Creativity is a strange beast. I don’t really want to write about all the tiny little details of every day because that would be boooooorrrring. We did some work things on Saturday morning and then did some fun things on Saturday afternoon. We went to a town called Gramado, which is a place you don’t really want to go on Brazilian Valentine’s Day because it’s so busy and romantic there. At least that’s what I gather from what I’ve been told, I wouldn’t know.

A buffet with lots of Brazilian foods was first on the roster. After I got my first plate of food, I heard someone say something about how good the grape juice was at this “Palace Café Colonial.” I trotted over to the drinks and saw some grape juice in a glass pitcher with a bunch of grape juice glasses. The label said “vinho tinto seco” and I saw “grape juice.” After crunching the words a few seconds, I moved on to the beer, and then finally came to the juices, whereupon I discovered the actual grape juice and actual juice glasses. It was pretty good.

You’ll have to forgive me here, but I have to keep going on this buffet story, because I discovered hot chocolate the way my heart has always longed for. After my second plate of food, I waddled over to explore the buffet again. I discovered “chocolate quente” and decided to try it. I pulled the lever, and this thick sludge came out of the tap. I had to double check to make sure I was doing something right. It was then explained to me that in Brazil, the hot chocolate was chocolate with a little bit of milk, and not the other way around like it is in the United States. Oh, man! This was amazing. I actually had two half-cups, instead of just one, it was so good.

After the restaurant experience, we headed to Gramado and hit up a super car museum. I won’t go into detail but I went 80¹ in a super car that day. For some reason my “instructor” was rather jumpy. It was a neat experience, but could have been a lot better if they had let me go, say, 120 or 150 instead.

We went to supper at a fondue restaurant and I promptly stuffed my face again for the 18th² time that week. Then just some shopping was accomplished where I bought an amazing cup in which to drink yerba mate and also some chocolate.

I finally learned about this one weird trick on Sunday. I will teach it to you so that suburban middle class soccer moms hate me. I was introduced to açaí. It was in a sort of “sorbet” over which we put bananas, sweetened condensed milk, and paçoca (Paçoquina) which is some kind of sweetened peanut snack that reminds me of marzipan. It was delicious. I of course went bananas over it and ate two servings.

In order to counteract our bad diet choices, we went to a park here in Novo Hamburgo and walked approximately 3-4km. I didn’t measure. Nothing bad happened, and we got some exercise.

Then for supper, oh my! We went to a Madero, a restaurant chain that describes itself as having “the best burger in the world.” In English, no less. I don’t want to say it was the best burger I ever had, much to the frustration of my fellows, but it was pretty good. I’d say to give it a shot if you ever come to Brazil. The seasoning is on point, and the bread tastes like it had some effort put into it for once.

That’s about it for the weekend escapades. Some of the food I’ve been eating includes rice, beans, chicken, churrasco, beans, rice, salad, churrasco, beans and rice. I’m not sure who’s going to win on this one, the cooks, or my desire to not have a huge “barriga.” Maybe more on that later.