Dia 130 - Monday April 18, 2011: Sao Paulo, Jardine District

A note under our door asked us to see the manager: The valets drove the car into the underground garage without checking the clearance of the tire on top of the car. The front bar of the roof rack was ripped off its track and the top of the rear hatch was dented so that it couldn’t fully open. The hotel and parking service took full responsibility for the damage and even covered the costs of an extra night at the hotel. The Porsche dealer will have the car ready & back at the hotel by 6PM tomorrow. As our clubs are in the Porsche at the dealer, we will probably visit the Sao Botanical Garden and Zoo tomorrow. That means an early departure for Rio on Wednesday. We will try to make lunch with Anisa and Steve, but do not count on it. Being stranded at Hotel Emiliano for a 3 night stay could be a lot worse.

We walked around and window-shopped the Jardine area, the Beverly Hills of Sao Paulo. Visa did not authorize cash withdrawal from ATMs until I called Merrill Lynch because there is a lot of credit card fraud in Brazil. It was relatively easy to change $$ for Reals at a Cambio. Unfortunately the US $ declined 1.5% since Friday. Dining at the exquisite restaurants in Sao is about 50% higher than comparable Beverly Hills eateries. Thank you George Bush. We lunched at Restaurant Arabia serving genuine Lebanese cuisine. We had familiar foods: Humus, fool, salads, Kibbi, mahalabiya, mint tea, etc. Happy tummy!

We were picked up for dinner by Minas and Chris Mikaelian, good friends of the Gulesserian family. Dinner at Jardim de Napoli was filled with laughter and camaraderie. Chris commands the subtleties of English. Minas is a daredevil with all types of vehicles and full of life. We hope to see more of them. I promised Minas use of performance vehicles if he visits us in LA while he is young at heart.