Adventures in South America

Last night we caught up with Martin, Vanessa, Fernando, and Maria Laura for dinner. Vanessa and Martin are very recently married - they married on January 15th and they just returned from their honeymoon in Brasil last Friday. They spent more than two weeks in a quiet beach town several hundred kilometers from Natal. The Real (Brazilian currency) is very strong right now (about 2.14 Reais to the dollar) making Brasil much more expensive then it was 2 years ago (then it was almost 3 Reais to the dollar).

Fernando was also at dinner and he invited his friend Maria Laura to meet us later on in the evening for post dinner coffee. Hanging out with this group is always entertaining! We usually end up spending hours at a restaurant while Martin regales us with stories. Last night was no exception as we closed down the restaurant at 1:30 (we arrived at 10:30)

Martin is a very tall, gregarious, blond Argentine, and Vanessa is petite, brunette and more on the quiet side. Martin recently cut his hair and beard (it used to be to his shoulders and he cut it immediately after his wedding). Only in Argentina can a lawyer have a haircut like that (it's very short all over except on the top where he has the longer part hanging over the left side of his face)!

Fernando works with software design and recently came back from a Microsoft sponsored trip to Washington State. He shared his impressions of that part of the states with us (a Starbucks on every corner in Seattle). He flew through Dallas Ft Worth to get to Washington and he was impressed by how different the people there seemed versus the other parts of the states he had been to.

It was truly a wonderful evening and we look forward to seeing them again. 

posted by Kathy T @ 6:43 AM