Feed them to the Sharks (Day 1)

After a brief sleep, we needed to find costumes for our trip to the 43rd Recife municipal ball, (coincidence that this is almost the same age as some of our group, hmmmm). It was thought that our best bet was the Centrum. When I asked what this was, it was described as kind of a "Market Scene in an Indian Jones movie with fewer (not none) gun fights" Fortunately for our loved ones, there were no gun fights, but I don't think many tourists go here as it seemed that "rubbing the shoulder of pale female's" is good luck. Or maybe they were checking to see if it was make-up.

After picking up accroutments for our costumes, we needed a brief break in this shopping frenzy so off to another mall for some AC, food and a place to get out of the crowds. For about $12 each we had excellent meals, and an alcoholic beverage. We were gouged, but then what would you expect in a mall sit down restaurant, ($C 1.50 per beer).

After this brief respite, it was off to another mall (closer to what we North Americans expect) to pick up some essentials, 1) Beach flops, 2) Sunga's 3) groceries for supper (we were eating in), and maybe check out some prices. I forgot to mention that our first outing (without the two Portuguese speakers) was across the street to the beach. Where we sort of stuck out like tourists, pasty white skin, long shorts, and leather sandals. After a few minutes and being approached every few feet by someone who wanted us to sit on their section of the beach and let them provide us with beer, we figured we may not stick out so much if we were wearing more Brazilian swimwear, and maybe not having tan lines that start at the knees. Fortunately, for all of you, I have sent a link to work collegues and family and none of them want to see me in a Sunga, so I will not be posting one, but there is a comparison picture of sunga and normal summer shorts on the photo page.

We then returned to our 10-star accomodation, each floor only holds one apartment, (4 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, 2 living-rooms and 2 maids quarters). We all needed a beverage, and some food, after cooking a late dinner (for us 7:30pm), we started to get ready for the ball, (no Cinderalla slippers on this group), and even though we left at 10:13, we were not the last to arrive. In fact, I am sure there were more people arriving when we left at 3:30am, (at intermission), there may still be people there right now, you never know. You know you are in a civilized country when you can order a litre of booze to your table and it is the price of mix that controls how much you drink (it might have been cheaper to mix rum with beer, but I don't want to think of the hang-over that would create).