RIO DE JANEIRO

Last fall, my husband had to travel to Rio for business and graciously invited me to join him. (smart man) It was such a beautiful, interesting place. Gorgeous beaches, lush tropical foliage, mosaic sidewalks, a melting pot of races, interesting food, welcoming business associates. Even a lovely outside lunch at the amazing home of one of the guys. The only down side being, extreme poverty; which is often right next to riches and located looking out over the beach (high priced real estate in most countries).

We stayed in a very nice beachfront hotel, strolling through Leblon, Copacabana and Ipanema beaches - and of course, had dinner at the bar the song 'The Girl from Ipanema' was written. As the crime is high out of the 'high end' area, we had a driver who took us anywhere we needed to go. He took my husband to and from work, and toted me about- taking me off one day, following the road along the beach to find a Hard Rock Cafe.... my oldest daughter has a shot glass collection from Hard Rock and this most excellent mother had to get one for her. Anyway, off we went along the coast, through the tourist area, through the slums, out into a rainforest (ish) area and back into a safe tourist area. We arrived at the shopping area, he dropped me at the door. Jumped out, opened the door for me, and showed me where to go, and told me he'd be waiting at a bench he pointed out. I found the Hard Rock, got the goods, and sauntered around finally arriving back at the bench. True to his word, he was there, jumped up, grabbed my bags, told me to wait and ran off to retrieve the car. He pulled up, again, jumped out, opened the door for me and drove me back (through nasty late afternoon traffic) to my hotel. Again, he opened the door, handed me my packages, and told me to enjoy the rest of my day. This is most certainly the life I was born for....I could so get used to this.

ANYWAY....

Not wanting to forget this, I did put together a little book of the trip - I've added photos of a few of the highlights.... I also must add that I got a Rio license plate on ebay for the cover. Now, on the front of the Zutter Bind it All book, they show a picture of a license plate being used as a cover. Silly, silly, me, since it was pictured on the cover as well as in the inside of the instruction book, I assumed the machine could be used for such. NOT. It broke the Binder and my husband had to take a trusty drill and make the holes. Fyi.... Zutter was pretty snotty to me when I contacted them. They said it wasn't designed to cut metal - well, then lets not false advertise - right???




Okay, okay, off the soapbox- here's a few highlights from the little book.