Smart men, babies and great food - not necessarily in that order

Sorry to have been incommunicado. Yesterday was a full day of professional meetings at both public and private hospitals so not much interesting to discuss.  And not a lot of great pictures from todays visits to the cathedral, the park and the art museum though we did go to the Snake Farm where they milk venomous snakes to make antivenom.....woo hoo. Good times. Say hello to the pretty snake.

But we did learn that at the public hospital they try to have only 'natural births.' There was just something about the way they said it that made me think that they were not just making the distinction apart from caesarian sections. And I was right. They meant natural as in absolutely no drugs whatsoever. No epidurals. No nothing. However, their average birth weight for babies is only 2-3 kg so perhaps the ease of delivering a 5.5lb baby makes the drugs irrelevant. Anybody who's had a baby want to chime in?

We also found out that when women are engaged they wear a simple band on their right ring finger. And when they get married they wear a (the same or a different on depending on the disparity in their finger size) simple band on their left ring finger. Seems that separate engagement rings are not the norm and nobody has explained to these poor women that they can put in for diamonds.

Finally, Michael and I just got back from a fabulous meal. The guy sitting across the aisle from us on the flight down is a pastry chef in Rio. He recommended a restaurant called DOM here in Sao Paulo. We didn't have internet access to look it up but went ahead and made a reservation. Well, Gary Danko eat your heart out. They claim to be rated the 18th top restaurant in the world. We weren't expecting the quality (or price) of the dinner but it was amazing. Four course tasting menu with cheese course and dessert and a bonus course thrown in for good measure. Ummm ummmm ummmm.

Tomorrow we have meetings in the morning and then fly to Rio so tonight we have to pack. More later.