and paulo sotero, director of the "brazil institute" at the 'woodrow wilson internationalrn center for scholars' in washington. welcome to all of you. lourdes garcia-navarro, let me start with you. how prepared or unprepared is brazil for these game, and how are people that you're talking to feeling about the games just before they start? >> i mean, i think it's undeniable that it's been very bumpy. starting with the athletes and the olympic village, half of them couldn't move in. they had to send in an army of repairmen to fix basic infrastructure questions like electricity and plumbing, and, we've seen a lot of other complaints. just today in the media villagel some of the reporters complaining about the lack and quality of food. so it has been very bumpy. if you speak to ordinary brazilians, they are not surprised by the problems, but they are definitely disappointed. >> brown: just to stay with you a moment, even today we heard of reports of huge amounts of traffic, 70-mile back-ups there in rio. have you experienced some of that? >> i have. i mean, rio is always a challenging city