akoori omlette? no thanks air canada.

part one: 
don´t fly air canada. nothing really against them but their food is disgusting..at least the vegetarian options are. no, i am not a vegetarian, but i figured that would be the better food option considering the brazilian food had some sort of meat concoction that never smelled good. either way, the akoori omlette and the daal curry were gross, and i didn´t have much to eat. thank god nina gave me 100 calorie packs. haha. those things were life savers.

getting to brazil was definitely not easy. i never got a window seat on any of my flights and every single person who had the window seat in my row was a fat older person who was either sleeping while we were flying over the cities or blocking the view with their mass, so no aereal city photos for me! My first foreign conversation happened as soon as I sat down on the plane.

the woman i sat by on my flight to sao paolo looked at me and asked, ´´Ce Brazilian?´´ 
Me: [shakes head] ´´No. Americana.´´
Woman: ´´Oh.´´
End of conversation.

haha, we resorted to rudimentary hand guesters and sign language and even that didn´t work out well.

the flight to sao paolo was long, but bearable since i had two seats to myself. didn´t get to sleep much, and unfortunately my seat happened to be the ghetto one that only let me hear movies out of one of my headphones. i tried to sync the seat next to mine with the same movie so i could hear the movie normally, but the other seat played all the conversations like chipmunks. seriously? after that, i gave up and tried to look through the lonely planet guide i bought. I LOATHE THAT BOOK. it is SO heavy and it takes up so much space, I am seriously considering just ditching the stupid thing.

after getting through customs in sao paolo i headed to catch my next flight to rio. unfortunately, i was misdirected and ended up in the wrong place where no one seemed to know which flight i was trying to get on. eventually they figured out that my flight was boarding and i needed to ´´hurry!´´ i got to the line to get my new tickets and it was ridiculously long. luckily it was full of ppl also trying to get on the same flight as me. they held the plane for an hour and we finally got on our way. i happened to sit next to a guy from nobelsville, indiana. go figure. he was nice, but he bragged too much about how rich he was and how many countries he´s visited and how his kids were awesome atheletes. flight was short though, so i didn´t have to talk too long.

the next problem was that i had to go through customs AGAIN in rio and it took me forever to get an officer guy to let me leave the line since i´d already done it. mind you i have another flight to catch to salvador, and i still have to get my bag on the carosel and re-check it. at this point, i am still wearing my fleece, scarf, and all the layers  i had on when i left snowy chicago. i was sweating bullets. i had to run through the airport (yes, i was THAT girl) trying to get checked in and there was no way i could take the escalator with the stupid cart i had so i had to wait for the elevator which was too full the first time it came, and then stopped on every floor. the elevator lady whose job it is to push the button didn´t seem to care about my rush and took her sweet time. then i´m running to the airline to get my bag settled and these two girls working FINALLY grasp that the flight i should be on is well into boarding. One girl tries to go to another guy to help me cut the line and get going, but the guy is being yelled at by this other guy who is really mad about something, and she finally gets his attention and he has to radio the gate to wait for me. They told me to leave my bag and just RUN to the gate. So i did. i didn´t even wait to see if it got sent behind the counter. i just took off and i was again the tourist girl with a big blue turtle backpack running through the airport.

but i made it! sweating and out of breath, but still i got on. well actually, i had to wait to get onto the plane because an american woman was blocking the doorway to the plane bc she was complaining to the flight attendant about some sort of book that was lost or stolen. for five minutes i´m waiting to get into the plane bc this woman is making SUCH a big deal about this book, so i´m thinking it must be like a wedding album or something that is actually worth all this trouble. the ´´book´´ turns up after we sit down. Identity of the mystery book: a $7.99 golf magazine. seriously? what the heck?

i finally make it to the airport and my driver whose name i can no longer remember and had a hard time pronouncing is waiting with a sign with my name. Cool!  But then he tells me he´s been waiting more than an hour for me, which is not cool since i get charged for that. But I figured out someone gave him the time my flight was departing not arrving. so he did not get extra from me. but he was really nice. he tried talking to me in portuguese so i told him i didn´t know any, and we tried switching to spanish. i said ´´Habla MUY POCO espanol.´´ He starts talking to me like I´m fluent. haha. I tell him I don´t know what he´s saying and he switches back to portuguese like i know what he´s saying. finally i whipped out my pocket spanish guide and tried asking a few questions. I´m pretty sure he has two seven year old twin sons. and he really likes Pres. Obama--as evidenced by the Obama cheers and thumbs up-- and he really hates former Pres. Bush--as evidenced by the throat slashing--haha. it was hilarious.

part two: great ball of fire

got to the hostel, and got settled in.  my god it is SO HOT here! not trying to rub it in since you´re all stuck in winter, but good god! i have been sweating non-stop since i got to brazil, and i´m pretty sure i´m well on my way to lose half my body weight at this rate.  cold showers are my new best friend. met a girl who thankfully spoke portuguese so we went to the mall and found an internet cafe and tried to find a phone.also met two brits who are really nice who i´ll be hanging with the rest of the time in salvador and probably down to rio. the hostel has no ac, just fans that don´t do much at all. i´m sleeping in a girls dorm which is 8 bunk  beds in a small room. no other americans here. i´ve met people from holland, ireland, england, lithuania, mexico, and italy. they are all chimney smokers. ugh. we were hanging out and they all had at least 5 cigarettes and i was like eww. but the packs here are interesting bc they show really sad pictures to try to discourage smoking. not sure it works, but it´s one method.

sleeping was not as easy as i thought it would be since i was so tired. the heat is really unbearable, and i feel sticky and nasty the minute i walk out of my shower. heading to the beach today. yay!

i would write more but i only have one minute left on the computer. byee