This is it! I’m leaving the office now and I won’t be back until January 16th.

I probably won’t be able to blog from Brazil, at least not until I get back to Sao Paulo. So, happy holidays everyone!

I bought my ticket for my trip to Brasil at the end of the year. It was $570! That is an unbelievable deal. I leave on Dec. 19th and come back on Jan. 14th. That means I get back to SF Jan 15th so I don’t go back to work until Jan. 16th. I don’t think I have that much vacation so I may have to take a couple of days of unpaid vacation. That sucks but then again, I’m pretty excited that I get to spend such a long time with my family. And Su and Nathan are coming to Brasil too. Tuna and Chuck were thinking of coming as well but it doesn’t look like they’ll be able to make it.

On a happier note, Tuna is coming to visit!!!! I’m throwing a small party on Nov. 2nd so it’ll probably be a joint b-day thing. Mine is Oct 26th and Tuna’s is Nov. 16th which means that we are both Scorpios. That could explain why we get along so well. :-)

Let’s see… I got back from Boston Thursday night. The conference was ok, half of the talks were very useful and the other half was crap. Pretty typical for conferences. I did meet some great people from the Bay Area so that made it much better. We went out every night and got to try out some great restaurants and bars. We hung out in Harvard Square for the most part. On Wednesday night, Smitty took us to the Italian neighborhood in Boston. It looked surreal, almost like a movie set. I could almost see myself moving to Boston just so I could hang out at the North End.

Here’s a guide to the places we tried:

Casablanca Restaurant
The food was delicious, one of the best meals we had in Cambridge. The bar was also nice.

Legal Sea foods
This was just around the corner from the hotel. I’m a vegetarian so I had the greek salad both time we ate there. It was ok. They had this awesome onion strings thing which was delicious.

Fire & Ice
They call themselves an “improvisational grill”. You pick out the ingredients and they stir fry it. They had caipirinhas so that alone made it a great place.

Mamma Maria
This was a bit expensive but the food was simply amazing and you can’t beat the view from the upstairs window.

Caffe Vittoria
We went there for dessert and everything was so yummy it was hard to pick just one.

Wonder Bar
Live jazz and a menu with mostly cheese dishes. You can’t beat that!

John Harvard’s Brew House
Our hangout of choice at Harvard Square.

Shay’s
Total dive. My kind of place. =)

There were a couple other bars but I can’t remember what they were called.

airplanes
Flying wasn’t scary at all. I was actually pretty surprised at how unafraid I was. On our flight to Boston, we spotted the air marshal right away. He was this studly looking guy and all the flight attendants were openly flirting with the guy. They would start giggling as soon as they walked into a ten feet radius of the guy. His gun was pretty visible too. I guess that’s good since it helps the bad guys figure out whom to take out first and where they can find a gun.

back to reality
Since I’ve been back, I’ve been feeling a little blah. It’s difficult to come back to real life after you spend a whole week going out every night and meeting all kinds of new people. Today, Su, Nathan and I went to see Serendipity. It was cute in a predictable-and-overtly-romantic-chick-flick sort of way.

Serendipity

John DeBorman (Cinematographer). Miramax Home Entertainment 2001, DVD, $14.99

I’d forgotten how much I love the east coast! Maybe I’ll have to move again in a couple of years. :-)

We’re right next to MIT. I’ve already spotted several walking pocket protectors. We have been going to Harvard Square for dinner. It’s such a beautiful area, the architecture is just amazing.

I’m leaving tomorrow for the UIE conference in Boston. I thought I would be more nervous about flying but I haven’t really given it too much thought. Maybe I’ll feel differently when I’m actually on the plane.

I talked to Tuna on Friday and she told me that kettle korn is mainly available at festivals. I’m not a big festival person. A few hours later I talked to Heidi and they were going to the Foster City Fair. So I seized the opportunity and now I’ll be able to try kettle korn! Maybe I’ll have I tomorrow as I’m watching usability tests.

Tuna also said that she and Chuck might come to Brazil at the end of the year when I go to visit my family. That would be awesome. I talked to my mom and she is really excited too.

My dad called me from Spain yesterday. He’s doing this crazy pilgrimage thing to Santiago de Compostela. He has covered about 50 miles so far and is already completely exhausted. He still has about 100 miles to go and only 6 days left. I hope he has a good week and I can’t wait until he is home.