Brasil Diaries: Seat Numbers, Connections and the Goddess with the screw face...

This is me on the train to JFK. I have to go back in order to tell this story. This is before the countdown post (below). Even with all the spontaneous crying that happened before I got on the plane, a Goddess was feeling pretty good. Me and my travel mates boarded our plane to Sao Paulo, excited for the journey to begin. Well, humans have a way of taking the pep out of anyone's step and I am only writing about this because I promised myself I would.

We flew TAM Airlines from JFK. I usually love traveling non-American airlines, because the customer service always seems better and the amenities in coach always seem so much more interesting. Well, not to soon after we got on the plane there was a problem. One of my travel mate's seat had been taken by a man who decided to sit with his family even though he was assigned elsewhere. It took about 20 minutes of round robin discussion to assess the situation only to have no one do ANYTHING about it. My travel mate ended up having to fend for herself and basically getting her own seat wherever she could find one. The flight attendants passed out water and mints.

We finally settled in, but didn't leave for almost two hours, during which I was knocked out. The night before and "crack of dawn" tripping up to New York had finally gotten to me. I awoke to dinner service and decided to watch a movie. That's one of the things I love about international travel. It's a great way to catch up on my, "would never pay to see this nonsense" movie watching. It was a good idea until, it became very clear that I, as an American, or English speaker was not the airline's target audience. Each customer had their own entertainment unit, which had three language options: English, Spanish and Portuguese. They had French and English subtitles for the safety video, but guess what? When I tried to watch ANYTHING that they had been programmed for the flight (movies, tv shows, cartoons), there were only two languages options: Portuguese and Spanish. Now I am not normally irritated by such things, but I couldn't understand how they could show nothing but American-made films, have the Portuguese and Spanish-dubbed versions, but not the original English versions. It took me about 30 minutes and confirmation from the flight attendant to realize that my console wasn't broken. After my moment of "What the hell?" and a smirk at the irony of it all, I decided I could do without watching "Made of Honor" or "What Happens in Vegas" and went back to sleep.

When we finally landed, I was ready to get off the plane! It was way too cold, extremely noisy and I had been bumped so many times I had to sleep on a slant, which resulted in a serious neck cramp. I figured, well at least the 10-hour leg was over, which was the bulk of the traveling. We just had to get through customs, re-check our bags and board our connecting flight to Salvador. STOP! Do not proceed forward, instead run through this maze like Algernon, just to be able to pass through the "Nothing to Declare" line. BUT WAIT! Now you have to recheck your bags by sitting in another enormous maze-like line where no one cares that your flight is boarding or that you don't speak Portuguese. "You missed your flight to Salvador, there is another one at 10:35 am."

This is what I looked like when I finally boarded our connecting flight to Salvador. Yes, I am a little puffy. Notice the lips and the eyes, I am a finger snap away from going off. To top it off they served ham and cheese sandwiches on the plane. I don't eat ham, so I was puffy, hungry and dehydrated. I curled up and went to sleep, disgusted and just breathing in my geranium essential oil which really helped to take the edge off. I just kept telling myself, "we are almost there, just take deep breaths and everything will be fine."

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Two hours later...
This was the view from the plane as we descended into Salvador. I was completely mesmerized by the beauty of this image. It was a sign that everything would be fine because we had finally made it! So, I just smiled, thanked God for our safe arrival and buckled in to brave baggage claim. We are all now safely and cleanly in the hotel (pics will be up tomorrow) after having traveled for over 30 hours. Bahia is beautiful. I told a friend that from the sky it looks like Morocco, but on the ground, it reminds me of Nigeria.



These were the lovely ladies that greeted us as we walked into baggage claim. I got all fluttery in the heart chakra. Tomorrow is Boa Morte, which commemorates the Africans brought to Brasil as slaves. I am especially excited about what that trip which is two hours up a mountain side, will entail.

Our travel guide who picked us up from the airport, assumed that I had been to Bahia before. He said I "looked" like I knew the area. In a way I suspect he's right. I told him it was my first time to Brasil, but I should have probably said that it was the first time in this lifetime.

Stay tuned...