Today was my last day in Brazil. It was really bittersweet because I was really looking forward to going back to the US to see my family and friends, but I have had such an amazing time in São Paulo and become more comfortable here than I had ever thought possible.
I spent most of the morning trying to get my things organized for my flight later in the evening, but I had made lunch plans to meet up with Mari at Shopping 3 on Paulista. It was somewhat poetic, eating again in the large mall, because this was the same mall that Angelika and I had eaten at on our first day in São Paulo before I even knew this would be my neighborhood in Brazil. Ordering food in Portuguese was much more successful than that first day, and Mari and I had a good time catching up on what we had been doing for the last week.
After lunch we walked around Paulista and I tried to drink everything in, the beautiful sunny day, all the different people out enjoying what the city had to offer, and the foods. We went back to the Livraria Cultural to check out some of their specialty bookstores (literally about half of the shopping center is the various departments and sub-stores of the Livraria Cultural), before we met up with Allison in the Artisan market to pick up some Brazilian candies and get our last Açai at the Fruitaria Paulista in Consolação. By the time we had finished it was almost 4:00 and Mari had to leave, regretfully I had to say goodbye to a really good Brazilian friend!
As I walked back to our apartment I tried once more to engrave the image of Avenida Paulista at sunset in my mind; the road is lined up perfectly with the setting sun and all of the buildings are bathed in golden light making the city seem to actually be city of dreams that immigrants have always hoped it would be. Back in the apartment and Allison and I worked out the last of our travel details with Angelika. Allison, Angelika and I all had flights leaving at 11:30/12:00 from the international airport and had decided to take a taxi together from Angelika’s homestay. By the time we had packed up and said goodbye to Alessandra it was almost 6:30. Getting our bags out of the building and to the ponto de taxi (only a half block from our house) was rather difficult. Allison and I had particular trouble getting in and out of our apartments quarantine box type entry, much to the amusement of our friendly doorman. Of course, being São Paulo at 6:30 there was a lot of traffic and it took us almost an hour to get to Carminha’s (Angelika’s host mom) apartment in Perdizes. We were, however able to successfully get our taxi driver to take an alternative route to their apartment as he was perfectly willing to sit in standstill traffic and watch his car tv while we waited... Allison and I put the kibosh on that.
We arrived at Carminha’s apartment around 7:20 and she immediately welcomed us into her home and tried to feed us and get us to stay awhile. She was just so kind and generous! I wish we had had time to stay but we were a bit worried about how long it would take us to get to the airport. Carminha had called one of her personal taxi drivers to take us to the airport, and the three of us, plus 6 suitcases were able to squeeze into the taxi for the 45 min drive to the airport. The taxi driver was very friendly and was so helpful when we were unloading, he made sure we all had carts, loaded our suitcases and then pointed us in the right direction for check in. Allison had to check-in with American while Angelika and I were flying Tam. It did not take long to check-in at all, but we waited at security to see if Allison would be meeting us there or at our gate (it was not clear if her terminal was connected to ours behind security). I tried to call her on my phone while we were sitting at a table waiting and, somehow, the person before us had left a Brazilian cell phone that was identical to mine, and without knowing it I picked it up and put it in my pocket.
After we decided to go through the security line to look for Allison at the gate, while in the line, I realize that I had two of the same phones and had to climb (literally) back out of the security line and run the phone back to the little coffee shop, run back and then duck under the dividers, with the security employees laughing the whole way! Then, once I was finally actually going through the metal detectors my bag was flagged because they thought I had juice…I had to unpack everything only to discover that the ‘juice’ was all of the Bis candy I had stuffed in my bag to take home, this also elicited laughter from the security agents. When we finally arrived at our gate we found Allison sitting at a table waiting for us.
Since we were still hungry, we all decided that we would spend the rest of our reais (most of which was in change) on the overpriced airport food. Between the three of us we scrapped together 21 reais (almost entirely in coins) to by our last salgados (savory pastries). After we finished our snacks Allison informed us that she was flying business class and had access to the American Airlines lounge that was between our gates and we decided to go check it out. It was a very successful mission! Angelika and I were not allowed in, but Allison brought us each some bottled waters and muffins while we sat in the corridor and used their open wifi! Once Allison had taken advantage of all of her perks we walked her to her gate where they were about to board. It was sad to say goodbye to Allison, we’ve gotten to be good friends and roommates over the past two months, but we have decided that we need to meet up again in New Orleans for Marti Gras!
After we watched Allison march past the people in steerage with her magic business class ticked to board the plane (right behind the Brazilian women’s volleyball team) Angelika and I headed back to our gate to start boarding. I have decided that I prefer the daytime flights to Brazil over the nighttime ones since you can watch movies and you get frequent snacks. On the overnight flight Tam feeds you dinner (at midnight, although to be fair it was really good) and only turns the lights out after everyone has eaten, then you get a few hours of sleep before they wake you up again at 5:15 to feed you breakfast (which was honestly not that good). I managed to get a few good hours but naps will be needed!
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