Meeting the Family in Maceio: Dec 30, 2009

Brazil is a huge country. The trip from Chicago to Sao Paulo was 5,233 miles. The trip from Sao Paulo to Maceio was 1,192 miles. We spent the evening of Dec 30th on the plane to Maceio. Our 4 hour plane ride from Sao Paulo to Maceio had one stop in Salvador. Sao Paulo is an hour ahead of Maceio. Maceio is 2 hours ahead of US Eastern Time. Maceio is in the Northeastern part of Brazil in the state of Alagoas and Sao Paulo is near Rio de Janeiro. Both Sao Paulo and Rio are in the Southern part of Brazil. Since Rio and Sao Paulo are very far from the equator, their weather is not as tropical as Maceio, which is closer to the equator and on the ocean. They can actually get a little chilly, whereas winter for Maceio means rain. Alagoas is a state with many lakes. To its south is Mundau lake which empties into the Atlantic Ocean. We had lunch on this lake and drove over it to see where it empties into the Ocean, so stay tuned for that story.

We arrived in Maceio at 10 P.M. Maceio time. We arrived on time.We collected our luggage and then scanned the crowd of people waiting for passengers to find our family waiting for us. Rebecca said, “There they are,” with a smile and wave. Ernani waved back and we headed for the crew who greeted us: Ernani’s Dad, Eduardo, Ernani’s half-brother, Falvio, Ernani’s half-sister, Thais and her boyfriend Paulo. Brasilians do the two check kiss, as I call it, when they greet you. It is perfect. It matches the friendliness we encountered while we were there.

This was my first time meeting Eduardo, Thais, and Paulo. Flavio had spent a year studying at Augustana, where Ernani’s brother Mariano teaches Political Science, so I knew him pretty well. It was wonderful to get to see him again and on his turf. He had told me about Maceio, his Dad and sister and mother, but I only knew what I had heard from him. I was now here, seeing the city and meeting the relatives I had only heard of before. It was exciting to meet half of Ernani’s family for the first time and to be in Brazil when I had never before traveled beyond North America.

Maceio’s airport is very nice, and Eduardo said it was very new as well. The Northeast had recently recieved Federal funds to renovate it. Glass and green floors. Since it was dark when we arrived, that was my first impression of it. We walked out into the warm air. Eduardo asked me how the trip was and I said, “Okay.” I meant it had all gone well. He looked at me and said, “It is a long trip.” He emphasized it and elongated the long. It is, but worth it.

I wanted to look at the stars. I was excited about seeing different stars, but I was too tired to do anything more than follow everyone and the lights at the airport were very strong. We got to the cars and divided our luggage and our people into them. Thais and Paulo had their own car and most of our luggage, so the rest of us piled into Eduardo’s extended cab truck. Ernani sat up front with his Dad, and I was in the middle of the back seat, so my first views of Maceio were not the most complete. That was probably a good thing. It was dark and I was tired. Soaking in what I could a little at a time was best.

The airport is near the University (where Eduardo taught Political Science, he now advises the Governor) and farthest from the ocean. It is a little way out of town. I had caught glimpses of palm trees and cactus from the runway and more palm trees as we walked out the airport to the parking lot. And I definitely noticed the speed bumps. They are serious about them in Brasil. They were like little mountains of yellow cement. Eduardo almost stopped to go over them and they still raised you from the seat of the car as we passed over them.

As we drove away from the airport to the ocean, Flavio told me about the college, about his program in Architecture (University students in Brasil all commute, at least in Maceio), and about the places we passed. He also told me about the 4 sets of tests they take to gain a spot at the University. They are very hard because they only pass a small percentage of the many people who take the tests. They read the names of those who passed to a crowd of waiting students, and if you pass, they shave your head if you are boy and half an eyebrow or an eyebrow (this was not so clear) if you are a girl. And, there is a big party afterwards.

He also hinted there were surprises at the apartment. The streets were pretty empty, but I knew already it was a good thing we were not renting a car. It felt like we were zooming and that lights were optional.

