Back at Long Last

Well it seems that only after the fourth day do I have anything more than a fleeting minute to write about my journey so far…

After a very long journey to São Paulo I was met by...well…no one. See the thing with São Paulo is that there is only really one main road into and out of the city. If, per say, an accident were to occur on one this road, traffic remains locked in a jaw clenching grit until the entire accident is cleaned up. Well of course there was an accident on Friday night when I arrived! When you come through the huge black doors in Guarulhos airport you are met in the face with a huge burst of fluorescent light and lots and lots of people all waiting behind the barrier anxiously awaiting a loved one. You cross the threshold from a sterile, concrete environment into a hot, noisy and bright bustle. I began to feel my heart pump out of my chest as my eyes adjusted to the white light. Enrico and I don’t have a very good history of airport meetings, the day that he arrived in Australia 2 years ago I watched every single person walk out of the arrival gate minus him because he told me the wrong day and he wasn’t there. This time for my arrival, the outcome was the same. I don’t know what to put it down to, but a fairytale romantic reunion seems somewhat beyond us. In this case…thank God. Okay so after searching everyone of those waiting face I rolled my eyes and thought ‘typical’ and when to use a payphone to see who was going to come and get me. Alas, in the remaining frantic days in Australia I had forgotten to get some Brazilian currency, ‘tudo bem’ I thought I’ll just withdraw some money, having every bit of faith in the promise from the employees of Commonwealth Bank that each of my four bank cards would be widely accepted and readily usable.

To all those people considering travel to brazil and who are holders of commonwealth bank cards… you can’t withdraw money from atms (and since I have discovered over the last 3 days) nor can you pay for anything on a debit mastercard or savings card. My mood had gone quite quickly from one of nervous excitement, to familiar disappointment to a panic like state of ‘pissed-offness’. In this state you can't remember phone numbers, not even ones that you have known off the top of your head for years so even when someone gives you money to use a payphone you can't. Im just going to cut a long story short because in the actual version of events the next 2 hours involved a lot of sitting down, standing up, walking round in circles and swearing. But at the end of all this I was collected from the airport.

I would be spending a lot of time on the computer and not much time actually doing anything if I wrote about every situation in that much detail. So i'll just sum up the next few days in one foul swoop. I went to a city called Araraquarda, (get that outta ya mouth Aussies!!) to watch Enrico’s rugby grand final, which they won. And didn’t get home til very late that night.

Addmittingly, and against my will I had made my body endure a mixture of very very little sleep, jetlag and a 24 hour period of emotional ups and downs so it was probably only right that it felt the need to punish me with tonsillitis. Perhaps it was God punishing me, or someone up there having a practical joke with me when I remembered how I also forgot to pack about 6 months worth of tonsillitis medication (it has been a reoccurring problem for a while now). So yeah, so far Brazil has been a mixture of nerves in deep fryers, great food ruined by inflamed and pussy tonsils and beautiful weather noted from a bedside window, not to mention a sense of absolute poverty thanks to our good friends at Commonwealth Bank.

Nevertheless, its okay for me to be like this in this place, I have lots of people to look after me and I have been here before so I know that I’m not missing out on anything right now, which would make me even more frustrated, sad and consequentially sick. i'll keep you updated!

BEIJOS xxx