I loved my favorite school's performance this year. Unidos da Tijuca's come-on was that they were going to take my soul. And with their performance they did. The perennial favorite, Beija-Flor(hummingbird) looked great on TV Tuesday morning. The were declared the winners this afternoon. My peacock got crapped on by a hummingbird. Yech.

LOL I have been to the sambadome many times and loved it. Do you know about how much one school pays for the costumes?

Cost of the costume also depends if you are a wealthy visiting tourists or a poor but gorgeous favelado who catches the eye in the upper echelon of the school. In that case the costume/fantasia is free. Also, a poorer school like Portela/Sao Clemente is going to have aulas at the rear of their school where the costumes are very low cost. I was told 200-300Reais. The girl sitting next to me from Portela had a costume from the cheapest nylon and a few feathers. But from a distance, pretty. And on the other hand, the wealthy school like Beija-Flor has much stronger aulas with better costumes and floats from the beginning to the end. This year's Baianas from Unidos da Tijuca has incredibly gorgeous costumes with tons of feathers that I was able to examine from a distance of a couple of feet.

This year was a great example. The costumers that the members of Beija-Flor's bateria/drum corps wore were really, really nice. Even this aspect was taken into account.

And of course, even the peacock couldn't compete with the hummingbird's secret weapon - they had the son of God this year - Roberto Carlos on a float to go with their music theme. The most unbeatable, no impossible combination of Samba and Jesus Christ.