The Bikini Lady From Sao Paulo

The women at my MIL's gym like to reward themselves for all their hard work by congregating outside to gossip immediately after an exercise class.

They bring little cups of coffee from inside and pull out cigarettes like they're going to die if they have to wait one more minute to have one. When the coffee is gone, they drink regular Coke from two straws, eat potato chips from a communal bag and smoke more cigarettes.

It's the funniest thing I've ever seen.

By the time everyone says goodbye about an hour later, they're probably worse off health wise than when they arrived!

Today was no different. Except the Bikini Lady from Sao Paulo came by with her giant bag of little bikinis. The women quickly swiped all the cigarettes and Cokes off the table and started going through the bag with excited high pitched squeals.

(The masseuse is the woman on the right in white. And, yes, I had another massage today, with reflexology!)

My MIL kept holding up the smallest sizes, which looked like they could fit Gabi, and tsking that they were just too big. She finally found two that she liked and then settled back to ooh and ahh amongst a sea of voices yelling So Cute! and Get That One, It Looks Delicious!

By the end the table looked like it had been mauled, but everyone was very happy, including the Bikini Lady who had sold quite a few bikinis.


Since I'm showing you the gym, let me take you on a little tour of the club.

It has a lovely chapel, near the snack bar, in case you have a sudden need to be close to Jesus and The Mother Mary.

The view from the Chapel shows off the covered basketball court on the right, and to the left is the park that I take Gabi to while my MIL is in her exercise class.


I think I called it quaint when I mentioned it the first time. You can see why. It's like traveling back in time! Most parks in Brasil are made of wood. At the beach they are entirely of wood, but here in the club's park, there's a bit of metal, too. Not many kids come on site anymore, so they haven't kept it up.


On the way out, the view from the front door is so pretty. The club is on the water and you'll often see people crossing the street with the club's kayaks.


I'm not sure where anything else is, like the pool, though I hear often hear splashing. I might go poking around the next time I'm there.

On an entirely different note, I'm heading to my BIL's beach house in the middle of nowhere for FIVE DAYS. It seems that my family likes to escape during Carnival, so the excitement I had when I found out I would finally get to see this great event in person was all for naught!

We'll be on some island halfway between Santos and Rio, and I'm told we're lucky to have electricity there. I'm imagining something really primitive! I'll tell you all about it when I get back.