Guns N' Roses in POA. . .

Kevin had to work in Porto Alegre for a few days before our vacation so we packed a few extra clothes and planned to hang out in the hotel. Oddly, the hotel we always stay at (the DeVille) was booked for that Tuesday night. We stayed at another hotel down the road, but reserved the DeVille for the next two nights. As I went to check in the next day, I heard many people speaking English. Of course I was interested! Americans in Porto Alegre?? It's not that unusual, but there were about 80 people in the lobby, so I figured they must all be together. I walked up to a man and said, "Excuse me, I heard you all speaking English and was just wondering where you're from and what you're doing here?" He nicely replied, "Oh, some of us are with the band Guns N' Roses and the others are . . ." (I quit listening after I caught the part "some of us".) Then I said, "Oh, are you in the band?" to which he humbly responded, "Yeah, I'm the drummer." Now, I'm really not a huge GN'R fan, but come on, everybody and their dog knows the name of this band! I felt a bit stupid, knowing full well they are constantly surrounded by groupies and crazy girls, but I didn't have a clue who any of them were! We chit-chatted a little bit and he showed Emma all his star tattoos while I sweated profusely under my black sweater. Fortunately it was black! He introduced me to the guitar player, to whom I said, "Oh, my husband plays guitar. . . really well." (Smooth, Sandi, maybe they can be best friends now!) I'm not sure why I was nervous, why I couldn't think of anything sophisticated to say, but I was smart enough in the moment to ask for a picture. Then, because I didn't want to be an annoying groupie, I took Emma to the restaurant around the corner for lunch. As we sat down, I checked my camera to see how well the picture turned out. Blurry!! Dang it! I hate posting blurry pictures!! So I humbled myself and took Emma back out to the lobby and asked the nice drummer if I could get a picture of some of the guys together. He gathered some of them and we took a picture together (above) and then he introduced me to the wife of one of the musicians. She was sweet. We chatted about the food in Brazil and how she had been sick for the first few days and then suddenly someone said, "Let's go!" and they were all in vans in a flash. Gone. We went back to the restaurant and had a great lunch and then waited three hours to actually get checked into the hotel. Apparently the entire hotel had been reserved by the band, along with the bands who were traveling with them. It was craziness. After I checked in and had internet, I had to do some research on the band to find out who everyone was. I never did see Axl Rose, but I know he was staying on the 6th floor and snuck out at some point. After reading a bit about him, I wasn't disappointed that we didn't meet up. The other guys were fun though!!