July 2002

Hello All,

The weather in D.C. has been unusual recently, as it has been throughout the country. This winter was the second driest and the third warmest on record. We had only one real snow, which was only a couple of inches. We went the whole year of 2001, and the first couple of months of 2002 without getting below 30 degrees. We had a number of nights in the 20's since then, though. Gisleide hates the cold, so it is good that she was in very warm Brazil for all the cold. She really hated last winter. For me, time is going by so fast that it doesn't seem to last long enough to be much of a bother.

At the beginning of this year Gisleide took a trip to Brazil, where she went all over the country. Attached is a map of where she went. She started out in the state of Bahia, which was where most of the slaves were in the distant past. The King outlawed slavery in 1889. Like most political changes in Brazil there was no fight involved. Brazil has had a number of bloodless revolutions. Gisleide visited with a friend who rented a house on the beach in Itacare for two weeks. Then she spent a couple of weeks in and around the city of Salvador. She was there during Carnival. After that she flew down to Florianópolis, which is in the south, in the state of Santa Catarina. She was supposed to visit a friend there, but the friend changed her plans and was not there when Gisleide was. G had never been to Florianópolis, so she had fun playing tourist. Next, she flew up to Rio Branco in the state of Acre to visit her grandparents on her mother's side. That was a long trip because Acre is in the Northwest part of the country. She had not seen her grandparents for probably ten years since Acre is in a quite remote part of Brazil. She also got to meet some cousins that she had never met before. She had a good time except for the heat, humidity and insects. Denge fever is a problem in that area of the country right now. The last trip G made it was Yellow fever that she had to worry about. Next she flew over to Fortaleza, in the state of Ceará, to visit with her grandmother, on her dad's side. This is the grandmother that raised her during ages five to twelve. She has not seen her for many years, again due to the distance. From there she went to Brasilia, which is where her mother and many siblings live. While there she had three dental implants installed. The work she needed is not covered by our insurance and it is much cheaper to have done in Brazil. The process was quite lengthy so she had to spend more than a month there to have the work done.

I have been spending much of my time scanning my whole archive of photographs into the computer. I am scanning from the negatives and slides. A huge project was collecting them all together and putting them in order. I am still missing a few. They are probably in some box in the garage, so it will be a long time before I find them. I printed a few of them to put in a small room divider that has spots in it for pictures. They look quite nice.

Gisleide and I took a trip to London at the beginning of June, right after the Queen's Jubilee. It was threatening to rain the entire time we were there, but didn't actually rain all that much. The sun showed its face for a few minutes during our stay. We spent a bit of time in museums, as they are warm and dry inside. We spent most of our time at the British Museum and the National Gallery. We also went to St. Paul's Cathedral, saw the outside of the Tower of London, Houses of Parliament, the new Globe Theatre and Westminster Abbey. We walked across Tower Bridge and the Millennium Bridge. The London Eye (a big Ferris Wheel) is really nice at nighttime since it is all lighted. I took a number of pictures that came out pretty good. We had a great time in London. Here are some of the photos I took there.

From London I flew home and went back to work straight from the airport. I have to save every vacation day I can due to my using them all up last year for our honeymoon. Gisleide flew to Dresden, Germany a couple hours after I flew home. She stayed there a few days and then went to Berlin. She is having a great time in Germany, quite to her surprise. She has always been skeptical as to how much she would enjoy any non-Latino society. Here in the U.S. we have plenty of Latinos, but there are not that many in Germany. Although, she found quite a number of Brazilians in Berlin. She has quite a knack for that. She has quite a trip planned for herself. She will be gone for another four months and will go to about ten countries. She is having some fun after graduating from the University of Maryland and before settling down to her future career.

For the 4th of July I went to the Mall and took photos of the fireworks. I had never gone to the event before. It was really nice to watch the fireworks explode behind the Washington Monument. This was a special year, due to all of the security and anticipation of it being the first after the terrorist attacks. It was not very crowded on the Mall, but it was probably due to the high temperature and humidity as much as the security concerns. I was there for only a couple of hours, but I sweated a bucket load.

We hope that you are doing well and are enjoying life. We are certainly having fun. Hope to hear from you soon, if possible.

Hugs and Kisses,
Alex & Gisleide