A Day Off with the Family

I'm taking a day and a half off. Thank God we are now at a hotel that has working Internet access, unlike the last week. However, we were all up until 7 a.m. this morning.  Ronda had a fight last night, which she won, followed by hours of media and chicken wings specially arranged by the UFC (thank you!).

After a few hours sleep, we checked into a new hotel for a family vacation.

Where we stayed for exactly 20 minutes before heading off to watch a soccer game, Flamengo vs Santos, which was GREAT fun.

The players were amazingly good. I didn't realize that Ronda had never attended a soccer game before. On the other hand, Julia plays soccer and Maria used to cover college soccer as a sports writer. Maria said to Ronda and me,

You guys don't really understand this game. You are just clapping when everyone else does.

I'm not sure how she felt that was great investigative reporting, as if she had uncovered some great pretense, because since we had no idea what the crowd was shouting, when everyone else clapped and cheered, Ronda and I would jump up, clapping too and chant,

"Portuguese, portuguese, portuguese ."

It was still a lot of fun to watch. Plus we had a private box and they gave us ice cream!

Thank God we have security with us, though, because it has been CRAZY everywhere we went. Ronda is a sweetheart about taking pictures with people, but sometimes we have to get places, like the soccer game or dinner at a restaurant where we have reservations.

It's been a pretty great day with the exception of the lack of sleep. So .... I'm going to sleep in tomorrow, go sight-seeing with the family for a few hours and then get back to work. I will be SO thankful to have Internet again, you can't believe it.

----------

You can get an insight into what it is like working without Internet here. I was not nearly as calm about it as Maria was. I spent less time on beaches and more time swearing.