VICTORIA ALVAREZ-BRITO: Exploring
the World
Just
before school started this year, Victoria Alvarez-Brito
and her husband, Mario, took their children on a weeklong
vacation to Cancún, Mexico. It was a yearly
ritual: pick a part of the world and explore it.
In the past, the family had traveled to the Dominican
Republic and to Disney World, in Florida. Next year, the
Britos were planning to visit the Netherlands. "She
wanted to get to know Europe, and we have relatives in
Holland, so that was a good place to start," Mr. Brito
said.
During the Cancún vacation, the Britos took
pictures and made a video. Watching the video or putting
the pictures in the album with the children, Jamie, 8 and
Raúl, 5, was sometimes as fun as the vacation
itself. On Monday, Sept. 10, Mr. Brito took the pictures
to be developed. On Tuesday, Sept. 11, Mrs.
Alvarez-Brito, 38, left home early for the long commute
from Elmhurst, Queens, to her job in the finance
department of Marsh & McLennan in the World Trade
Center.
Mrs. Alvarez-Brito promised her daughter she would get
cod on the way home from work that night to cook her
favorite meal, cod and potatoes in a thick creole sauce.
"She didn't get to see the pictures," Mr. Brito said.
"Now we can't bear to watch that video."
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