hola meu amigos!
So The Trip has begun. I had to fly around the world to get to Brazil, and i think i spent 3 days either in planes or in airport terminals. Yes, 3 days without showering, which really got me into the travelling lifestyle. First up was a 22 hour flight to London - for the Sydney to Singapore leg i was sitting next to a lovely guy from Sydney who i chatted to a lot, and I also watched some movies on the in flight entertainment. And got fed quite well too! Then Singapore to London i had a spare seat next to me, so managed to sleep for about 8 hours. The flight actually wasnt too bad. Then my flight from London to Sao Paulo wasnt for 12 hours after i arrived in Heathrow, so i spent all that time in the airport terminal! I bought a coffee and a muffin and it cost me $AUD15!!!! I vowed not to eat for the rest of the day. Fortunately i´d packed some pringles... So the next 12 hours i spent sleeping and reading and wandering and reading some more, and i also got to practise some Portuguese.
My flight to Sao Paulo was delayed by almost 2 hours! By the time i boarded i was starving and tired. I slept through the take-off. Then it was 13 hours to Sao Paulo, Brazil... My domestic flight from Sao Paulo to Salvador was 3 hours after my supposed arrival time from my flight from London, but because the plane was late leaving, i arrived at Sao Paulo with only an hour to get through customs and get onto my other flight. Possible? I thought so, until i got to the horrendous queue at customs, where i had to wait 45mins. A lovely Irish guy traded places with me in the line (he was further ahead), so after customs i rushed around finding my bag, then had to try and find the terminal for my domestic flight. I was frantic, couldnt find where i was meant to be, and was worried about missing my flight, because Claire and Monica were meeting me at Salvador airport (Claire was flying from Sao Paulo to Salvador at a similar time), and if i didnt show, they wouldnt know where i was. I rushed to the information desk with my broken Portuguese, a tap on the shoulder and Claire was behind me! I could´ve cried, i was so happy to see her. (We laugh that we met at the tourist information desk, of all places). So we raced around, found my terminal, spoke some broken Portuguese to the aiport staff, and after they ran around with me to try and get me on the flight, we found out it had already departed. Unimpressed. I then had to buy another flight, and spend even more time in airports.
Finally, finally, i got my flight to Salvador, and i was the only non-Brazilian person on the flight! I was sitting next to a young Brazilian couple who i ended up chatting to the entire flight (the girl, Marina, could speak some English). They were lovely. Then at Salvador airport, Claire and Monica were there! So good to see them, especially Monica, who we havent seen for 7 years.
Monica lives in a really awesome apartment with her parents, grandma (who is 90!), brother and their maid Isobelle. None of them speak English, except Monica (her brother speaks only a little bit), so we have interesting conversations where we point at things and say the few Portuguese words we know. But they are such a lovely family.
And the food they´ve cooked for us! Lunch is the main meal of the day, so you eat a big cooked meal with all the family, and also have dessert afterwards. Incredible. Yesterday for lunch we had a salmon and prawn curry with rice, cake for dessert. Today we had beef with this amazing stuff that was like mashed potato but 100 times better, and for dessert we had a custard pudding with meringue on top and caramel sauce. Oh my god. It was funny, because Claire was saying yesterday that she likes custard, and then today they made us a custard pudding! So i started saying that I love caramel... Monica´s mum and grandma do all the cooking. This morning we awoke to Isobelle asking us if we wanted cafe (coffee, which is incredible here), and out into the kitchen for a massive breakfast spread. Incredible. We´re stocking up on all the amazing food here, because when we leave we´ll be buying our own, so wont eat as well. And they dont let us do anything! No cleaning up or washing dishes, 5 mins after we get up in the morning, Isobelle has made the bed.
Today we went to the beach with Monica and her boyfriend Marcelo. It was beautiful. I bought new swimmers (and yes, they are the tiny Brazilian kind, but when in Rome...), so donned them quite awkwardly today. The Brazilians on the beach laughed at us too, because of our pale skin (well, Claire´s pale skin, mine´s not so bad, but i get laughed at by association); we had a really good time. The people in Brazil (despite their finding us amusing) are really lovely and friendly. It´s great having Monica and Marcelo to help us speak and understand things too. And they´ve driven us around everywhere! Oh yeah, and the driving here is chaos too...
Tonight we´re going to a party, tomorrow a beach party which we bought tickets to (on Australia Day too!), and then it will be Carnivale. So excited!! Ooh, and Viv´s arriving in a couple of days too, which will be amazing.
Ok, well that´ll do for a first entry! We´re having an amazing time here. It feels like we´ve been in Brazil for ages, but only 2 nights!
Ciao!
xx
