February 16 - Day 2

As the plane winged its way to Sao Paulo on its ten and a half hour flight, Patti was seated at the window, I had the middle seat, and sitting on the aisle was a handsome young Brazilian lad by the name of Victor. Victor was returning to Brazil to his home in Salvador where some of the best(and wildest) carnival events in all of Brazil happen. Because he was currently a student at UCLA in Los Angeles, his English was fluent, and he gave us a lengthy description of carnival time in Brazil.

Each of our seats was quite comfortable albeit not for me and my back. On each seat was a package with a small pillow, a light blanket, and a set of earphones. There was a small TV screen on the back of each seat located in front of you. Here we access to music, TV programs, movies, games, documentaries, and the progress of the flight. Around midnight we were served an excellent meal. The lights were then turned down and we continued our journey high in the sky at 37 000 feet at slightly under a 1000 km/hr. We both dozed on and off. Surprisingly my legs gave me very little trouble.

A mediocre breakfast was served at 9:30 Sao Paolo time and then we landed at Guarulhos International Airport on time at 11:40 local time. After disembarking we had to enter a long lineup to clear customs and immigration. It turned out we were in the wrong line and a wonderful immigration officer took us in hand and got us into the correct line at the very front where we promptly made our way through. I hope the people whom we line-jumped weren't too upset, but you do have to listen to the authorities!

We went to retrieve our luggage at the designated carousel. Patti's suitcase arrived promptly. About 10 minutes later my suitcase showed up showing the worse for wear. United had destroyed the top gripping handle in the process. This made it difficult to take the bag off the carousel. Fortunately the handle which extends was intact and I could still tow the suitcase. Now suitcases are designed to withstand rough handling at airports, so I assumed mine was a defective handle and I would seek a replacement when I got home. I couldn't go and complain to United in Sao Paulo as the language abilities became a problem. My Brazilian Portuguese is poor and their English was not much better. And we had to find transportation to another airport, Congonhas National Airport, the old International airport, located about an hour away to ensure that we could catch a flight on GOL on the next leg of our journey.

After asking for and receiving directions from 3 different people, all of whom were happy to assist us, we finally got correct instructions on how to get to the airport. Here is where my reais came in handy as our fare for the two of us came to $70 (reais), about $42 Canadian. We and our luggage were boarded on a very modern and comfortable bus. The route to Congonhas took about an hour to travel and it took us through a portion of the central city of Sao Paulo, so we were able to enjoy the scenery and take many beautiful photos.

At Congonhas, we were checked in, our baggage noted as damaged, and we were given boarding passes for the flight to Belo Horizonte at gate 9 for 4:12 p.m. or 16:12. We settled in at gate 9 after a lengthy trip through the airport waiting lounges which were crowded because of Carnival. As we waited, we observed our fellow travelers leaving on the same flight. At 15:30 when boarding was to start, we heard our names being paged over the public address system in beautiful and clear Portuguese. We were told to report to Gate 19 immediately. Wondering what was going on, and proceeding as rapidly as we could( me with my bad legs and back) to gate 19 which, of course, was located at the extreme opposite end of the terminal and on a lower level. At gate 19 we were rushed onto a small shuttle bus along with 3 young men and driven out to our GOL airliner sitting on the tarmac. Apparently this happens often at this airport run by the federal government where gates are changed with frequent regularity for no apparent reason.

Upon boarding our airplane, we were seated beside a young man, Andreas, who proved quite talkative and informative in the 1 hour flight to Belo Horizonte. His English improved with every sentence he spoke as his grasp of it slowly returned. He had been a student in Ireland for a year and there being no Brazilians that he knew of in Dublin, he soon learned English for his means of survival. He chatted with us at great length.

Now I had noted after we were seated that I recognized many of the people who were waiting for the same flight at Gate 9 but who hadn't been paged to ride on the shuttle with us. I commented on that to him and wondered why we had to do the extra trip through the terminal. His reply was, "Don't ask! It's Brazil!"

We landed in BH on time and were warmly greeted by Fernanda, her friend Rodrigo, and her father Tarcisio, and by Walkeria, a former student of Patti's, and Walkeria's mom. Walkeria presented Patti with a tastefully decorated gift box containing garb to put on for the festival should we need it.