We arrived at the apartment building named Neo (we found out later there was a Neo 2, so we called this one Neo 1.0). We entered the main gate, into the lobby, up the very small and tight elevator, up to the 4th floor and room 414. It was perfect for our purposes. It had one bedroom, a couch or really a futon which Rebecca slept on, a kitchen and a bathroom and a balcony. Our family had bought us food: mangoes, papayas, kiwis, apples. They had bought us eggs, fruit juices, and two 2 liter bottles of Guarana Antarctica, a local soda loved by the U.S. Magalheas family. They also had bought us a gallon of bottled water. We were set.

I was thinking about sleeping when Eduardo said, “Hey, we are taking you out to eat.” And he did. We changed out of our jeans and semi-wintery clothes and then walked across the street to a restaurant on the beach. Our apartment was feet away from the main drag which ran along the beach, and ideally we were just off a side street rather than on that busy street. A grocery store and a pharmacy were just down the street from us going away from the ocean. The ocean was to the east and the grocery to the west. I was back in a place where I knew my directions. Eduardo said people from Illinois really knew their directions. It is flat there too.

Crossing traffic in Brasil is dangerous. Eduardo warned us to be careful for pedestrians had no rights, and if we got hit, no charges against the driver would be made. So, we carefully crossed the street. The restaurant was wonderful. We sat down outside where we could hear the ocean and feel the breeze coming off of it. We had seafood and cachaça, a local liquer made from sugar cane and a lot like rum. We had some with limes (they called them lemons). It was wonderful. I had shrimp soup and a ½ a local stuffed clam. It was fresh and fabulous.

After eating, we went back to Neo, the apartment, and said our goodbyes in the lobby. We went to bed and woke up the next day to the blue skies of Maceio.

Dec 30, 2009: Waiting in Lines Wednesday

An hour and 15 minutes before we landed, they served us breakfast. We put up the window shade, stretched as best we could. I looked at my husband’s beautiful brown eyes and smiled. We were almost there! He was excited and I was excited and we shared it all in that glance. We had our breakfast, yogurt and yucky rye toast I did not eat. Not a fan of rye. An hour and 15 minutes later, we landed on Brazil soil in Sao Paulo. It was 12:22 P.M. local time and we had a 7 hour layover. We would need every minute of it.

We got off the plane and headed to customs where we waited in line. We wistfully glanced over at the Brazilian Nationals line which was short and moving very fast. Our foreigners line was not so fast, but not slow either. It was only about a 15-20 minute wait.When I reached the customs desk, I noticed the guy was reading in English The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I took that as a good sign. He gave me my exit papers and welcomed me to Brazil. I found my fellow travelers, we got our bags, and headed through the rest of customs, a man waving us into the rest of the airport. The air was hot and humid.

We find a line for connections; it was long and bulky. We waited in this line for about 40-50 minutes. Once in it, we started taking off winter clothes. Rebecca took off her coat and sweater. Ernani took off his long sleeve shirt. I took off the fleece, and long sleeve, light sweater I had been wearing. We all took off our socks. These winter clothes got unceremoniously shoved into our check-in luggage. And they left the forefront of our minds. Goodbye 20 degree Chicago. We were headed for the 80 degree beach. And we were joyous, for we had just begun our standing in line adventure.

The line was a line for TAM connections since that was our domestic airline to Maceio. The airport was humming with people and noise. This is the 7th largest city in the world with about 10 million people. So, the airport probably did not seem crowed to the local people, but it did to me. It was filled with energy and excitement.

Each person in line seemed to have enough luggage for 3 people. Ernani and I had 2 check-in bags and 2 carry-on. Other people had 3-4 check-in and a carry-on or two. I also noticed how young everyone was and how many families with small children were flying. Children could account for the piles of luggage. The strangest thing we saw was two guys with about 10 large cardboard boxes all taped up. They check them in at the counter for what took forever and I could not help but think about how they seemed to be treating the plane as a personal FedEx. I could not believe it when the airline checked them and all their luggage in without incident.

