and may never come back home.  I met my coworkers for breakfast and had what is probably the best cup of coffee in my life. After an almost religious experience, I found the fresh fruit part of the breakfast buffet and realized I could only name about a third of them.  When finally dragged away from the coffee pot, we drove over to the University of Rio for the first day of training.



After lunch at the faculty club, where I had my introduction to cassiva flour, shark in spicy sauce, and this soda made from a local berry, we headed back for more training. At the end of the day, we went to the Sugarloaf, a mountain on the edge of the water that gives a great view of Rio, Niteroi, and bridge across the bay.



Looking north you can see the other beach of Rio and its sister city. Looking south behind me is the beach i walked yesterday and posted shots of below.







For dinner we went to a place that in addition to what I am recongizing as the usual buffet, they served both meat and fish as is done in "Brazilian Steakhouses" in the US. The usual buffet, which was at lunch and dinner yesterday as well as today, is a collection of cold meats like ham, sausages and cold cuts, a variety of hard and soft cheeses, fresh fruits, salads, other cold dishes, and desserts.  This was in addition the cooked fish, scallops, shrimp, and lobster carried around with the hot sausages, beef, pork, wild game, chicken and duck. (They use platters rather than the silly skewers in the US.) Served with this sugar cane based whiskey served over crushed fruits - lime in my case.) I tried calling Marc and Noah from dinner with no luck.