I like Curitiba

We flew to Curitiba without incident on Saturday morning. Having to fly out at 4 in the morning is a pain, but I did get a little sleep on the plane. We had a bit of a scare I guess in the Sao Paulo airport. Our flight had to leave from the international departures area because it was going to Argentina after our stop in Curitiba, Brazil. Billy's visa doesn't permit reentry, so we were concerned about having to go through the customs/immigration control desks. But they're not idiots and when we showed them our tickets to Curitiba we got waived through - no passport check or stamping required.

Our hotel here in Curitiba is the Mercure. It's very nice. I'll post some pictures later. We have a two-room suite. The first room has a kitchen area (microwave, mini fridge, counter w/ mini sink, cabinet & drawer with 2 each of plates, cups, mugs, saucers, bowls, knives, forks, and spoons), a desk/table, a couch, and a smallish (maybe 19") flat screen TV on the wall. And a door to our balcony :) The second room (there's a closing door in between) has the bed, closet, and bathroom. I like almost everything about this room better than the Brisa da praia, except the bathroom is smaller, the air conditioner is in the bedroom so it doesn't cool the living room much, and there's even less storage space (even though it's a bigger room).

When we got here, they gave us a room on the 13th floor. That's the top one with rooms on it. The 14th floor has the gym, squash court, saunas, and pool. We unpacked and went for a walk around the neighborhood. It's a rather fancy area with fashionable shops and restaurants. We ended up at a less trendy but actually open at 2:30 on a Saturday afternoon restaurant. It was basically a diner, but they served cocktails :) I had a fantastic drink - strawberries and apple chunks with a bit of vodka. With a cinnamon stick for a stirrer. Basically, it was more of a fruit salad in a cup than a drink. When we came back after our late lunch we took a nap. I got up again around 6:30 PM and fiddled on the internet for a while. At 8 I went and woke billy up so we could get dinner. We went to a Cuban restaurant we'd seen in the afternoon. It was very good.

Unfortunately, when we came back, our toilet wasn't working. It wasn't flushing very well before we left, but maintenance was going to come check it out in the morning. It was essentially non-functional upon our return so we had to change rooms. Having a toilet is kind of an important part of staying in a hotel. So I had to pack everything back up and billy went to try and explain the situation to the front desk, Brazilian dictionary in hand. Luckily, the guy at the desk spoke English pretty well and quickly got us a new room. The one he'd chosen was a two-level suite instead of a side-by-side . Billy had stayed in one of those last time, and as cool as it sounds, he didn't want to deal with our big heavy suitcases on tiny spiral staircase that leads to the bedroom. So the guy rebooked us again into a room exactly like our first one but on the 8th floor. We unpacked again and went to bed.

Sunday we slept in, then went for a walk around the area after breakfast. We went through a pretty park and down a long pedestrian only shopping street. Everything was closed except the drug stores and lunch counters. There was a fair number of people out walking around though (it was beautiful out). We stopped by the grocery store on the way back to try and figure out what to stock our kitchen with. But we didn't have any money with us, so we have to go back tonight to buy some breakfast and lunch food. We went out for a late lunch again, but headed the wrong direction to find any restaurants open at lunch. We wondered a bit trying to circle around to the area we'd walked around in the morning. We ended up finding a bakery that was open. They had fantastic displays of desserts, but a few lunch items too. We each got a chicken pie thing called an empada and then discovered they had a buffet in the back. So billy got some quiche too, and we picked out tiny pieces of a bunch of desserts to split. It's all very tasty. I'll probably go over for a lunch or breakfast buffet a few more times. You can either pay by weight or a flat rate. On the way back we discovered that the office billy needs to go to for work is actually on the same block as the hotel. We can see it from our balcony (jut not the side with the logo on it). So billy can walk to work instead of dealing with a car.

I worked most of the rest of the afternoon. There's a variety of ethic restaurants around here - cuban, chinese, swiss, german, portuguese, italian, and american. We went to the american one last night. It's a fancy burger joint called Mustant Sally. I saw some people eating these amazing looking chili cheese fries, so I decided to get a chili wrap instead of a burger. Billy had a burger sampler platter with five tiny burgers. We will definitely go back. The burgers were amazing. As in seriously the best burgers we've ever had. And the dessert - WOW - it was an apple tart served in a hot skillet with a huge scoop of icecream. Then they pour thin camamel sauce over the top at the table. It boils when it reaches the skillet. It was amazing. We resisted the urge to order a second one.