We made friends with a guy in front of us who traveled all over and lived somewhere in Brazil but was a native English speaker. He was nice, but we did not see him again. By the time we got to the front of the line, his plane departure time was close, so he checked in and ran. And this was common as we were about to find out.

When we got to the front of this TAM line, the lady checking us in told us we were too early. We had to wait until 4 hours before our flight to check in. When I asked Ernani if that meant we had to wait in line again, and he asked her about my concerns, she said no, but that was not the case. And, I really didn’t believe her when she said no anyway. But, it was worth asking.

We dragged our luggage, on a cart, and ourselves over to the elevator to get to the 2nd floor and some food. It was crowded and we missed the first elevator. I quickly learned to push forward and not be polite or we would never get to the 2nd floor. We squeezed onto the elevator and someone pushed the doors to get to them to close. We got off on level 2 and made for the food. There was a bakery and Ernani got some meat pastries and water. We had some of the crackers we brought with us too. Rebecca loaned us two shirts when we got to the farm so we could change in Sao Paulo, and we did that and brushed our teeth in the bathroom. We were starting to feel human and good about boarding passes and special check-in luggage paper work. Little did we know…

We read, talked, and walked around a bit. Ernani and I headed to the third floor and found a good window to look out of that showed green hills, red dirt (like Arkansas!), and blue, blue sky. We also took a stroll outside to soak up the sun and the greenery, the vitamin D we had not gotten since August. On the plane coming in we had both commented on how hilly and green the earth below looked and how much of a treat it was to see green in the winter, to even know somewhere it still exists.

Like me, Rebecca likes to get things done early and not be late, so we headed to the TAM airlines check in counter on this floor well before our next flight was to leave. We asked about 3 people and got 3 different answers on which line we belonged to, a line for special people with boarding information. We were not suppose to wait in line long again, remember?

Before I relate this part of the story, let me write a bit about the women at the check-out counter. They all wore tight white shirts and skirts that went to the knee, but what I found most fascinating were the shoes. They all wore heels. Thick pumps with high heels. And they walked a lot. Even on the conveyer belts that they put the luggage on. I was amazed by this because I cannot walk in any kind of heel with confidence and could not walk on a conveyer belt and against it even with sneakers. I would fall on my butt and land with my feet in the air. And, something would be broken. Yet, they did it and they never fell or looked ungraceful. Never. It was amazing. They all wore makeup: lipstick and the works. And, they knew how to wear it. They all had the lastest hair cuts and styles. They all had big, dangly earrings or small diamond earrings. All of them. And, they were young women in their 20s. It was like a cult, but I wanted to be in it. But, I digress.

The check in counter was hell. Truly. We stood in that line about an hour. We stood and stood and at one point the man ahead of us at the counter started having a fit. There were 3 women working 3 counters. The man had a skinny blonde that seemed to really know her stuff. The other two asked her a lot of questions and she knew the answers and helped them, so I suspect she had the most experience working the counter. The women we did finally get seemed new. The man who had a hissy got the competent women, and I do not speak Portuguese, but what I was told was that he was mad because his wife was not seated next to him.

Let me tell you about his wife. She pulled the cart full of 5 heavy suitcases up to the counter all by herself. She put the 5 heavey pieces of luggage on the scale while he stood and leaned over the counter, and then, she found a place to discard the cart. He did nothing except yell. Then, when the woman at the counter left to fix the problem, he turned to us and tried to get us, we who were waiting in a backed up line he was helping to back up, on his side. I was glad I only knew English. And, no one made eye contact with him.

This was fortunate for us, for it prompted us to start talking to the young woman in front of us, who was next to go in line. We were soooo close we thought. Like us, she was waiting forever. Unfortunately, after waiting for over an hour in our line, she discovered when she did get to the counter that she needed to be in the international line. She was not flying domestic like us. This was terrible. She ran to the next line for her flight departure was quickly approaching. And, I really hope her international line went quickly or that they let her skip to the front.

