Travel and Arrival

It was not easy to get to Brazil, that's for sure. Beginning with a lovely three hour car ride to JFK, followed by 2 hours of nervous, excited, and tense waiting at the terminal. Then, there was the plane ride. As I found out, you begin to squirm in even the most comfortable of seats after 10 hours. Also, it is remarkably difficult to sleep in a coach airline seat, resulting in a resounding 3 hours of sleep and traveling to Uberlandia purely on espresso and guarana soda.

Arriving in Sao Paulo gave me my first taste of Brazilian culture. First of all, Sao Paulo is absolutely massive. Simply urban sprawl for as far as the eye can see. After checking my bags, I exchanged my dollars for reais and was on my way. I had an espresso and a pao de quijo as a first meal in Brazil. It's very hard to find a "cup of coffee". All I've seen are small, strong, drinks or cappuccino, latte-type drinks. I also had my first conversation in Portuguese while sitting at the gate to Uberlandia during my layover, which was quite interesting. The flight to Uberlandia was quite uneventful, with the exception of getting a glimpse of the Brazilian landscape during daylight. My arrival was far from uneventful though.

After casually waiting around for my baggage at the quite small Uberlandia Airport, I received a very warm greeting from my first two host families, as well as my Rotary Counselor and Coordinator. After handshakes and beijos, my host family graciously took my bags to the car and explained all the sights and introduced me to the city. After arriving to the beautiful home of the De Pieri's, we had a delicous lunch of pastries, pao de quijo, and guarana soda. About 9 out of every 10 sentences said in Portuguese went right over my head, although I was able to piece some together. It was quite frustrating to recognize several words in a sentence, yet have the meaning slip from my grasp, or not come until too late to give a response. However, if all goes well, this will improve with time. We went out shopping, where I saw several fruits and juices I have never seen or heard of before, and Mrs. De Pieri is inviting people over for a churrasco, or Brazilian barbecue tomorrow afternoon. After a walk around the neighborhood, I returned to the house and wrote this, and given that I've traveled in the neighborhood of 4700 miles in the last 26 hours, and have only had 3 hours of sleep, I will definitely be going to sleep early for once.