Pillow menu

Now this is different. On the night stand here at the Sofitel in Rio there's a little booklet on the night stand. It is titled, 'Pillow Menu.'
First guess was room service menu for eating in bed. Wrong. It is actually a menu for the purpose of ordering alternative pillow options.
Inside the brochure it reads: My bed. Customized sleeping. ... To make your stay memorable and for a perfect night sleep, choose your own special pillow from our menu. ... Our pillow menu allows us to cater for each individual with a range of six different types of pillows.
Then it goes on to suggest different pillows for back sleepers and stomach sleepers, etc. They only fall shy of suggesting wine pairings.
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Long day

We started out early yesterday with two site visits with Brazil's largest HMO. It's an HMO but a very high quality one with minimum 30 minute office visits and a gorgeous cardiology facility. The VIP room is nicer than any hotel room I've ever stayed in (whether I was paying or somebody else was).
Of course the questions kept coming back to quality control and peer review of the doctor's and their medicine and the answers kept coming back to the cost efficiency, but what did you expect?
Then off to the domestic airport where we could wear our shoes and jackets through security and did not have to remove every lotion bottle and electronic item from out bags so things went smoothly even with 40 people.
Only a 45 min flight to Rio. Just enough time for Michael, and a half a dozen other men, to fall in love with the blond flight attendant with the perfect nose and flawless skin.
Landed in Rio in what was apparently uncharacteristically clear weather with Christ the Redeemer looking down on the City. One is immediately reminded of a South Africa and Table Mountain (on a littler scale).
On the bus and straight up (well technically it takes two trams) to the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain to enjoy the view. Then back down half way for a little cocktail party with caipirinhas which made dinner (which we still had) superfluous and redundant.
A long day but a nice one.
Pictures to follow. Gotta run.
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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.

We have arrived

As always, thank heavens for Michael's status so that we could upgrade on the flight down. And thank heavens for our flight attendant, Steve, who was fairly forcing the champagne on us while we waited for a late departure.
The challenge came when we had to be sure that 40 people made it through the one hour line at immigration and then the one hour line through customs. Clearly they need a bigger airport here in Sao Paulo. Some 15 million people and only 12 immigration lines and four baggage carousels for all the international flights.
While making sure that everyone in our group had their luggage and were moving ahead of us ... one woman hadn't found her bag. So she described it to me - black with pink and white polka dots. I found one. But it was black and pink with white polka dots - what are the odds? So finally found the black one with both pink and white polka dots. Whew!
Well, they just brought the bags up so time to hit the fitness room. This might be my last opportunity for a few days.
More later.

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Isn't it Ironic? - A. Morrisette

We made it to Miami which was not entirely a given since storms had caused cessation of ferry service between Anguilla and St Martin for three days, and even the airports on both islands were intermittently shut down.
But here we are feeling pretty content in the Hilton. (We don't head on to Sao Paulo until tomorrow.)
So what do we do? Of course we check email.
And what do we learn? We learn that the 'hit' reality TV show, The Bachelor, is coming to Anguilla to film an episode in conjunction with shooting a Sports Illustrated swimsuit spread featuring those same bachelorettes!
And when is this happening? October 21-27th.
And where will we be? Iguassu Falls and Lima, Peru - not Anguilla.
Poor Michael. Bad enough that we were in Cairo when Jimmy Buffett played a concert in Anguilla, but now this!!!!
Poor Michael. But he's putting up a good front. After all, he says, it's not like the bachelorettes are actually models and actresses hoping for their big break by pretending to be looking for love in the context of a TV show. They are just average, run of the mill, girls next door really searching for true love. How hot can they look in bikinis, right?
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Hey I put some new shoes on and suddenly everything's right - Paolo Nutini

Thought I'd better practice photo posting also which is good because the program rotated the image 1/4 turn and made my legs look HUGE.
Anyway, these are the Brazil-going shoes that Michael just brought back from the States yesterday so I might blend in with the locals. And leopard prints are so chic this season.

Getting ready for the next adventure

We are packing today for South America so I thought I should brush up on my blogging skills.
This trip will clearly be more civilized than Rwanda and probably not quite as culturally diverse as, say, Israel. I will endeavor, though, to keep you entertained. If nothing else there may be tales of Michael's appreciation of the Brazilian female form (at least if my friend Dianne's reports prove accurate).
Happy Trails.
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