"The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds." - John F. Kennedy

I'm baaaaack.

We left MoHo for Portland at at 9 a.m. Tuesday. That was earlier than necessary for my 2 p.m. flight but it reduced the lateness of Eclair's noon bottle a bit and I don't mind sitting in an airport. I'd done everything the dr. suggests to avoid the medical issue that seems to strike me at random and I had no problems on any of the three flights.
PDX to ORD went fine if modern air travel can be described with that term. I had a one-hour layover, basically just enough time to get to the international terminal, eat half a sandwich, and get on board my flight for Sao Paulo. Turns out they'd double-booked my seat in the very back of the plane. I volunteered to move up to first class but only got moved up a dozen rows. Oh well.
The flight from ORD to Sao Paulo is 10 hours long and in this case it went through the night. That's great IF you can sleep, which I couldn't. I watched TV on the screen on the seat back in front of me, read, and dozed a couple of times. Oh, and went to the bathroom a lot, one of the side effects of following the dr.'s orders.
The Sao Paulo airport confused me and I had some trouble getting from A to B to C to D but didn't set off any alarms, so I consider it successful. There was the airport employee wearing a shirt that said in both Portuguese and English, "Questions? Ask me" So I asked. Got a very broken, "Sorry, I don't speak English." Uhm....
I had just over a 3-hour layover in Sao Paulo before catching the three hour flight to Recife. I think I was the only person on that plane who didn't speak Portuguese, and unlike the ORD to Sao Paulo flight they didn't make announcements in both languages.
A: Do whatever people around you are doing.
The flight attendant asked me something that obviously had to do with drinks, or snacks, or both, or.... I shrugged, said "English", and she smiled. "I'll be back. Coke?"
She came back a few minutes later with a cold Coke and FOUR bags of snacks. And a sympathetic smile.
"Obrigado" with a grateful smile back.

I'll spare you the stories about getting through customs, the Brazilian customs agent who also thinks people who speak another language will somehow understand if you say it LOUDER, and the very compassionate airline employees at the international terminal at ORD who took pity on a clueless guy from the woods of Oregon.

I arrived in Recife a little after 4 p.m. Wednesday, or shortly after noon Oregon time. That's a little over 28 hours after leaving MoHo, getting almost no sleep, and trying to avoid any kind of faux pas or worse while traveling to a foreign country.

I'm now at Joe and Michelle's place in Recife. It's a very big city where millions live in high rise apartment buildings. J & M live on the 6th and 7th floors of one that is very nice. Here's the view off the balcony of the upstairs. On Baker Rd. we have 150' fir trees. Here they have 12 story cement buildings. It is big city living, no doubt about it.

This is the only pic I have so far but I'll take more. I didn't take my camera to the beach this morning because I went for a run and losing your cell phone to a thief who sees a gringo as an easy target is apparently pretty common. (And I'm pretty obviously a gringo, the color of those building on the right side of that pic.) After my 2 mile run I sat with J & M and her mom on the beach where we visited for about 90 minutes. They think it's COLD. Yeah, it's winter. Here that means temps might reach only 80 and the breeze blows constantly. Sometimes (like as I'm typing this) a squall moves through and it rains for 15 minutes. Horrible!

Brazilians eat a small b'fast, their big meal at mid-day, and a small supper. Do NOT drink the water from the faucet and don't swallow when you brush your teeth. The outlets are screwy and 220 volts. The windows, at least on a 6th and 7th floor apartment, have a 2" squares netting stretched tightly over them instead of screens. I thought to keep the pigeons out. Nope, to keep the toddlers in. And bats can get through the netting, so there's that.
International travel is interesting. I like interesting. The differences are just that; not better or worse, just different. And interesting.

J & M are great hosts. Tomorrow the teaching begins. Joe made a wise decision when he left today's schedule open. I've taken two naps and eaten a lot of food. (I didn't eat much at all in transit, but that's another story.)

We'll go over slides tonight and then start teaching sessions tomorrow. I should have more pics in the next post but I'm not sure when that will be. But I will return!