It is important for me to also note that as we were waiting in this hellish line, another skinny young woman would come up to our line’s cloth and seemingly flexible border and call out a flight that was just about to leave. People in back of us who were on that flight would jump to the front of the line and be served at the counter. This is one reason it took forever. Ernani started to think we should have waited until the last minute to check-in so we too could jump the line. Remember, this was a check in line. We still had to go thru security. It was taking on average 20 minutes a family at the counter.

When we did get to the counter, we gave her our boarding passes from Chicago and the new ones we got from downstairs. We were told they were done wrong and she would have to ‘regularize’ them. We stood there another 45 minutes. At this point, I had to sit on the floor. My feet were killing me and I almost lost all hope when our counter lady said she had to go elsewhere to fix our problem. And she left for about 30 mins. I thought this is it, we are never getting to Maceio. But, our luggage was. It had already gone down the conveyor built. I was terrified we would never see the counter lady again. We even asked the competent lady what was going on and she said she would check on it. About 5 people (families) behind us got to go through while we waited. The young woman returned walking on the moving belt for luggage and finally, we got our boarding passes.

We went through security, a very different experience than our U.S. security experience. It was the fastest line of all the lines that day. We walked thru with our shoes on and grabbed our bags. It was about 5 when we got to our gate. When it came time to stand in line at the gate, the line moved fast, though it was long and seemed endless. We were grateful and ready to sit on a plane again. Next stop Maceio.

Getting to Brazil: December 29, 2009

Our travel itinerary had us flying from O’Hare to Sao Paulo the evening of the 29th. In order to relate our adventures getting to Chicago, I must relate our always complicated travel plans.

We live in West Virginia, but our family lives mainly in Illinois, the exception being my parents who live in the heaven of America, Arkansas. I would say West Virginia is Almost Heaven and Arkansas is heaven. Illinois is an old home; Arkansas is the home of my heart.

Since most of my family and also most of Ernani’s family live in Illinois, we end up celebrating major holidays in Illinois. We spend Thanksgiving with Rebecca, my mother-in-law, who is a Shaner who married a Magalhaes (the Brazil side of the family). The Shaner's have a fantastic Thanksgiving that hallmark would be jealous of because everyone comes to the family farm in Northern Illinois. And, I mean everyone: cousins, Aunts, Uncles, young, old. It is a very special time of the year and a very fun time of the year, and on the Friday night after Thanksgiving Ernani’s family celebrates Christmas together.

So, Ernani and I spend Thanksgiving with his family and Christmas with my family; Christmas rotates between my brother in Northern Illinois and my brother in Southern Illinois. This year we celebrated it in Southern Illinois the weekend after the 25th at my oldest brother’s house. Luckily, we also get to spend our Christmas with my Aunt who comes out from Indiana to spend that holiday with us. This Christmas our parents were very generous and got us all a GPS. This was something Ernani and I really wanted. We used it to get to the Farm on the 28th and to get to Chicago on the 29th.

We left the farm on the 29th. The excitement of travel made the morning go fast and before we knew it it was 1:30 in the afternoon and time for us to head out. We had arranged to drive to Sally’s (a friend of Rebecca’s) where we would leave our car and the presents we were not taking to Brazil. A cab was meeting us at Sally’s at 6 to take us to O’Hare. Sally was not in town, so her neighbor let us in and we huddled in the house waiting for 6 to come.

It was exciting and surreal to think that tomorrow I would be in Sao Paulo waiting for our final flight to Maceio. It would be warm there. It would be summer. Chicago was freezing. It was in the 20s and there was snow on the ground. It was the kind of snow that looked entrenched. The roads and driveways were clear, but the snow snuck up to the sidewalks and the driveways waiting for a moment to return to them.

The cab came and brought us to the airport. Once there, the all day waiting energy was spent on checking in our luggage and going through security, which was a little more intense than usual. It was a short line though, so went fast. Rebecca and I did encounter a mean woman in front of us who we both prayed was not on our 10 or so hour flight to Brazil. She felt we were pushing her along I guess because she flat our told Rebecca not to take the bins because she still needed them. She said under her breath, when I was helping Rebecca retrieve her items after they has passed the TSA tests, don’t touch other people’s stuff. We had tried to give her room, but she was one of those people you just roll your eyes at and walk away from as fast as possible. When we got to our gate, we looked for her and we were relieved she was not there.

