Are you familiar with whale sharks? Well, I can say without hesitation that I am. I have actually been bumped by a large male shark in the flesh and lived to talk about it. Where, you say? Where else - the Georgia Aquarium. My three daughters joined together to buy me the opportunity as a Christmas gift in 2008. I decided to wait for the summer to do my swim. Summer came and summer went and I still did not have a reservation. So, now that school was back in session, I realized that I needed to move quickly to avoid [View Full Entry]

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Brazil was great and now we were home again. The Month of October was kicked off with a celebration of the end of our Condo relationship with the original management company and the beginning of a new relationship with Community One Associates. A few of us met in the lobby at midnight to welcome the change. Before hitting the road again, we spent more quality time with our children and grandkids. We attended "Grandparent's Day" at Lakeview where we have six of ours. This was our third or fourth time to attend this event. We also attended Jack's football game in [View Full Entry]

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Saturday Well, Friday night I was visited by the ghost of Montezuma. I can only think of one reason, the salad that I ate in Ouro Preto. I was already not feeling great at dinner and maybe that is another reason why I did not spend enough time checking the dinner bill. This is the only day on our trip that I did not take a single photo. I took many on Sunday so I have decided to do a double day blog. Since I was not feeling well we waited until late morning before leaving the hotel. We walked over [View Full Entry]

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Friday We had planned pretty much the same today as we did on Thursday. But as you would have read, we did nothing on Thursday. So, when we woke today we decided to venture out of town. It was time for me to drive again in Brazil. Up to now we were taxied around or with Maria. So, we headed out to find a rental car agency, which we did by 9:30am. This became another test of my Portuguese but it worked. We rented the car for a day. Then we drove on the 'road to Rio' for about 60 miles [View Full Entry]

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Thursday Nothing much on this day. We slept late and then went to the tennis club. There was no one around. The men's spa opened at 3:30pm so we just took in the sun, read and waited. I chose a different masseuse. I was glad that I did since the first one just about killed me. After Minas we returned to the hotel for a little rest and then met Maria and Gilberto at 68 La Pizzeria. This is a hot spot for the chic and we had to add it to our list. Maria ran into many of her friends [View Full Entry]

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Wednesday Today was meant to be a rest day. We have not been doing much lately and that’s worn us out. Actually, our plans were to go to Minas early, get some sun and a massage and lunch. But we seem to have caught the Atlanta disease, rain! Well, not rain but heavy overcast. So, we did not go to Minas at all. We stayed around the hotel until lunch when we walked down to the Restaurant Contemporanea. It is a neat little boutique restaurant with nice a menu. We were surprised to see fruit growing in a courtyard tree. Upon [View Full Entry]

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Tuesday I hear that it has rained a little in Atlanta while we have been gone. I guess the drought is over there. Maybe the lake will finally get filled and people will be able to water their grass. But you need to know that we had rain too. It rained for about one hour on Monday afternoon. Then on Tuesday the day started out with a few clouds and stayed that way most of the day. It didn’t actually rain but it threatened to and that put a damper on our plans to spend the day at Minas Tenis. So, [View Full Entry]

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Monday The plans for the day were to return to Minas for some sun and another massage. Jackie wanted to have her "maos e pes" done too. That's fingernails and toenails, or a manicure to you. Plus, it was time for a trip to the Laundromat. So, we walked a couple of blocks to a nearby laudromat and washed all of our dirty clothes in 90 minutes. It cost $17BRL or about $9US. Call me cheap. But with the savings I can pay for a full massage every day for the remainder of our trip. Later in the morning we took [View Full Entry]

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Saturday & Sunday Wow, we had a great weekend. I have lots to report and pictures to share. On Saturday we took a taxi to Minas Tenis about 9:30am. We thought that would be early enough to find nice a place to set up for a few hours with lawn chairs, table and umbrella. Wrong! On the weekends, you really need to arrive about one hour earlier to claim a spot. That‘s something that we knew before but forgot. Tomorrow when we go we’ll get there earlier. The club is spectacular. It has over 20,000 members and four locations. The club [View Full Entry]

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FRIDAY We had lots of fun today. For the first time in a week we did not have to get up early to see the doctor. We slept late and awoke to another beautiful day in BH. We decided to walk down to the Mercado do Central. It is about 1.5 miles from our hotel but the weather was perfect for a long walk. On the way we passed the Laundromat that our concierge had recommended and checked it out. Our plan is to return next week for self service. Maria says there is a nearby Laundromat so we will check [View Full Entry]

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