Travel and Arrival in SP

June 13^th 2013

I left Charlotte for Miami early Monday morning, durring the dark monsoon, and I stayed with my good friend, and prior roommate, Ally, her husband Matt and her daughter Lailyn at their apartment in Key Biscayne. It was a great trip, and so nice to see Ally again! We swam in the pool, went to the beach and generally enjoyed life in paradise with Lailyn! It was a great transition period to have.

This morning at 11:00 our plane took off for Brazil! Angelika and I are traveling together to Sao Paulo, a day and a half before the program starts. We will go to our host families on Saturday and meet the rest of the group on Monday for classes. Airport check in went smoothly: we were able to print our boarding passes, check bags and get through security in a timely manner. In all, I feel that airports have really improved the TSA security apparatus and made remote check in more available reducing wait times (although I am writing this on the plane and have not yet seen if these improvements extend to the SP airport, the site five years ago of a five hour delay on our flight leaving us stuck in the freezing basement of the airport waiting….) We shall see…

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I am happy to report that my Sao Paulo airport experience was much better this time around!! Our plane arrived on time, and it was smooth flying. My movie veg out on the plane was all centered around successful travel adventures to set my mental state for this trip; Argo, Midnight in Paris and the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (and if you haven’t seen any or those movies you should check them all out!!). After we landed Angelika and I made it through customs before the rest of our plane and the flight from Montevideo that arrived at the same time. We booked it over to baggage claim where we promptly hit a wall. It took a good 45 min to an hour to get all our bags… but at least everything made it here! After customs we wasted a good bit of time walking around the terminals in a failed attempt to find an ATM that would take my visa bank card. After the third attempt we broke down and asked for help, it turns out you can get rusty in a language after a month and a half, but hopefully our skills will kick back in soon!  We found out that there is only one ATM brand that works with visa bank cards. After successfully hitting up my bank account we got a taxi (the approved ones!) and within 30-40 min we were at our hostel. Our taxi driver was quiet but very nice and considerate; he helped us carry our giant bags all the way up to the hostel door! The hostel check in went smoothly and it looked just as cool as the pictures! It’s a converted 1920s mansion with amazing original wood and plaster work. It has both a garden and a patio (where breakfast is served) and two modern common room areas. It’s in a nice quiet residential area, but also near transportation options so that we can do some exploring tomorrow. Now off to plan our day!