Sao Paulo Airport

I’m sitting in the airport in Sao Paulo, and I’ve decided that I love Brazil already. Flying in was spectacular – I met a group of Mormon missionaries and hung out with them until I had to check my baggage for my connecting flight to Recife. This huge group of them, probably about 15 or so, are spending up to 4 weeks here for training and then are headed to a bunch of different areas in Brazil, just to spread the word. They were the nicest people..named “Sister ___” and, well, I forgot what the guys were called..but they were incredibly friendly and social. They told me that at age 19, its relatively customary for anyone in the Mormon church to go on a 2 year mission. A TWO FREAKING YEAR MISSION. How cool is that?? Apparently, they just send in their applications and they could be sent anywhere around the entire world. They were all dressed in complete suits. It looked uncomfortable to sleep in. We talked most when we were waiting in this line for foreigners to have two measly pieces of paper checked, with information that could just be taken off our other documents. This line, which couldn’t be described as anything but impressive (if put Great America to shame), was enormous and took a good hour. I have a feeling I’ll see more of them in the upcoming year.

Speaking of enormous, Sao Paulo is the most massive city I have ever seen in my entire life. Flying in, there were skyscrapers as far as the eye could see. Seriously, mile after mile of humongous buildings, some of them in the middle of suburbs, just placed there. They look so spontaneous. Every single house looks alike (at least from the top – they have red roofs and are all similar sizes), but on occasion there is a bright green house with architecture that’s a little different. The city is HUGE. I have never seen something so entirely massive in my whole life. Its incomprehensible unless you’ve seen it. I wish I would have taken a picture...but I’m sure I can find one online.

I think I have a greater appreciation of flying right now, because of my age and the rush of independence it pushes through me. Last night, as I was flying over Costa Rica and the Caribbean Sea, I looked out my window and it was the most phenomenal sight. I was one of probably 4 people up on the entire plane (it was like 3 in the morning and I couldn’t sleep...probably for the better, because I wasn’t rudely awakened by the excessive turbulence 30 minutes later) and the sky looked like some magical place I’d never seen before. Usually, when you view the night sky, there is all this cloud cover, or at least a little, and whether you realize it or not, there is limited star viewing. Well, surprisingly enough, you don’t have this problem when you are flying above the clouds. I could see every single freckle of the night sky and it was breathtaking. In the morning, there was this fiery red sunset (not on my side, but I could still see a little) and it was if we were flying over Antarctica with fluffy ice caps of sorts, glowing in the golden rays of the sun.

So, Portuguese. I’m doing better than I thought I would. Granted, the only experience I’ve had is in Airports. This was in English, but in Atlanta I figured out how to get from terminal A to terminal E, when I was originally going to T (for those of you who aren’t familiar with the Atlanta airport, this meant I now had to hike across the entire fracking thing, instead of just making a trek next door). I asked a flight attendant for help, but she didn’t say much. She sort of just grunted in my general direction, and when I asked if she thought I would make it, she was like “Girl, iuno, why you sittin here talkin to me when you could be runnin”. So I said thanks and walked away in the direction she had grunted.

On the escalator, I asked a random woman if she knew where the train was that I had to catch, and it turned out she had to go to E as well, so we went together. She was visiting her daughter in Buenos Aires. Her daughter had done an exchange to Spain in college, and then ended up in South America climbing a mountain and got married to another mountaineer.

I found my gate, and went to get a water bottle. The Indian lady behind the counter looked at my Rotary blazer and asked me if it was my birthday. I didn’t really know what to say, except to try to explain. She didn’t understand me much anyway, but at least she got that I was going on a foreign exchange and it wasn’t my birthday. I think she was still confused as to why I was wearing an oversized blue jacket with tacky pins all over it, but whatever :p

So, skipping ahead, I got to the Sao Paulo airport, and went to check my baggage again, and of course, was having a little trouble. My baggage is huge and I wasn’t smart or efficient enough to get a cart. Thankfully, this incredibly kind Italian took my carry on (he was trust worthy and I was right there, Dad. Just so you know) and put it on his cart. We struggled through communication for awhile, and after I went and got a cart of my own, we got to actually talking and learned a little bit about one another. He is from Italy (I had no idea) and works with agriculture and oil of some sort. I told him that my dad does something like that, but with gas and stuff. He sells things...that’s where there was a similarity. But he goes all over the place – throughout North, Central and South America and Europe. He speaks Italian, decent Spanish, a little French, very little Portuguese, and a small amount of English. I told him I speak some German and very little Portuguese, so we sort of fumbled through all those languages and created one of our own that seemed to work.

Speaking of German, I ended up asking a German for directions and talking to him because I knew how to ask things in German that I didn’t in Portuguese. We spoke German for awhile, and then he just started speaking English because he probably knew that’s what I spoke. I feel like such an ignorant American sometimes :/

I searched around for my gate for awhile, and I think I should say that I’m very good at using brief words to get information out of people. I’m also very good at asking if people speak English, and saying thank you. There was this other nice man who translated for me and this flight guy who only spoke Portuguese. I would say that 35% of the people I’ve talked to here speak broken English. That’s nice, but this is also an airport and I don’t know if I should expect that in Recife.

After that, I went to get a sandwich and successfully talked to the Portuguese speaking woman at the counter, asked her if it was okay to pay in American dollars, and explained that I didn’t have any Real. She said it was just fine, so I bought my stuff, and as I was paying this business guy in a suit came up to the woman and started talking to her in Portuguese, and all the sudden he had my twenty dollars and I had twelve Real. I gave them a very confused look, and this man piped up from the back and said in English “Do you understand?”. I shook my head, said “Nao?” and he proceeded to explain to me that the man wanted American money and I was getting my change in Real. I ate lunch with these guys, and we talked about a lot of different things. They are lawyers, and the English speaking one gave me his card and said to call him if I’m ever in trouble because he will help me :D As a side note, one of the differences in Brazil already is that the tables in airports are ones that you stand at. There aren’t any chairs..and most tables are actually counters. It provides for a sufficient way to exchange pleasant words and have a casual conversation with a stranger. So far, Brazilians fit the general stereotype of warm, friendly and open people. This man explained the currency exchange to me, and told me how to pronounce my host families names. I gave twenty dollars to the man who already had my American money, and he gave me back 33 Real, which was an extra dollar than he had to. Real are so pretty. I like them more than the American dollar, but that could just be because they’re exotic and colourful.

I should go find my gate now, but the man at the top that you see is the lawyer who ate lunch with me. He was very lawyer like...he told me how to eat my sandwich and demanded that I keep eating when we would start talking, ha. He was pleasant, though, and taught me how to say “nice” “beautiful” and “kind”. We parted with a hug and a kiss on the cheek (its a Brazil thing, not a pedophile thing) and I have his business card in case I ever get in any “trouble”..whatever that means :p

-Madeline