After about a 45 minute drive through BH, we were made to feel at home in Tarcisio beautiful house situated on the side of a hill and looking over a part of the city. Belo Horizonte (also known as "Belô", "Beagá", or "BH") has a population of 2,475,000 inhabitants in the city, 5,498,000 people in the official Metropolitan Area, and in the expanded metropolitan area is home to about 9,010,000 inhabitants. We had our own room with its own bath, hot-tub, walk-in closet, huge plasma TV, a small CD stereo system, all this, and with a view of BH which was beautiful and at night was spectacularly breath-taking.

That evening after a tour of Tarcisio's house, the swimming pool area with an adjoining games room, onto which faces a roofed in barbecue area with a large barbecue, a wine chilling rack, a table and bar, extra burners for cooking, and a large TV screen(to watch futbol), and a walled in yard with small volley ball court and 2 soccer nets, we were ready for the party to start. Now Tarcisio and his working friend,Polido, who was also a parent of one of my former International students, had set up what they called the "Bryski Family Program" for the time we would be in BH. Every minute of each day had something planned. Part one was the welcoming party.

People started arriving around 20:00 to meet us, the "guests of honor". Because Patti and I had worked so closely with our International students, we became like family members to them. The parents of these students realized this and they wanted to repay us for looking after their children at the school and out of school as it happened on many occasions. Tarcisio's significant other, Alessandra, arrived. She had no English but she looked like someone we would really enjoy getting to know. Of course, Tarcisio, Fernanda, and Rodrigo were already there. Next to arrive were Polido and his lovely wife, Rosangela. Then came a tearful reunion between me and their daughter, Fabiana, whom I hadn't seen in several years and who I thought I might never see again unless she returned to Canada. With her was her boy friend, Gustavo, who proved to be fluent in English after studying law at Cambridge University in England. Walkeria arrived as did Fernanda's sister, Manu. Also arriving was a New Englander who had made BH her home for the last 40 years. She was also Tarcisio's English teacher and much beloved by the group.

Canapes were constantly being served by a valet-type woman, an associate of Tarcisio's. The food was prepared by two cooks whom Tarcisio had hired for the occasion.There was much beer, wine, and a lot of caipirinhas served. Caipirinhas are a Brazilian nectar made from cachaça, quartered and mashed(the inside pulp part) small limes, and very fine powdered sugar served over crushed ice. Cachaça is rum produced not from molasses but from cane sugar grown in Brazil. It is delicious and very potent. Because it is so palatable, one has to be careful on the number one partakes of.

There were a lot of stories told, lots of hugging, lots of joking, and much interpreting of English for the non-English speakers who were picking up a lot of language as the evening went.

By midnight, Patti and I were exhausted from not having had a good night's sleep in almost 3 days. We went to bed completely tired out but feeling so loved, and welcomed, and celebrated.

February 15 - Day 1

The day did not get off to an auspicious start. My sister-in-law's father had recently passed away. The funeral service was scheduled for 2:00 p.m. We had to be at the airport for 3:00 so we were forced to miss the service.

At the airport our check-in, safety check, and immigration clearance went smoothly. In the international waiting area, I bought some Brazilian reais and I find that they charged me an exorbitant rate compared to what I exchanged my American dollars for in Brazil. Oh, well...mistake, but they certainly were to come in handy when we landed in Sao Paulo.

After boarding the plane we taxied to the de-icing area where we got in the line-up. This delayed us by over a half hour - not much but enough to have us scrambling when we arrived in Chicago. When we arrived there, we had an hour to find a tram that took us across the tarmac past taxiing planes to the next terminal. Fortunately our luggage was being transferred internally by United. In the next terminal, of course, our gate was at the extreme opposite end of the terminal. We were to find that this seemed to be our fortune on almost all of our flights-to-be.

We got to our gate to join the long lineups. First step was to prove we had a visa. Then we got our boarding passes. Finally we were on our plane, the largest passenger plane in the world. This one was full at 365 passengers, most of whom were either returning home for carnival or who were visitors going to experience carnival.

At 10:00 p.m. we lumbered off onto the runway. With a sound louder than thunder from a near-miss lightning strike, the two large engines revved up, and we were off on our 10,000 km trip!