thiago_simoes

Brazil lost the first match against Guyana, so they don't look so out of place now. Never underestimate the capacity of Brazilian athletes to fail hard when it comes to winter sports. They are practically nonexistent here, so if the athletes do not move out and train in other countries, they could lose to even a group of Totallympians.

I love it that the website looks like something that was created in 2002.

You can have pastel anywhere in the state of São Paulo (I believe anywhere in Brazil, to be honest). There's also an option with veggies, and another option filled with heart of palm, so there are even more ways to make your belly bigger. In all honesty, if you like Japanese food, Liberdade is the one place to go. But maybe I'm pushing it too hard because I'm a Japanophile myself. I've taken 2 years and a half of Japanese lessons, so it's nice to go to the restaurants there and reply in Japanese when they greet me (much to their surprise, as I'm basically a black latino man).

It is! There's a very easy way to do it by putting a can of condensed milk in a pressure cooker and boil it for 35 minutes (link here with instructions in Portuguese). If you want to buy it pre-made, the best brand, in my opinion, is Uruguay's Lapataia. It's worth every cent. My favorite thing to do there is to visit a neighborhood called Liberdade. It has lots of stores that sell Japanese snacks, cookies, drinks and candies. You can buy packs of sushi, onigiri, lotus flower root snacks (they taste really good) and drinks like Calpis and Ramune. Also, there's a street fair where you can eat all sorts of food, like takoyaki, gyoza, tempura and nikuman. I recommend eating lamen in a restaurant, too. There's a very good one, but I can't remember the name (I'll look for it). You should also try Bolivian and Peruvian food if you haven't tried yet. I believe you've tried Mexican food as well, but if you haven't, there are some good restaurants there too. There are also nice Korean restaurants, though they are not my favorite, at all. You should also try Argentine empanadas. There's a fast food restaurant that serves some delicious ones, and I assume it will be easy to find its address online. If you want typical food from São Paulo, you have to go to the municipal market and ask for pastel (deep fried crust pie filled with either cheese, ground meat, chicken, ham or shrimps) and drink caldo de cana (sugarcane juice).

Looks like the paradise to me. I would love to live in a place like this. The closest place in Brazil would be the city of São Paulo. Not even Rio de Janeiro has such variety. I currently live in a "small" town with 500 thousand people. Since I was born and raised in Rio (6 million+ people), I am bored to death in a city with less than 1 million people. There's nothing to do here, and most of the families that settled here in the past came from Germany, so I'm even more bored by their style and especially their food. Yes, cinnamon rolls! How could I forget? I thought they were filled with dulce de leche, somehow, so I thought it was strange to use this filling in Italy.

Oh, that makes sense. In Spanish it is huevo, in French oeuf, in Romanian ou, so I thought Italian would have had a unique word too, like oufo, or something like this, so it makes sense to be uovo. In Portuguese we write ovo, and I have to say the word looks quite weird, but I can't explain why. Nice! There's a Cirque du Soleil show called Ovo. It was created by a Brazilian choreographer, and she meant to make it sound different for people who speak other languages, because the word looks curious, but Croatians and Italians might not have been so enticed, after all.

Is there any reason for that? In Brazil it's not uncommon to find Japanese drinks in a number of select stores. Not really surprising, since the largest Japanese population outside Japan lives in Brazil. I'm especially fond of Calpis. This thing is delicious!

I thought "ovo" was a word exclusive to the Portuguese language. You learn something new every day... And the pictures are really great. Congrats!

I want them all! Especially the watermelon, tamarind and guava variations. There are local brands in Brazil that market unusual flavors like pineapple and tangerine too. There's even a brand that created a soda made of leaves from a Brazilian plant called chapéu de couro, a rather bizarre choice for a soda variation. The funny thing is that this drink, called Mineirinho, is somewhat popular in the state of Rio de Janeiro. @heywoodu, have you drunk Mineirinho?

What are these? They look like Swiss rolls but they were baked in a very different way from what I'd expect them to be served (like we do in Brazil). By the way, we call Swiss rolls in Brazil "rocambole".

I tried to focus on medals. If we add "first time in the final" there would be a lot more to discuss.

If Slovakia's idea of selling beer is having naked men on TV, I feel like moving there.

What's the best selling beverage (preferentially non-alcoholic) unique to your country? In Brazil we all drink guaraná, and even Fanta decided to create their own soda version of the drink.

I love Metroid Prime, even though it's not really a first-person shooter per se. Same thing with Deus Ex. Half-Life was good, though. I have to admit.

It was certainly different from what I would expect. Too bad I absolutely hate first-person shooters and I would never consider playing this game.

We've had so many "firsts" in gymnastics this year! Let me review some of them: World Championships Acrobatic gymnastics - first gold medal for Aerobic gymnastics - first medal for Artistic gymnastics - first medal for , first women's medal for , first gold medal for Trampoline - first medal for , first gold medal for Youth Olympics First world medal in gymnastics for First YOG medals in gymnastics for , , and Iran, of course World Cup series Aerobic gymnastics - first medal for Artistic gymnastics - first ever medals for , , (and only the second time that and earned medals, also a respectable fourth place for ) Rhythmic gymnastics - first medal for (also a respectable fourth place for ) European Championships First ever gold medal for in rhythmic gymnastics after being world champions numerous times.

First gold medal ever for Sweden!

I don't understand trampoline. Like, at all. It's confusing and most scores make little sense to me. But one thing is for sure: Russians are overscored in any gymnastics discipline.

Fernando finished fourth, which is great. Maybe in a few years he will be awarded a medal.

That was exciting! Maybe Fernando was a bit "conservative" in snatch... I mean, he equaled his Pan American record, so conservative is not a very good word, but why not trying to break it? 201 kg should have been his second attempt and 204 kg his third attempt. But I'm okay with the results. We can't expect much from him. It's nice to watch this sport, I have to admit.

I don't expect much from Fernando, so it will be nice to measure the competition. When I read it out loud, it sounds awful, I know.

Funny thing is that Albegov is somewhat famous in... erm... gay "communities". There are many pictures of him on Tumblr, if you know what I mean. Or so I was told.

How long until the men's competition starts? I will watch this sport for the first time today, so I'm excited. I've seen videos here and there, but following a live competition will be the fist time.

Medals for Argentina and Mexico! What a year for gymnastics in Latin America! Three World Championships medals for Mexico (artistic, aerobics and trampoline), one for Brazil (artistic) and one for Argentina (trampoline). If only Colombia had won a medal, this would have been the perfect year for us. But I'm quite happy, alright! I would never have dreamed Latin America would do so well this year! AMAZING!

Argentina qualified in fourth for the men's double mini final! Vamos, América Latina!