Quote:
Originally Posted by jj12
Hi, I am traveling around Brazil and I am having a blast. Rio is crime ridden and has urban problems (traffic, pollution). However, in the south of Brazil there are amazing and very European looking cities with little crime. Porto Alegre in particular is great. I don't understand why people are choosing Thailand and Argentina in front of southern Brazil. I've been to Thailand and Argentina and it seems much worse than what you get in southern Brazil. It is quite cheap there, the cities are extremely nice (Porto Alegre looks like San Francisco, very modern and clean with lots of trees on the streets). And Brazillian culture is very hedonistic and centered around having fun. Amazing food .. way better than Thai. Barbecues and extremely fresh fruit and vegetables and sea food. Girls are also amazing and any type you want. I flew from Porto Alegre to Buenos Aires and thought BA is a ****hole compared to PA. Another amazing city was Curitiba, altho it has worse weather than Porto Alegre. The weather is more cloudy, while PA is mainly sunny and nice.
I live in porto alegre and everything you said about the city is true except for the food.. if you live in the USA you will be dissapointed with the general quality of any kind of food, except for meats/barbacues wich are the region's specialty. Fruits and vegetables are also good.. but asian, french, italian, international foods are of inferior quality.
Also, the currency is kinda cheap NOW (at 1$ = R$1.78) but I believe the dollar is gonna depreciate and we see a much stronger real... so it may not be so "cheap" in the future compared to the US.
Crime is a real problem also.,.
check this wiki article on the city, very informative:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porto_Alegre