Curitiba, Joinville and Florianopolis

Writing this on a cold and rainy day on the island of Santa Catarina / Florianopolis where there are dozens of beatufull beaches that I haven´t been able to really enjoy because of bad weather. In Florianopolis I have seen: many crazy motercyclists, many crazy surfers, many freindly stray dogs, many horses pulling carts loaded with various things and many cows, sheep and goats...all in all an interesting place...but would be better if I could see many sunny beaches instead of many rainy, stormy freezing cold beaches...they do have thier charm but it wears off after a few days. Maybe the sun will make an appearance before we leave for Montevideo on wednesday...

Before Florianopolis, we visited Joinville, the town where Patricia was born. The first highlight of Joinville, was the all you can eat pizza place with ten thousand different varieties of pizza with the thinnest crust you´ve ever seen, in fact you almost couldn´t see it it was that thin. This pizza was all about the toppings - cheese, garlic, olives, salamie, peperonie, ham, arugula, sundried tomatoes, egg, palm hearts, chicken hearts, ground meat, sliced meat, shredded meat etc. etc. even chocolate, and fruit... The second highlight was the tapioca - they take tapica flour, spread it in a frying pan with some oil so it forms in to kind of a crispy on the outside soft on the inside shell, then they fill it with tasty fillings and fold it up and give it to you to eat and then you eat it and it is sooo good. The third highlight was the bottle of very bad wine bought from a very Italian man with a pot-belly along with some seafood paella the combination of which made us feel not well for the rest of the day. There were also some highlights that were not directly related to food including: cool old buildings, a street lined with tightly packed extremely tall palm trees, a cool modern cathedral and a flower show with many many orchids... all of which I will post photos of sometime in the not too distant future.

Before Joinville we visited Curitiba, which had no culniary highlights aside from some mediocher German food and a reletively decent hostel breakfast and some good Acai. It was a very organized and easy to visit city and the nicest thing about it was the multitude of little parks and public spaces most of which were adorned with big trees and/or beautifull fountains.
It also had a bus which took you around the city to visit all the tourist sites most of which were not very remarkable excepting the art museum which was awsome (pictures to come).

You may be noticing a trend toward food oriented descriptions in this blog - however I have done some things besides eat, like ride in buses, walk around, and look at things... but it is just so nice to relive some of the very awsome meals I´ve had here so that´s that.

Rio and Iguasu Falls

Since my last post I spent a wondefull week in Rio and a few days at the amazing Iguasu falls. On account of the slow internet connections of late I wont be posting any photos instead I talk a bit about food.

Food has been the best part of this trip so far and I got to try all kinds of new things with Patricia and her Aunt guiding me around Rio. They have all kinds of great fresh juices made of all kinds of great tropical fruits. My favorite has been the Acai which is a kind of energy rich berry (we get them at home) that they make into a thick smothie, then you eat it with these crunchy tapioca balls... mmmmm. I have also made a habit of doping my self with maricuja (passion fruit) juice daily - aparently it has a sedative effect, they give passion fruit concentrate to hyperactive kids down here... as a result I have been feeling very chill... though that could be attributed to the fact that I~m on vacation, I will have to do a control trial when I get home and start working again.

I have also been eating record quantities of chese, milk, yogurt and meat... the meat here truly does taste better than at home, by leaps and bounds, all you need is a little salt for seasoning and it~s pretty much the best thing ever. You can get all kinds of cuts at any resaurant that does a barbecue - my favorite cut so far is called picanha I have no idea what cut it is but it sure is good. It~s supposedly better because all the cattle here is grass fed.

Then there are these things called Pastel that are just fried dough stuffed with pretty much whatever your heart desires, chese, meat, shrimp, chocolate, bananas...whatever, and served piping hot.....

Pão de Queijo (cheese bread) are buns of variose shapes and sizes made of a dough of manioc flour and cheese and baked to a deliciouse stretchy chewy deliciousness...these are very addictive and very dangerouse to anyone attempting any sort of a diet.

Finally I will mention this crazy soup called Tacacá that is from the north and made of variouse goopy and soupy manioc products and a certain kind of leaf called Jambú and served with dried shrimp. It somehow makes your toung go numb as you are eating it which is a kind of cool sensation, and it tastes very awsome....

Hmmm, I think I am going to have go go eat now