Where In The World is Matt? Brazil Edition Day 4

Good Morning Everyone!!  We are still surviving here at the Nafziger house without Matt.  So far so good.  Crossing my fingers that things continue to go somewhat smoothly!  Thank goodness for Google chat on gmail.  We would not be communicating much if not for that!

Our Friend Anselmo and his son Gabe.  His wife could not make it.  She has been out of town caring for her parents. 

Here is Matt's lastest update!

15Jul2010

Jason decided to rent a car during this trip.  At this point, I don’t think I would suggest doing this.  The car was the only automatic that they had and was about $100 US per day.  He could have gotten a manual transmission for $30 less per day but he didn’t want to have to brush up on his clutch skills while learning the rules of the road in a foreign country.  I don’t blame him.  Speaking of “rules of the road”, there don’t seem to be any.  Only slightly more rules here than I witnessed in China.  Crazy!  The streets are old, full or holes and nowhere close to running straight.  Just getting to and from the plant is an adventure now!

Tonight, we split up so that two of the guys I am travelling with could go play basketball with a group from the office.  That left Derek and I looking for dinner on our own at about 7:30.  The lady at the hotel desk told us of a pizza place that was within walking distance and she assured us that they took credit cards.  That’s a good thing, because we never have made it out to exchange any US dollars for Brazilian money.

After getting a seat and explaining to the waiter that we wanted a beer and water with no gas (much of the water here is carbonated), we picked up a menu.  He didn’t speak English, but he appeared to be telling us that we didn’t have to order pizza, he would bring it out.  Ok, we thought, we’ll see what he brings.  This place was like a pizza buffet but the waiters carried trays of pizzas around and dumped a slice on your plate whenever they thought you needed one.  Not bad.  Most of the pizzas were much like their American counterparts, with the exception of the dessert pizzas.  The dessert pizzas came in several flavors like chocolate and strawberry, chocolate, banana and cinnamon.  The strange part was, each of these flavors still had mozzarella cheese too!  The other strange thing that I noticed was that everyone in the restaurant was eating pizza with a knife and fork.  Of course, I did too.  When in Brazil, do as the Brazilians.

Oh, and the lady at the hotel desk was wrong.  After eating, we found that they do not accept credit card payments, nor would they accept US cash.  Luckily, the couple sitting next to us consisted of a young woman from Missouri and her boyfriend who was a local but attended college in Missouri.  They offered to exchange our US dollars for Brazilian money so that we could pay the bill.  We were glad that we met them.  Tomorrow, I find a place to exchange some cash!