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It’s almost another two months before I am going back to California (mid January), but since we are planing on spending most of December in Bolivia and Peru, my days in Rio are counted. I've thus been increasingly finding myself thinking about what I want to do when I get back to CA. Here is the list of 10 things I am looking forward to doing:

  1. Hosting a dinner party for 20 people at our place (still to be found and rented)
  2. Drinking a martini prepared by Arthur
  3. Chatting with friends over coffee at Strada, Nefeli or Musical Offering
  4. Eating at an Indian restaurant (“Nan and Curry” would do)
  5. Eating a decent burger
  6. Driving a car (I hate to admit it, but it’s true)
  7. Using wi-fi in a coffee house
  8. Getting a view of San Francisco from Berkeley
  9. Seeing several friends in one day in Mountain View and Palo Alto
  10. Buying books on Amazon without worrying how I would take them to CA

For comparison, here are the ten things I think I will miss about Rio:

  1. Walking along the beach in the late afternoon
  2. Lunching at mother-in-law’s house
  3. Getting a R$1.50 espresso which doesn’t come in a paper cut
  4. Drinking açaí
  5. Going to a party at the Hidden Pagode Club (to be blogged soon)
  6. Buying strange fruits at the supermarket and blogging about them
  7. Having a supermarket one block away
  8. Being amused by new Portuguese expressions (a recent favorite: “o papo surgiu”)
  9. Drinking “choppe” outside
  10. Getting a “hot dog” at Café Gaúcho