When people returned from Church, I was treated to a feast comparable only to the efforts of my Aunt Helene (you may remember her from such travelogues as Thanksgiving 1999). The Christmas festivities were fun. I imagine that it's how every Christian American kid wishes it went. At Midnight the gifts were exchanged! Almost as if they were psychic, Celia and Gerson gave me a nice shirt as a gift. I received a few other gifts as well (cologne, shower gel, etc.). I secretly wondered if they were trying to tell me something....

As I mentioned before, Brazil is powered nearly 90% by hydroelectricity. I had the extreme pleasure of seeing one of their power plants in action while I was there (#1, #2). I was told that Barra do Pirai is a town that had a lot of potential, but never took advantage of it. That having been said though, there was some pretty good scenery in the area (#1, #2,  #3, #4,  #5).

I was taken to a Persian mall while I was there. I believe it's name was Casa Siria. This place was a madhouse. It was like Value City, only far more tightly packed, and with about ten times the traffic. There was a little grocery store near their house that I frequented. It was there that I found my two dollar booze. They have these cute shopping carts to keep the children entertained.

I work for a translation company (granted as their accountant, but still...). I don't think this can sell here in the U.S...  Or maybe it can... for those people who think their poop really does smell better than everybody else's.

Every now and then, when you're at the end of a roll of film, you get a real classic! Gerson is on the right. Since I talked about him so much, I had to include him in here somehow and this was the only picture that he was in.