Flying In

I arrived in Rio today.


Leaving was pretty hard. After talking bad about the United States for so long, it was actually difficult to wrap my head around the concept that I’d be leaving for the semester. Goodbye was harder. It’s amazing how close I’ve been able to become to Kelsey and all my friends in DC, so it was probably one of the toughest goodbye’s I’ve dealt with. But a sad goodbye is also a strong embodiment of a close relationship, so I’m happy to be that lucky. And to all my NH friends, I’m still missing you.

Once in Dulles, where everything looks like it’s melting, my flight was delayed a half hour. Not a huge deal since that still left me with an hour to catch my connection to Rio. Once we boarded the plane however, the captain informed us in a mumble filled ramble that we would not be living for 40 minutes because of a storm, and 40 minutes later, we still had forty minutes to go. Despite the reassurance of my plane neighbors, a twelve year old headed for Nashville and a 60 year old US Airways retiree (who sometimes flies United, if you care), I was rather upset. Once we finally landed in Charlotte at 10:30 I ran across the airport to the gate where my flight was scheduled to leave… at 10:30. When, out of breath, I rounded the last bend towards Gate D11, and the flip-flop-sprinting-on-tile echo faded, and I realized that if I had taken 10 seconds to look at a monitor, I would have realized that my connecting flight to Brazil was also delayed. My time trail through Charlotte was therefore totally unnecessary, and everyone looked at me like I was crazy.

The flight was a mix of fading in and out of sleep, amazement at hearing widespread Portuguese (people actually do speak it!), and listening to my neighbor John. He had also gone to Rio when he was 20, and after being there for a week he fell in love and dropped out of school in Connecticut. He is now 46, and his biggest concern was how much trouble customs might give him for the four 80 pound boxes he was bringing. What’s in your boxes John? I was making conversation. He changed the subject.


Getting off the plane at the airport was the easiest time I’ve ever had. There was no line at customs, they didn’t question me at customs (probably busy with John…), and my baggage was literally the first onto the conveyor belt. Plus, they even had free carts that would have set me back a good $0.25 in the US. But then I decided I should call the US. After starting at a payphone, an enthusiastic man trotted towards me, offering not only help with the phone, but even a ride in his car to wherever I was going! Call me crazy, but I refused. I finally made my way to a calling center desk thing where the attendant spoke the lispiest Portuguese ever and begged my assistance translating a bickering conversation between her and an Argentine customer, neither or whom shared common language nor courtesy. spoke with Kelsey and my dad and made my way back to the pickup area in a feeble attempt to find someone from PUC who was supposed to get me. But there he was! He spoke only Portuguese and turned my name into “Air-eek-ee Pah-keh”. We loaded up in a two hour process that could have been fifteen minutes, and headed into the city.