What I Did On My Summer Vacation

I have no idea if I'm in any of the photos, and this only got the Brazilian parts of the trip (more to be added later), but eventually I can do my own Picture Sunday with the Greatest Hits of South America.

I also would like to put in a request for balance in reporting. While in Santiago, Chile, we heard that there was a honking huge hurricane headed for Miami and another one headed for the DC area. Since I was flying home to DC via Miami, this was of some importance to us. We turned on CNN international, and over three days got NOTHING on it. We did get lots of news about the typhoon in Asia, though. Of course, now that I'm home, they won't shut up about it.

A shout out to the nice American Airlines gate agent in Sao Paolo, who decided that even though I was at the time flying another airline and wouldn't be in their care for another day, she would allow me to change my "non-refundable-no-free-changes" ticket free of charge to put me on an earlier flight out of Miami once I landed there, and thus avoided getting caught up in the cancellations. She even gave me a boarding pass and an exit row aisle seat. I hope they don't tell the central office back in the US about her -- I'd like her to keep her job.