Journey to the South of Brazil

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Hey all,
this is faith writing. i arrived in rio on the 9th and bru and i spent a night in rio. the waves were really big on the beach by our hotel, and there were tons of surfers out. We drove through sao paolo, spent a night on the road, and then arrived in Curitiba, the capital city of the state of Parana. We stayed at a hotel across from a park, and at the end of pedestrian mall. All day and into the evening the mall was filled with people shopping and eating at the sidewalk cafes, even when it dropped to the 50s at night. Good weather for sipping quentao - similar to mulled wine - and people watching. It gets dark around 6pm because its winter, but everyone stays outside to socialize, shop, and hang out.
Curtiba, and the south in general, are quite interesting because of their marked contrast from the rest of brazil. The south is the coldest in brazil, and unlike other regions received extensive immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The brazilian govt encouraged such immigration because it helped to support Brazil´s claim to land in border disputes with neighboring countries. Thus, in addition to the african, portuguese and indio population that dominate the rest of brazil, there are also many people of italian, polish, ukrainian, and german descent, making the south much whiter and blonder (very few blondes in the rest of brazil) and its cities - like curitiba with its pedestrian malls, botanical garden, german-styke pubs and town squares - much more "european," organized, and efficient compared to the tropical exuberance of areas such as Rio and Fortaleza. Within Brazil, Curitiba is considered the "urban success story."
We visited the botanical garden in Curtiba, which was pretty boring althought the green house it was housed in looked pretty cool: three domes on top of a hill. Behind the grennhouse and the formal hedges leading up to it was a few acres of original growth, very little which is left. I thought it was more interesting than the gardens...
Okay this is getting long. We also visited the Opera Arame, a glass opera house built alongside a lake. after a few days we headed to florianopolis...

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