These Are a Few of my Favorite Things!

So this may not be the most insightful blog post, but I feel this is an important concept of traveling abroad that everyone should be aware of.  The food.  Now I had had a little experience with Brazilian food with the Portuguese class I took in Memphis, but I was not fully prepared.  The food here is unbelievably delicious! It is kind of amazing how we do not hear or get enough exposure to Brazilian food in America!  There is an ice cream shop called Cairu literally a block from our lab, such a terrible idea.  The ice cream here knocks the socks off ice cream back in the States.  When we first got here, our mentor, Givago, told us that we were only allowed to get fruit flavors, none of this chocolate business.  So we decided to follow his advice and I learned maracuja (passion fruit), tapioca, frutas silvestres (berries), and graviola (sour sop) are some of the best flavors there.  But I also learned romeo e julieta (guava and cheese) is not my favorite, I will never learn to like cheese as an ice cream flavor.  I have also learned that I will never be able to eat pizza in the U.S. again though because I will always compare it to the wonders that I have had here.  The first time we had pizza here, it had corn, peas, palmito, and ham, totally normal toppings to the Brazilians with us. We followed this up with pizza with guava and cheese, Caroline’s new favorite pizza, which is a much better option than the ice cream option.  But to me, nothing will ever beat the deliciousness of feijoada, a kind of stew made of beans and lots of different meat pieces that you eat over rice. We actually ate this at a buffet inside The Computer Store next door to our apartment and it was pure heaven to me.  For some reason at home, I’m not a big fan of rice and beans, but those Brazilians can somehow make this seemingly simple meal taste like the greatest meal you’ve ever had!