians and the empirical British share little in common, except for their mutually healthy appreciation of headwear.  And yet, there it is: My bookshelf crammed with Wildes and Brontës, my lovingly scratched Brazilian music CD's, my college trips to London and Oxford, my date nights at Sao Paulo.

I'm not sure what the Brits would have to say about all that Brazilian skin, or what the latter would say about the former's boiled cooking, but in my heart, they are two perfect, loveable spheres.  As my Downton Abbey and Austin Samba School obsessions suggest, I long to inhabit both.

On Saturday night I got that opportunity, or at least for the Brazilian side of things.  We had our Carnaval show, and friends, can I admit something?  You are looking at a changed woman.  I am totally new to this form of dance, and while I always had a good time practicing for our show these past few months, I didn't have the hunger, exactly.  I thought, "this is nice because Ross and I can do it together" (he's one of the samba drummers), "it's a great workout," "I like the music," etc.  But Saturday CONVERTED me.  I don't know how to explain it, but I had my come to Jesus with samba.  I have hearts in my eyes.  I have a crush on it.  As I write this blog post, I literally just came home from a samba class.

Our show!  How crazy beautiful is everyone?  It was a Wizard of Oz theme, and you can kind of pick out the characters.  Well, the sexy samba interpretation of the characters, anyway.

Here is my little group and I doing our thang.  You can just make out my torso in the top one.  In the second, we are backstage jamming out.

Photos via the amazing Daniel Mora.

Bonus shot: Me and my mom!  My AWESOME mom, who came to come watch Ross and I perform.  Pardon the iPhone pic quality.

Both my mom and I come from British ancestral descent, but sometimes (and especially on nights like these), I think we may secretly be Brazilian girls trapped in Brits' bodies.