Eating well in Salvador

We arrived in Salvador late Tuesday night and once again travel was flawless. It was fun to wake up to the sites of a new city yesterday. We stepped into warmer temperatures and a lot more humidity, but it's also accompanied by a lovely ocean breeze, so we'll take it. :)

We're staying with Clarissa and her mom Solange. Clarissa was an exchange student at my high school before I was an exchange student at her university. And it's great to be with her and Solange again. It's fun to come be back in their home - it all still feels very familiar.

Jachin and I spent some time yesterday wandering other familiar sites. We checked out the neighborhood I that lived in when I studied abroad here, we ate Ovalmaltines (pronounced "ovaulmalcheenies") at Bob's Burgers (a Brazilian burger chain that feels shockingly like McDonald's even though it's based out of Rio - ovalmatines were my favorite thing to eat when I was homesick), we walked down to the iconic lighthouse in Salvador, and then spent some time on a lovely little city beach not too far from the lighthouse. The beach brought with it a whole new slew of foods to enjoy... including the long awaited queijo coalho! :D Sometimes you wonder if you remember a cheese too fondly (as I'm sure we all often do)... but then you have it again and you realize that you can't overestimate how tasty it is.:)

We ended our night with Brazilian pizza and amazing company - we met Tadeu for dinner, who is the good friend whose wedding we originally planned our trip around... missed the wedding, but we still get to hang out with him.:) I loved sharing pizza with Jachin, Clarissa, Clarissa's boyfriend, AND Tadeu all at the same time. And I've also not underestimated how good corn on pizza is. Soooo good.

Anyway. Off to more adventures today. Tchau.

Mmm... Bob's Ovalmaltine... :)

The Farol Da Barra. It's looking as lovely as it ever did.

Beach cheese! Jachin was a fan, too... so I can't totally be making it up.

Our view at the beach.

Jachin tried acaraje for the first time yesterday, too.
It's probably the strangest thing he'll eat while we're here... and said he liked it.

Waiting for sunset at Porto da Barra

And it was a classically beautiful Salvadorian sunset.