5 posts tagged “brazil”
I know that the amygdala is reponsible for linking scent to memory but is there another section of the brain that does the same thing for weather? Today is one of those early Spring gloomy days that is slightly muggy and threatening to break out into rain. Normally it would make think of being in Chiapas during the summer of 2000, but today it's making me think of New York. More specifically being on the Upper West side having breakfast at Zabar's and then wandering around the Museum of Natural History. It's so odd to get seized with this kind of longing when I should be excited about being in Brazil very very soon. Hopefully there's some kind of equivalent to Zabars in Sao Paolo or Rio so that I don't spend my visit wishing that I was somewhere else. Probably not helping that I've been reading that "Most Dangerous Place in the World" dude's summary of Brazil.
Also speaking of memory, but I spent Saturday on a visit to the house of a family friend who's deceased. His wife passed away in November and one of his daughter is trying to liquidate most of the belongings (maybe keep the house) - so there was a tour of what's going to be for sale and a request that I take a look at his old books to determine if anything would be of historic value. I've only been there once when the couple was still alive, but this guy was really my dad's best friend. And an actual living link to all the history surrounding the V-2 and the Apollo program. It wasn't sad or weird for me to be in this man's house and going through his belonging, mostly because I think his daughter is at peace with her parents being gone. But I have to wonder what it was really like for her (or my father) to be in that place that you must so strongly associate with one person and have them not be there. Like they'd just stepped out the door or something.
Just had one of those moments where you're convinced that you've screwed something up & it's not going to work, only to realize that in fact, you've already got it figured out. Or maybe I just like to make things more complicated than they should be. Case in point, when I bought my ticket to Rio, I decided that I wanted to use the least amount of connection points possible allowed with a frequent flier ticket. Normally the hubs for most flights are either LA (West Coast) or Miami (East Coast). My flight is on American, so I booked a ticket to Dallas Fort Worth (AA's hub for Latin America) and then took the option of flying to Sao Paolo and then Rio. I figured it would make it more direct to go that way instead of flying from Dallas to Miami and then Miami to Rio.
After making those arrangements, I started shopping around for a connecting flight from Rio to Salvador for the first 4 or so days of my trip. There's a flight on TAM about 90 minutes after my flight from Sao Paolo arrives in Rio, so I booked it. About 10 days ago I got an e-mail from American about how they'd changed around the departure and arrival times for my flight, which set me off on a panic about how it screwed up my flight to Salvador. Would I have enough time to clear immigrations/customs and get to the departure gate?? Would I have to rebook, pay a huge fee, and then spend another 4 hours (after travelling for 20 hours) hanging around the airport in Rio?? I decided to call both American and TAM and find out what my options were.
First call was to American Airlines and after giving them my booking code number, the agent told me to stop stressing myself out because:
1) My point of entry into the country is in Sao Paolo, not in Rio. Which means that I will go through immigration/customs there, not in Rio. American already made sure to put my on a flight to Rio long after the amount of time I need to do this.
2) American and TAM are codeshare partners, so TAM already informed American that I had the reservation for Salvador. As long as I show my ticket confirmation when I check in for my flight from Reno, American will check my bags all the way through to Salvador. All I have to do is claim them in Sao Paolo for going through customs and then the staff for American will check them back in. They'll automatically be transferred for my flight to Salvador!
Maybe it's because I am a travel geek, but I am just so stoked and pleased on getting this news. I don't even have to use carry-ons (well maybe one just in case my stuff gets delayed or lost) and everything is going to be taken care of for me. And I'll get to Salvador early enough in the day to actually go to the beach! It's also pretty sweet because this is a ticket that I got for $70 and 40,000 frequent flier miles.
My visa just came in the mail from the Brazilian embassy and even though I've had a moment or two of doubt because of some personal situations, I'm so excited! Just planning this and learning about the country has been great. Plus I met this gal from Brasilia who's getting her PhD and she's been so incredibly nice and helpful. Like "Let me e-mail different people I know in the places you're visiting to see if they'd be interested in showing you around or being your guide." Which just blows me away, because I can't imagine the average American doing that to help out somebody they just met. Actually what's sad is that if I were living in another country and somebody asked me for info about the NPS or whatever, I'd have no clue. From what I've been told, Brazilians are just an incredibly friendly and helpful culture, so this is par for the course. But still incredibly nice - I'm going to have to do something to thank her for this.
Not in October, but in April 2007. The timing of making arrangements was just stressing me out because of work and if I do get on the grant to go to Ethiopia (not likely) in November. It's surreal because I managed to find a ticket for $71 (which would normally retail for $1200) using my frequent flier miles, an outfitter that caters to single/backpacker travellers, and have enough vacation days. I'm sure when I actually tell my family that I am going there by myself for 3 weeks, I will get grief. But who cares? I've wanted to go to Brazil for over 10 years and I can finally go! Rio really doesn't appeal to me, but I'm stoked on getting to see Salvador, Igassu Falls (including the Argentinian side, hello extra passport stamp!), the Pantanal, Parity, and Sao Paolo.
In other travel news, I am finally cleaning out and organizing a huge box full of photos and letters. It's been really nice looking at everything. My photography skills are mediocre at best, but it's nice to be reminded of all the different places I've been so far in the Caribbean/Latin America:
- Guadeloupe
- Dominica
- St Lucia
- St Kitts
- Grenada
- Venezuela
- Costa Rica
- Panama
- Nicaragua
- Cuba
- Puerto Rico
- Mexico - the Yucatan, Chiapas, Oaxaca, & Monterrey
...and very soon Brazil! There's also some nice photos in there that I'd forgotten from Colorado (Durango), Texas (Austin & Houston) and around here (American River Canyon, the Carson Valley, and the annual Thanksgiving Day bike ride in Sacramento).
1) I just discovered at random that American Airlines has released a huge block of seats to Latin America for its frequent flier mile members. I could either get a ticket to Mexico City for $60 or to Rio for $75!!!! If I bought the ticket to Rio, I'd have to spend some extra money on getting a Brazilian visa, but still!!! I'm a little overwhelmed at the thought of dealing with Portuguese instead of Spanish. But I think this is the opportunity I've been waiting for. Plus I'd have enough miles left over to pay for another ticket somewhere in the US or Mexico.
2) It's not guaranteed, but I was asked to submit my CV to a group that's writing a response to a National Library of Medicine RFP for library training in Ethiopia. They're giving priority to people who've been in the Peace Corps in Africa, but other than that I have all the qualifications. If it went through, they'd pay for everything and when I told my boss about it, he said he might even be able to work it out so that it would be counted as administrative leave (i.e. work related professional service) rather than vacation. I'm trying to think about this as being simply an honor that my CV was included in the response, rather than OMG I COULD GO TO ETHIOPIA FOR THREE WEEKS IN NOVEMBER!!! Maybe looking into plane tickets to Brazil is meant to distract me from getting obsessed about whether or not this happens.
3) I'm going to DC in 3 days and still haven't really bothered thinking about what I'd like to do there. I get the impression that it's not really possible to drop in on the Peace Corps or Foreign Service headquarters. One of the tours for the conference goes to the IMF and World Bank - could these be any more boring than the UN tour I went on back in May?
