Another beautiful day

Today we were lucky enough to spend time with our new friend Andy, who was born and raised in BA. Back in 1995, we met Andy and his fam on a Schulman family vacation to Florida, and did not keep in touch over the years. Flash forward to 2009 when I told my parents I wanted to move to BA. My mom immediately thought of Andy's family, looked in our photo album, and get this -- found a dual family picture from the vacation, along with Andy's dad's business card! She contacted him, and he was kind enough to set us up with his son, who was kind enough to take us around today. It was great.

We met Andy today at the Jardin Japonica - i.e. Japanese Gardens - which are absolutely gorgeous. They were hosting a "festival" there - which is really a series of performances in a crowded, smallish room. Very cool though. Especially cool was the Taiko performance, which to me, looked like a fabulous way to tone my arms! I'm thinking about joining the troupe. It was this impressive 17-person drum show that everyone was plotzing over. Here is a picture of the performance, and then a pic of Cait and I in the gardens:


After we left Andy we did our first major grocery shop. If you're ever shopping in BA, make sure you get your veggies & fruits priced before you get to the ridiculously long and slow checkout lines. Otherwise, you'll have to learn the hard way like we did when we tried to buy bananas on our 2nd day here. Oh well.

One last grocery store comment - they do not have peanut butter here. I am going into withdrawal! If you plan to visit (which would be awesome), please stuff some in your suitcase :)