Livin' La Vida Loca

Livin the CRAZY LIFE is a perfect way to describe Matt's past month. In 5 weeks, he was traveling during 4 of them.

First he was off to the Domican Republic doing some research for a project he is working on with some friends at Duke. (research on vote buying, in case you were curious)

Here's Matt outside Faro de Colon (aka Columbus' palace). Technically it was Diego Columbus, Christopher's nephew, but who really get's picky when we're talking 1492, ya know? This plaza was also the staging ground for Cortez and Pizarro's invasions. Sir Francis Drake also took care of business here too. Gosh, having Matt around gives us so much more information than just Cara...who would have guessed?


He got to go to the the temple in Santo Domingo a couple of times as well. Pretty!

On his last night, he ate dinner at La Meson de la Cava (The Cave Inn), a very nice restaurant actually in a CAVE. Note the awesome rock wall behind him. And since I wasn't there, he ate dinner with a stalactite.

Overall, a successful trip and he got done what needed to be done for work, which was good too.

Next, he was off to NYC for a 36 hour excursion to get his Brazilian Visa (for trip #3). Yea that Meg lives there so that he had a free place to stay and some company too. (thanks Meg--he liked the crepes and Thai food)

Of course, knowing Matt, the first thing he did after going to the Brazilian consolate, was to meet his best friend. Together at last!

His 36 hour adventure also included getting to see Bobby Flay on the street taping part of his TV show, seeing Brian Williams at the NBC Store (what the heck was he buying?!), and seeing a free Moby concert at 30 Rock. That's really how he saw Brian Williams. My only question was "Who's Moby?" He tells me he worked a little on that trip too....I'm still unsure about that!

And finally, the trip that he was anticipating for about 18 months--a conference in Rio de Janeiro, BRAZIL (ok, Brasil). Thanks to awesome weather up here in New England resulting in a cancelled flight and a late connection, he first got to spend a FULL day in Miami.

Here's Matt at Miami Beach. (no swimming for Matt, he had his laptop and didn't trust those Floridians).

Finally RIO!!! Here's Matt at the Botanical Gardens. Oh so pretty. There was a family of monkeys playing in the trees that he got to watch for a while.

There was also a family of monkeys hanging out on this table. Gross!

And here's Matt atop Sugar Loaf Mountain, overlooking Copacabana Beach. How beautiful is that!!!! There was a lot of rain and cloudiness but fortunately there was a bit of clear sky on his last day.

Highlights of the trip included playing beach volleyball with some locals (and feeling like he was pretty pathetic), eating lots of meat (note: I ate meat while he was gone too--it was called 'chicken nuggets'--no bitterness here), and going to an upscale party with good food and guava souffle with ice cream for dessert. Oh yea, the conference was good too.

He tells me that he would definitely take me someday, though for now I'm content just having him stay in Connecticut and not travel for a good long while.