Dinner in Piracicaba Brazil

We had a wonderful dinner and a lot of fun. Still taking pictures with me cell phone and they stink. I need to buy a real camera soon.


This is the gang and a bad pick at that, the server struggled getting the pic. Left to right sitting; Asmelid, Deise (pronounced Daisey), me and left to right standing Mauricio, Fernada (not the one from the plane), Karina. Mauricio is a bit of a ghost and we are all blurry.


Mauricio much less ghost like. This place we were at is a grocery store during the day and a restaurant at night. There was an awesome Cod Au Gratin thing that Fernanda and Deise got. And of course we had to finish off with Papaya Cream...yum









(the model) Asmelid, me, Deise and Karina...Karina you were such a wonderful host for our meetings, ect. It is really a great group of people in the Piracicaba plant. Thanks for everything.














I think the best picture of the night...

Hello Arlene & Fernanda

On my flight from Buenos Aires to Sao Paulo I met a mom (Arlene) and her daughter (Fernanda). We chatted up a storm the whole flight. They had a short holiday in Buenos Aires.

Fernanda, your English was very good!! So your verb tenses were off sometimes, but I knew what you were saying. The name of their city in Brazil is Belo Horizonte another lose translation would be Beautiful Horizon (I think). Very cool city name! They gave me their phone number and invited me to their home if I ever get close to Belo Horizonte, that is so nice....it makes me want to take a side trip just to see them!!

It was very nice to meet both of you. And Fernanda good luck on your test for Black Belt in Taekwondo at the end of the year. I hope that you find exactly what you love to do and focus on that.

THE BEST FOOD - CABANA LAS LILAS

The bridge is actually a memorial to woman....but is supposed to remind you of a woman Tangoing. i don't think it is actually called "Tango bridge" I just call it that. :-)

I had one of the best meals ever. The food in Argentina is sooooo good and they feed you so much! When you sit down they fill the table with all kinds of food. The best are the cheese rolls, I think they have a different name than cheese rolls but they are soooo good. Then there is a platter of roasted vegetables and fresh mozzarella and other breads and a small cup of chicken broth. Then you order food for dinner. Asmelid and I shared a fried Provelone Cheese, it is cut about 1 to 1.5 inches thick and fried. Then I had tenderloin !!! Thank goodness I squeezed in a 30 minute workout before dinner....but in the end I am not sure how much help it was. We shared a homemade lemon sorbet...it was so wonderfully tart...yum.

They own their own beef cattle. Hmmmm....I wonder if Dean sells bull semen to them :-)

So the steaks come out with these cute little cows stuck in them. Mine was the pink cow and loosely translated means something like, "I am at the perfect point"...Asmelide who asked for hers cooked medium well was loosey translate, "I am a little over cooked" or "I am toasted"

Tango....Hooters???

So out to take a walk and get dinner...the food is so good here and so cheap!! It is 3 pesos to 1USD. I am in the Puerto Madero section, it is very safe and there are tons of great places to eat. There is a pedestrian bridge across the waterway...the water way is a group of locks that used to be used for shipping...they have huge cranes every so many meters that were used for moving cargo on and off ships. But this is the second time I have been here and I haven't seen one ship or anything being moved. I think the name of the bridge is Tango Bridge, it is supposed to remind you of a womans leg during the tango?? But can you believe....nothing is sacred, Hooters in Argentina....

Arrived in Argentina

So last night in the boarding area this tall blond curly haired man sat down next to me. He was wearing a really cool shirt that said Sandhurst Polo, with a ton of various patches on it. So after a few minutes I asked, "Is that just a really cool shirt? or do you play Polo?" Out of his mouth came a very British accent and he said with a smile "I play Polo." So we chatted a bit and I had to say that my sister rides 3-Day eventing and that she has a giant Irish Sport horse. He said "yes, very different horses between the 2 sports"; also noted the other horsey sister and hunter/jumper.

He was on his way to Argentina to visit Mum and Dad before his deployment to Iraq. He is a British Citizen but grew up in Argentina (his father works in Buenos Aires). So I had to ask if he ever ran into "the Royals"....Prince Harry or Prince William. He said yes he knew them both and played Polo on the same team with them once. He said they are very nice guys.

I wished him well on his deployment to Iraq...he said that his unit will be leaving in a couple of months and he seemed to be apologizing that he was really only going to be there for 3 or 4 weeks before leaving again.

He had a down jacket with him...and I said "it isn't going to be that cold is it?" He said he checked and it was to be 3 or 4C....well so much for Optimum Cable service they were telling me in the 80sF!! And that didn't make sense to me, but I trusted what they had on line. So while sitting there in the lounge I looked up the temps and sure enough the high this week will be 60F and the low about 35F.....so I didn't pack right at all!!! Well I will just have to buy a sweater.

So that is the start of this trip. I'll add more and hopefully get a good picture of the Tango Bridge. It is very cool.

Next Trip

Not if anyone has been out to check to see my latest exploits, but I went to Suffolk VA last week and that was extremely uneventful...that is good. Ate at Bone Fish....awesome meal.

So my next trip is back to Latin America, fly out Aug 17th and return that following Friday (arrive US Sat AM). Fly into Buenos Aires, Argentina and spend 2 days in our Pacheco plant...this is a huge plant! And then fly to Sao Paulo and go to our Piracicaba Brazil plant. September sends me back to the EU and then I believe end of Oct is Asia Pacific! So that is my schedule for the remainder of the year. Which can change at any time!

TTFN - Suzanne