We had supper and waited to board our plane. We boarded and we were on our way. I got very lucky and was assigned a window seat, which I let Rebecca have first shift. It was the best seat for sleep, so we took turns. I sat next to her as they feed us dinner (one of the plusses of being vegetarian is I got mine first). The pilot advised us that one hour and 15 minutes before we landed in Sao Paulo, we would get breakfast. I could not wait for breakfast! I would know I had passed the equator. I had passed the equator!

Ernani was in the aisle across from us. It is hard to sleep on a plane and Ernani thinks it is cruel that we boarded and walked past first those lucky people in first class who could lie down and then second the next class who could recline in a lazy chair. He advocates that all coach class people should get to board from the back. I cannot argue with this. But, I also know that to get past or even close to the equator, I could suffer for 10 hours in a chair that supposedly reclines but really doesn’t.

The Idea to Travel

The idea to travel to Brazil started a little over year ago when I decided that life is way too short to be waiting to do the things we want to do in our life. Traveling to Brazil was one of those things that we could put off forever. There would always be a reason not to go, and if we listened to those reasons, we would never go. So, last year we talked about going in a year. And, when October came around and we still had not purchased tickets, I realized we were putting it off again.

It just so happened that my Mother-in-law was visiting us in October and we traveled with her to Southern West Virgina. She is fantastic person to travel with and has tons of experience traveling. She traveled internationally for her job and lived in Brazil for decades prior to that job. I knew that if we told her about the trip idea, she would give us good advice about how to get there and how much it might cost. And, in a moment of inspiration around the breakfast table of the hotel where we were discussing this idea with her, I asked her to come with us.

Ernani had not been back in 20 years. He wanted to reconnect with the country and with his Dad and that whole side of the family he had not seen in a very long time. We had seen and I had met his half-brother Flavio who attended a year of college in Northern Illinois, but I had never met anyone else on his Dad's side of the family. His Mom had been back about a year or two ago. She is fluent in travel and Portuguese. She is fun to hang out with and we always enjoy our trips with her. Having her with us seemed a very logical and wise choice. Within two weeks of that breakfast, we had 3 tickets to Brazil from Dec 29 to Jan 8th and Ernani's Dad, Eduardo, helping to find us a place to stay while we were there.

Reason for Existence

I have decided to take the plunge and blog. While most people might not find this a daunting prospect to be cautious about, I do. It means putting myself out there for the world to see and I am not a fan of the world seeing me.

What terrified me most about marrying my husband was the marriage ceremony, not the living and loving forever part. I have a lot of confidence in my husband and in our realtionship, but I knew I would be proclaiming that in a church where I would have to stand up in front of a crowd of people for a while and be the center of attention. Plus, all that bride mania was not my thing. I am not sure how to be an ornament. And I don't want to be one either. I wanted to get married and then be married and live it. And that cake was something to look forward to too.

As a teacher, I can be in front of a crowd without a care, but when I am teaching I am doing something. I am in action. And this is why one of my favorite songs, just to prove my dorkiness, is "I Have Confidence" sung by Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. She puts it all out there and rises above it and finds love, a family, and a life singing. How cool is that. She even dances all the while she is walking; she is doing. She is happier than when she was in the convent singing.

And lately, I have found Gretchen Rubin's blog about happiness: www.happiness-project.com

She has inspired me to do innovative and new things that might scare me a bit, but which might also lead to things to make me happier.

Since writing makes me happier, I have chosen to write more. So, here I am in public again doing something I hope will lead to a happier life. And, I am taking whoever reads this along for the ride.

Recently, I have traveled to Brazil and I must say I love traveling. Most people might think to travel means a plane ride and a long trip like to Brazil, but for me, it can mean to a good restaurant in Pittsburgh. So, if anyone reads this they will find me writing about my travels--from the exotic to the domestic. And hopefully, we will all be happier.