To continue with the food theme, there is a restaurant/store in Petropolis that we often stop at when we go there. (Petropolis is a town up in the mountains about an hour away from Rio.) It’s called “Pavelka the German” (Pavelka o Alemão). Now, “Pavelka” doesn’t exactly sound like a German name to me. I am guessing that Pavelka wasn’t really German, but wanted to attract customers from the nearby Casa de Alemão (“House of a German”) – a big chain. In general, though, Petropolis has a German theme about it. The story goes that when the Portuguese crown moved to Brazil (to escape Napoleon), the Emperor was kind of bummed about the local population and figured that he'll fix it up by bringing a lot of Germans. (They wanted to compensate for the African blood, perhaps, so the Portuguese genes weren’t good enough – they needed whiter population.) Many of the Germans who came settled in Petropolis – near the Emperor who loved them so much.

Eitherway, Pavelka sells excellent hot chocolate – very thick and creamy without being too sweet. They serve similar hot chocolate in Porto Alegre, but it tastes kind gross. At Pavelka it tastes great. They also sell a variety of sausages.