Before coming to Rio, I thought I was an aggressive driver. I am a very interactive driver who verbalizes to the other drivers my displeasure, etc. I was told a joke while there. What is the shortest measure of time? The time it takes for the light to turn green and the guy behind you to start honking his horn. All over the roads in Rio you will see the yellow lines you are accustomed to seeing in the U.S. Rest assured they are for decoration only. I witnessed many close calls involving cars AND BUSES straying over from one lane to another and into oncoming traffic, etc. My recommendation to prospective tourists is: let the professionals handle it.
We made it to the mall in one piece and for some reason I don't exactly remember, we didn't buy much in the way of clothes. But I did sample what would become my snack food of choice, Pao de Queijo. This is a little ball of dough with cheese squirted inside. Yummy. There were several foods in Brazil that I really enjoyed. There's the Petit Palmier. This is a sweet cookie kinda shaped like a heart. And then there's the Churro. This may be the single most evil food ever created. Imagine a doughy cylinder (with a hole through it about the width of a pencil) that is deep fried, rolled in cinnamon and sugar and then filled to overflow with dulce de leche (a very sweet caramel). They average about 10 inches long (although I had one that was easily 13 shortly before leaving Brazil) and an inch in diameter. All that grease and sugar for only R 1!
I took a picture of the cart the guy sells them from, but it was an start-of-the-roll thing and didn't come out. I had this whole concept in my head of putting it head-to-head with Cinnabon (pictured in Miami's airport) and comparing them to determine the most evil dessert item, but without the picture, it's just not the same. So if anyone living in Brazil has a picture of a Churro stand, I might revive the idea for the web site.
Since I seem to be on a food kick for some reason, I may as well just continue with it. Brazil has something interesting which I call the Pay Buffet. Rather than having typical all-you-can-eat buffets, Brazil has buffets where you pay by the kilogram for your food. Now Dominicks will do that with salad, but that's about it here. The one problem is that since it's in kilos, you don't really know how much your food will weigh when you get to the scales. The pricing works out to be pretty cheap though so if you can eat a large variety of foods, and not limit yourself like I do, then I highly recommend trying one.
