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.
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