Travel and Meeting the Family!

Well I made it! The big jump to start my exchange. I have been in Brazil for just over 24 hours now, and it is going well! The language is tricky but I think I will learn fast. I can understand I pretty good amount what is being said, but I don't really know how to say too much. I'll give you all a good update on that later!

Anyways, the long trip! So, after staying up way too late writing the Chicago blog post, I woke up on Wednesday morning around 9. I spend roughly an hour at Cafe Paradiso saying goodbye to a few people, and it was really nice and casual. Afterwards I went home and finished up my bags, and left around 1. It was a pretty standard one and a half hour drive to Cedar Rapids airport where I was leaving from. I said goodbye to my mother, and the adventure started.

I went in to get my ticket, and the machine didn't work. After joking around with the check-in employees that I had broken the machine, we got it working and I got my tickets. Everything went perfectly, I had a nice short flight to Chicago, and then it started to get interesting. I was lucky enough to have a connecting flight that was at a gate within 200m. The downside of this was that I had nothing to do for the next five hours. So I sat around, sent some snapchats and just tried to amuse myself. In Cedar Rapids I wasn't assigned a seat, so during my layover I went to get my seat assignment. I was in the middle, this was the first of many things that went a little south. Once on the plane I quickly learned that the favorite activities of the toddler behind me were crying at least once an hour and kicking chairs. It was a long ten hours and I didn't get a huge amount of sleep. Finally I arrived in São Paulo. I made it through customs and found my gate with no problems, then I grabbed a bite to eat. It was all very exciting, being in Brazil for the first time, but I was so tired it just didn't show. When my flight for João Pessoa left, I learned that I was sitting next to a toddler who also liked to cry! Finally I arrived. I was greeted by the whole family, some friends, a sign, and the Brazilian flag.

Since then everything has been going good. The language isn't too hard, and I am catching up on sleep pretty fast. I am actually in Recife right now, we took my host brother to the airport here so he could leave for his exchange. I will be here until Sunday, then hopefully I will start school soon! I'll write about my first days soon!

Jonah