Date Written: Feb. 1, 2002 4:32 p.m.
Current Location: Sao Paulo Airport
Subject: The Departure and the so called "International" Airport

Friday, Feb. 1, 2002
Well, here I am. I'm in the Sao Paulo airport waiting for my flight to Buenos Aires. So far, the trip has been pretty cool. It's crazy for me to think that 24 hours ao, I stepped out of the Baylor College of medicine all the way back in Houston, Texas.
The trip already is turning out to be pretty fun and I haven't even gotten to my first destination yet. I had a layover in Chicago and my parents, Markel, and Bridge all met up with me. We went to Hooter's and had a blast...even though the waitresses were all chunkdiggity: Anyway, it's always great to be surrounded by loved ones. It felt great. The only bad thing (that actually was a good thing) was that I found out that the flight I had from Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires was cancelled (thanks Ma!) and thus I would be forced to take a later one...6 HOURS later!! So that answers the question of why I'm still here in the airport. Anyway, the 10 hour flight from Chicago to Sao Paulo was fun. I met this pretty cool guy, Chris Regan, from Hanover Mass. We shared our (well, my) first Brazilian beer together...it's called Brahma or something like that. What's funny is that on the can there was this Charlie's Angels silhouette style photo of hot chics. Not that it's funny on the surface...it was just that you have this mental notion that Brazil is all about beautiful, exotic women and then the first Brazilian thing you see on the way there is this beer can with chics on it. Anyway, we had a good laugh about that. I only bring it up because later it became even funnier for me, but I'll get to that. So Chris and I talked a bunch the whole flight. We had a few drinks and that was cool. We both slept about four hours so that was good. I haven't really slept since though so I'm a bit tired. Who cares though, I'll sleep when I'm dead! Chris and I exchanged info and we have a day in Rio that overlaps and a day in Sao Paulo. Hopefully we will see each other again. If not in Brazil, then for sure up in Beantown!!
So at 11:40 SP time (4 hours ahead of Houston) we arrived. We got our bags and said goodbye and I was on my own. My first views of Sao Paulo were pretty sweet. You can see the mountains surrounding the city and the city itself is ENORMOUS. The airport, however, is very unimpressive. First of all, I think the air conditioning in a hut in Ethiopia is more efficient. It is definitely summer here!! Secondly, for being one of the 15th largest cities in the world, the airport is tiny! A had one other grievance but I'll talk about that in a second.
After leaving Chris and clearing customs, the first mishap of the trip occurred. My freakin' backpack strap broke!!:( I don't really want to go into the engineering and design of the whole thing, but let's just say that Velcro, although a sufficient replacement for shoestrings, does not belong ANYWHERE on the strap of a 35 pound backpack. However, since I knew I had many, many hours to kill, I spent a bit of time repairing the bag and now it's fine.
So after that debacle, it was time to find some grub here in the airport and have a drink and meet some people to pass the time. OH YEAH...the people. I'm sure that I should inform all who read this that there is NO shortage of amazing women in this country. What's amazing is that I have only been here for 5 hours. I have to say that, from the little I've seen, the MILF ratio in this city is through the roof. Unbelievable.
So in order to be able to get some food...I was going to need some cash. But that presented a slight problem. The smallest amount that the ATM would give me was equivalent to like fifty bucks. Well, I didn't want to get so much Brazilian currency right then because I was about to leave that country and I knew I wouldn't return for a full week. I thought it would be a big pain in the ass to carry all that cash on me for a whole week. Not to mention I didn't want to risk losing it. Then I started to think...well, here I am in the INTERNATIONAL airport in one of the world's largest cities, which happens to pretty much be the business center of the entire CONTINENT that I am on...so maybe I will be able to spend dollars at some places. That would make things simple. Well, I happened to be close to the Tourist information booth so I thought I would just go and ask them if it was okay for me to spend US dollars. Well folks...you are not gonna believe this one. There are 4 girls (all beautiful) working at this little info booth (once again, I'd like to remind you in that I am in the business epicenter of the country and I am at the freakin' AIRPORT) and not ONE of them speaks english. Now, I am a pretty open minded guy and I think, "well, the entire continent except Brazil speaks Spanish, so maybe that might take preference over english here at the airport." Nope. Not ONE of them spoke Spanish either!!!!!! What the hell!?? I am at the freakin' TOURIST information booth for Christ's sake! I mean, I would have to guess that a pretty high percentage of the "tourists" that come through that airport speaks one of those two languages as their native language. It really didn't make sense. Not that I even care because I can always get by, but it's just the concept of having a TOURIST info booth at an international airport where the people only speak the language of that country. Maybe if it was just the REGULAR info booth, that might make sense. It didn't really matter though because with a bit of Spanish and English combined I was able to learn that I couldn't spend dollars so I would be forced to change dollars or go to the ATM. Well, I already explained I didn't want to go to an ATM, so I had to exchange cash. The problem with that is that you have to pay like a 5 dollar commission in order to do that. I only wanted money to be able to eat and have a drink right then so paying 5 dollars in order to change twenty seemed ridiculous. In the end, I found this place where the guy spoke english and I talked him into changing some money for me for free:) Sweet.
So finally with some cash in hand I was ready to rock. I had a Roast beef salad type of dish in a little café in the airport. It was mighty tasty but what is hilarious is that I ordered a beer with my food. Well, down here, they give you the can and a glass when you order. Well, it turned out that the "default" beer was another one of those Brahmas (like the ones Chris and I had on the plane) but this time the can had a silhouette of a big muscular dude on it!! I can only hope that the guy RANDOMLY selected that one.(Not that there's anything wrong with that!) Anyway, it was kinda funny. So after that I walked around the airport and found this bar called "On the Rocks". Ironically, nobody in the place with a name in english, spoke a word of english. Well, actually a few guys knew a little. I'll tell you what though people, it is absolutely amazing how far a little spanish and a little english will get you down here. I met this pretty cool guy, Diego, while I was there. He is from a Sao Paulo suburb. Neither one of us really spoke the other's language, yet we sat there and communicated for a solid 45 minutes. It was pretty fun. Amazing how some things are just universal. We talked about women and vacations. One thing that would have been helpful would have been a little pocket Portuguese-English dictionary. I made a mental note to tell Tony to bring one since he was meeting me in Sao Paulo the following week. Anyway, we had a couple drinks...one of which being a caipirinha. It's a brazilian drink that I would compare to a margarita on the rocks, only sweeter. Let me just tell you, it was prbably 10 times better than the ones I had in the US...and probably 30 times stronger. Man, one little one got me buzzing pretty good. I see a lot more of those in my future.
Well, after Diego and I exchanged info (hope to see him when I get back to Sao Paulo) and he left I just sat and "talked" to the bartenders for awhile. Again, it was cool that we were able to communicate. Finally I was able to check in my huge, but broken backpack and head for the terminal where I am now. So, all in all, I have already met some cool people, had some great drinks, seen some amazing women, and traveled 5500 miles. Not bad for 24 hours. I'd just like to point out that it's only a quarter after five and I have a LONG way to go. I'm sure I will be out all night tonight. Buenos Aires, HERE I COME!!!!

Miles traveled: 5500
Drinks consumed: approx. 9
Countries conquered: 2

AC