Parading with Tamo Junto

Well, Sunday finally got here...I'm going to parade with the best bloco in the west (Zona Oeste of Rio de Janeiro), Tamo Junto in Folia. 'we're together in revelling' ...bad grammar, but you get the idea! There is at least one other bloco named tamo junto, and maybe one that is tamo junto EM folia, so I'm sure that's why they say IN folia. Anyway, I was told that we would parade at 3, so being the gringa that I am, I didn't want to miss anything, I was there at 2:30, waiting....and waiting.....finally about 4pm, we played for O Globo, and listened to the activist politician who is underwriting the group and the whole pre-carnaval party speak for a while. Then we took a looooong break until about 6, and played for half an hour in place then paraded for about an hour and a half....it was pretty great, I'd been one of the people following along two years ago, now I was part of the bateria! Because this went so late, I missed seeing Beija Flor's last technical rehearsal at sapucai, and at the time it bummed me a little. Now that I look back on it, this was a real experience, an active thing I did; not just observing and trying to pick up some way another baterias' caixas or surdos play...I played WITH the tamborins, surdos and caixas....