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Published: January 18th 2005
Look what I found in my beer! A mini beer!
We loved the German-Brazilian hospitality in the German pub in Curitiba (a Brazilian place).This entry's all about a not-so-famous-but-great-nonetheless place called Curitiba. It's located a bit down and to the left of Rio for the geography students amongst us.
Curitiba was described in the Lonely Planet as one of Brazil's urban success stories, and we thought we'd check it out on our way up to Rio via some beaches and other places. We arrived on the 18th of Jan in the early evening, and basically crossed the road from the bus station in order to check into our hotel. This was mainly for convenience, because the next morning we planned to take the "Scenic" train down to a place on the coast called Ilha do Mel (translation :- Honey Island). We got the tickets for the "Scenic" train and headed into town to check out this urban success story for ourselves.
We found ourselves in a cobbled pedestrian street and wandered down it (I will interject here with something important I just remembered)
Brazil's cashpoint system is very strange and not tourist-friendly - Visa? they have hardly heard of it. You will often see cash machines that recognise no international standard cards. So don't run out of cash and then find a cashpoint
Us, hanging around in Curitiba
As you can see, we're on a nice cobbled street and it's all very civilised like you do in the rest of the world (even Bolivia) - you need to plan you spending!
So, thanks for listening to that little public service announcement - I thought it prudent to mention. I was in the middle of saying that we found a German-themed pub and had a couple of beers and some nice quality German food. Good stuff it was and we had a nice time before heading to bed. In the morning we left Curitiba on the "Scenic" train.
Back in Curitiba We arrived back in Curitiba after our little visit to Ilha do Mel (Island of Honey) on the 22nd of Jan and checked back into the same hotel across from the Bus station as before. It was, after all, good quality and good value as well as good location. We ended up finding a shopping centre and having an amazing steak in a restaurant inside.
The next day we paid for another night in the hotel before heading off into town. At reception in the morning, an incident worthy of mention took place - that of the Frenchman (Englishless, and Portugueseless) trying to explain in French that a lightbulb wasn't
working in his room. Pretty tricky situation at the best of times (French to a Portuguese-speaker) but coupled with the fact that the french guy had had his voicebox removed (probably for some throat cancer) it was obviously proving near-impossible.
Long story short; muggins got involved and got so far as to understand the whisper-french of this old chap and translate it into Spanish so the Brazilian guy at reception could understand.
I'm sure there's a really good joke in there somewhere, apart from the fact that any good joke needs to take the piss out of the Germans, as well as the French.
So, where next? Well, we pretty much enjoyed Curitiba for the day (it was a Sunday) and ended up back in the German place for food and beers again. The next day, we spent the majority of the day updating the weblog and took the 8pm night bus to Rio de Janeiro (and you've probably already read about that one if you've been keeping up with us).
See you all in New Zealand....
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Jackson
non-member comment
tank you your visit
Moro em Paranaguá, agradecemos a sua visita em nossa cidade e desde já nos colocamos a inteira disposição para recebê-lo quando quiser. Um abraço Jackson. jacksonjorge@ig.com.br