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The whole family came together to celebrate my dad's 70th birthday. He celebrated with an Indian themed party, which isn't that easy to accomplish in Brazil, where there is a very small Indian population. But we pulled it off. It had also been a while since the whole family had been together, so it was another reason to celebrate. The baby of the family, Maria Fernanda, 2, is very talkative and bossy and after arguing with Gabe, just fell in love with him.
Bela had prepared a surprise for her grandpa. With the help of a wonderful teacher here in the the Bay Area (Thanks, Krupa!), she learned a 3-minute Bharat Natyam routine. We kept this a secret from grandma and grandpa both, and they were both very surprised in the middle of the party to see their granddaughter in makeup, another outfit, different jewelry, and performing something they had no idea she knew. Bela was very brave and composed in front of 100 of my parents' guests. She had told me she was "SO nervous" right before she went out to perform, but you could not tell once she was out there, dancing solo. She is definitely braver than I am. Unfortunately, a technical glitch shut off the lights and the sound about 2/3 into the routine. Yet, she was a hit, and my dad said it was his best and biggest present. Also performing that night was a school friend of mine, another Isabela, who was the main event after Bela. (Which is why there was lighting to start out with.) She performed a professional routine, and it was a treat for me to watch my friend do this so well. Bela got to perform the whole routine twice at home for my parents afterwards, and the surprise effect was a complete success. This video is somewhat large, but if you really want to see the dance, here it is: Dancing Bela.
At the beginning of the trip, the world cup was also very prominent in everyone's mind and everywhere you looked in Brazil. Once Brazil lost, less so, but we still watched a lot of games.
Since it was winter in Brazil, it rained a lot. We still got a few days at the beach and came back with a tan.
The big annoyance for this trip was that Varig, the Brazilian airline that we have been loyal to for many years, is going bankrupt and all of us had our flights cancelled and changed multiple times. Flights the eight of us (my family and my brother's) had expected to take together, were split into 3 different airlines going through 3 different cities. We spent too much time dealing with this but we all got here eventually. The kids and I got here on time, my brother and his family a day late, and Andy two days late.
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Last Updated: August 8, 2006