Sorry for the lack of posting. We had a jam packed week of spacecraft activities and then an error on Friday that woke me up early. I’ve been pretty busy, BUT the spacecraft is happy and healthy again.

On Day 4 of Brazil, we went to the Botanical Gardens. This was set up over 200 years ago. ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL! We took the metro to the meeting in the morning. The girls saw a playground they wanted to visit so I said yes, after we did the morning at the meeting. The girls took their places by a TV (seriously? How can kids watch the same darn show OVER and OVER and OVER…?) and I did some networking and more posters.

We went to the playground where two boys were playing. My girls jumped in and the mom their (or grandmother, hard to tell) told them to watch for the mud at the end of the slide. Of course she said it in Portuguese and we worked out that I could understand a little and she and I were able to discuss that all 4 kids were crazy.  Finally, we went back to the conference center for a taxi. Our driver got lost, but we did end up at the gardens. We got a lunch and the kids wanted to play with a stray gato (cat), but I wouldn’t let them. I gave the cat some bread, but he wanted something else. Oh well. The gardens were AMAZING. We spent a few hours exploring, but after 3 hours, I noticed I was getting a headache and having some difficulties with focusing my eyes.

I was able to hail a cab back to our hotel and we met up with Jay. At this point, I checked and I had another eye infection. Frick. Serious eye infection. The eyeballs were actually swelling. This has now happened 3 times when I have traveled and new pollens reach my eyes with my new contacts. I love this contacts because they correct my astigmatism, BUT this infection rate has got to stop. I did bring Soleil’s eye drops (she sometimes gets tear duct infections due to a congenital issue) and I checked the packaging. I could use them every hour if needed. So I switched to glasses and went to Pao de Açucar (Sugar Loaf). This rock structure was amazing and we were able to have a wonderful sunset there!

The next day was insane as we had a visit from the doctor so I could get MY eye drops (the ones with the steroids) Not good. We finally got them, but most of the day, we hung around the hotel while I had horribly sore eyes. They were so swollen that moving my eyes (which you do ALL OF THE TIME) was painful.

Finally we got that done. However, Jay has given me the go ahead to start to plan Lasik surgery. I have an appointment tomorrow to see if I am a candidate. We can’t have me getting these infections all of the time.

We did visit the "Statue"- which gets it’s own post!

And that was days 4&5 in Brazil!