Flight, Family, and Fun

I was more than shocked to find out that my host dad was giving me a golden cufflink that once belonged to his father.

"Muito obrigado!" (Thank you very much!)

Why is he giving this to me? This makes absolutely no sense. I'm not his actual son. Why not give it to Pedro?

Silly foreigner, he's not giving it to you; he's showing it to you! After a day and a half with my new family, I finally had a really awkward miscommunication.

"Oh, yeah. That's more logical than my first interpretation," I mumbled in English. I doubt he heard me, but he probably understood that I felt stupid.


It does not seem like very much time has elapsed since I last saw my friends. The difficult goodbyes of Wednesday are over. But since my going-away-party, much has happened. I flew to Brazil, got lost, got found, and spent some quality time with my host family.

I woke up Thursday morning with a fever. Eventually, I took some ibuprofin and the fever subsided. That night my immediate family gathered in Chaska with my sister Sarah and my brother-in-law Mark (who is now on Facebook) for a last family meal before I departed.

Friday morning I stumbled off Sarah and Mark's couch with a fever, a sore back, and a sore throat. Luckily, I surround myself with the right people. My sister is a P.A. so she hooked me up. My mom drove me to the OBGYN Clinic (Spanish for a medical place that only serves women) and Sarah gave me a quick strep throat test. It came back positive, which really is negative, and she prescribed me some Penicillin. We picked it up, filled out a survey, got a free Powerade, and went to the airport. Efficiency!

I flew to Atlanta and then to Brasilia with three girls who looked after me. Once I was on my own, things escalated. I said goodbye in Brasilia, and my next stop was Sau Paulo. I made it there, like a champ, and boarded my next flight to Londrina. Or so I thought. Apparently we were making a pit stop in a city 600 kilometers from my destination. The ticket said we were dropping people off, but honestly, who reads tickets? To exascerbate the minor problem, I was sleeping during the flight and felt groggy during the landing announcements, and I spectacularly missed the message. I got off the plane, went to get luggage with another Rotary exchange student from Vermont, and eventually concluded that my luggage wasn't there. Go figure.

"Your luggage is in Londrina, where you're supposed to be," said the friendly Brazilian airport worker.

"Uff da. I thought this was Londrina."

After saying goodbye to Emma, I followed the Brazilian to a port where he told another worker my situation. The worker got me a new flight for 17:00, five hours later. For some reason when he told me the time of my next flight, I thought he said 'in eleven hours' which was totally not cool. Luckily, it was really only five hours.

My next task was to call my host family and inform them that there was a change of plans. I asked another worker for help; he figured out the pay phone for me (I didn't have Brazilian change) and he dialed the number I gave to him. My host sister, Maria Luisa answered and said some gibberish in Portuguese that I couldn't understand. I gave the phone to the airport worker, he explained everything to her, and the matter was settled.

After a five hour wait and a 45 minute flight, my plane landed, and I watched the sun set behind the skyline of Londrina. It was beautiful. My host family met me at the airport, and it was time to go home.

Finalmente!

As you can see, flights don't always go as planned, and language barriers are funny.


Thanks for reading. I still have much more to tell, but not right now. I have school in the morning.

Beijos