Brazil, Chapter 1: In which We Arrive in Brazil

Hello, single follower. I know you've been eagerly waiting for me to write more since March. Ha-ha. But now I'm in Lins, Brazil, so maybe this will get more interesting than my old asthma machine. Maybe not. We shall see. Maybe I'll at least include some pictures, although I've never been much of a snapshot person.

So, I guess I'll start at the beginning. After obtaining my Brazilian visa in the most expensive way possible, I started my journey on July 27 at 3:00am. We got to the SF airport around 5:30, and the lines were so long that I boarded my 7:00 flight as soon as I got through security. I slept aaaall the way (a whole hour!) to Los Angeles, and then I had a delightful 7 hour layover. My flight to São Paulo wasn't bad, because I was right by the bathroom. Yay!

I was a little nervous--ok, a lot nervous--about being picked up, because Rita was sending a driver, who would then take me to a hotel for the day to wait for Diane to arrive. So basically, I was coming to a strange country, getting picked up alone by a strange man and then going to a hotel. But what choice did I have? Luckily, things turned out ok. I've never been greeted at an airport before with a sign, but it was kind of fun. I felt so important. And the driver immediately made me feel comfortable, even though he couldn't speak any English or Spanish at all. He gave me a letter from Rita that explained about the hotel and everything. It turned out that the first two hotels were full, so we spent a long time together in the car looking for a place for me to stay. In between dozing off and jerking myself awake, I attempted to communicate with him using the remnants of my high school Spanish.

--"Como se llama?"

--"Aaa..." and a head shake with a regretful smile

Silence.

--"Everything," with arm motions and vigorous pointing to the landscape, "is very green here. Green. Alles. I mean Todos. Uh, everything. Verde. Verde? Like this"--pointing to a green bottle cap.

--"Ah! Agua?"

--Sigh. "No, no, nevermind."

Silence.

I liked him, though, and we finally found this teeny hotel. He bought me lunch, too. And then I slept and watched TV, trying to absorb some Portuguese. Maybe when he drives us back in 6 months, I can ask him his name.

He and Diane came back at about 10:30 to drive to Lins. I liked Diane right away; we have a lot in common, I think. We're both trying out teaching as possible future careers, we both love traveling, we both know no Portuguese at all, we both have boyfriends back in the States. The drive to Lins is 5 hours from São Paulo, so we talked for a while and then fell asleep. We finally got here at about 3:00. Donna Katarina let us in and then we unpacked and went to sleep. Boy, there's a lot of sleeping involved in my first day, for all the excitement.