Wow, I can't believe it has been four-and-a-half weeks since I left for vacation! Tomorrow I fly from Rio to São Paulo, Toronto and then back to Vancouver. Although I am looking forward to seeing everyone, I don't really want to leave Rio... this city has something special about it. The only other city that I can think of that I am always this sad to leave is New York.
Instead of writing a long post about the trip and boring everyone to death I thought I would post a couple of highlights and things I noticed.
- Air Canada's planes are in desperate need of a makeover. Although the Air Canada website has had pictures of exciting new international interiors for a long time (perhaps since Celine single-handedly saved the airline), you likely have a better chance of being struck by lightening than flying on a plane that has the new interiors. The plane I flew in from Toronto to Buenos Aires didn't even have individual TV's in Executive First. I was stuck watching some crappy Sandra Bullock / Keanu Reeves movie about a house. Blah!
- The Killers are really popular in South America. In Argentina every second advertisement on TV for shampoo featured their song Mr. Brightside and in Rio people went crazy when they played them.
- Nightclubs in Los Angeles tend to kick you out at about 1:45am, while in both Buenos Aires and Rio it is a common time to go out and start your evening.
- There were not a lot of North American brands in Argentina (except for alcohol and cigarettes), while Brazil had many of the same brands that we have at home.
- The chewing gum in Argentina isn't very good and looses its flavour quickly.
- Argentina is very inexpensive to travel in. You can have an amazing meal for three people with a couple of bottles of good wine and spend $50 for everything.
- Unlike in Hawaii people in Brazil look good in Speedos and Bikinis.
- Bank machines in South America interpret 24 hours a little differently than at home. In general they only seem to work during the day, and in Argentina often didn't work at all.
- The SlingBox has to be the coolest device ever made. We were able to watch America's Next Top Model on my TV over the Internet — excellent quality! The Mac Beta seems to work great as well.
- I didn't see as many cultural things as I should have :(
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