Folklore and Presidents

We had a really nice combination of things to do today. First to the folklore museum — nice artifacts, but for me the highlight was the cute groups of school kids. Then a short walk to the former Presidential Palace now a museum, and the place where the dictator Getúlio Vargas committed suicide. The gun he used and his bloody nightshirt are on display, kind of grotesque, I thought. All of our day’s locations were within a km or so of each other, so we walked around downtown a lot. That is one of my favorite activities when in a big city.

Lunch in another restaurant Joe remembered — another white tablecloth place, I am getting the idea that he was usually living high on the hog down here. From there we went to the Institute where lots of research was done. And since Joe has never met an academic bookstore he didn’t love, he was in hog heaven. We got inside the institute and walked around his old haunts, even though the archives where he spent the most time have been moved.

Dinner tonight in a Lebanese restaurant — after a week in Sao Paulo with its excellent Lebanese restaurants, this one has a pretty high standard to live up to, we will see!Read more