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.