Shopping

I forgot to pack my shirt for the wedding so we had to go shopping on Friday morning. Jennifer packed a couple of dresses but since "she's got nothing to wear" she wanted to shop as well. We walked to the local mall (locally called "Shopping") which is about siz blocks from the hotel. We took a circuitous route (Bekki was leading us but didn't read the map well) that took us under some huge ficus trees. It's neat to see your living room plant in its native environment - I sometimes wonder if on some other continent people have a puny live oak in a flower pot in their living room.

The mall was pretty big and consisted of a lot of small stores (smaller than in an American mall) and four or five anchor stores, one of which was selling groceries. It seems that half the stores here are selling bathing suits - the brazillian kind which mean tiny string bikinies that put everything on display and give the ladies a vedgie and only cost a few dollars. This makes for great views on the beaches but not much shopping by the American tourists (Stephanie said there was no way she'd wear this at a south Austin pool in front of her kids). Jennifer is still determined to buy a bathing suit here, so I'm waiting and anticipating.

I did eventually buy a shirt and tie but it took a long time. The one shirt I really liked was not available in my size in the color I liked. The other shirt that was pretty cool was 100% polyester and I didn't want to deall with that. And all the ties here are pretty conservative and boring. I ended up with a blue cotton dress shirt and an OK tie. I'm sure I looked smashing ;-)

Jennifer did not buy a dress. The on she tried on was too big and way too expensive (and possibly an old-lady dress, but I'm not sure). She did buy a cool necklace and matching earrings that she wore to the wedding and that look lovely with her "old" blue dress.