Tuesday 16 July 2013

A Joyous Reunion

Day 48 - 16 de Julho: São Paulo to Paulinia

Today was an early start - so early in fact that it's hard to remember even just at the end of the day. I guess I have the excuse now that Im really tired, so I hope to cover everything pretty fast. I woke up at 5am and decided to make my way to the bus stop 15 min before the bus was scheduled to arrive. The 10 min walk there was basically straight uphill with my 50lb pack weighing me down. I made it up in pretty good time though - i had that amazon training after all. It was a good thing I left so early - the bus was 10 min ahead of schedule. I got on, then took out my credit card since I didn't have enough cash. He said no to it, but I used my portuguese to ask if i could pay at the airport with it or somewhere else and he was able to work something out for me. At one of the stops, I was able to pay. Funny enough, the only downside to this bus is that it was going to get me to the airport a lot later than a taxi, but there wasn't any traffic on the roads so we actually made really great time. Probably saved $30 by doing that. I got to the airport to meet my world youth day group, but I ended up waiting for an hour and a half for them to get through customs and bags! There are a lot of people here for the event now. We finally reunited, and it was so great. I had my canada flag out to get their attention and everything. We grouped up and had to wait a good little while to figure out our transportation. Eventually, a bus for us showed up at the airport and we got on. It was a nice bus, and we slept a lot of the way to our next city, Paulinia. We arrived to a chorus of singing and waving. Everyone was so excited to see us. Immediately, we were broken off into our pairs and sent home with our host family. My partner here is Alex. We were given a warm welcome to their family. We had a typical brazilian lunch, quite like what I had been eating the past few days. Then, I had a shower and Alex slept off some of the jet lag. Many people showed up at the house over the next little while, and I was able to really use my portuguese. They were impressed, but I was just glad they understood me. Later on, we went to a welcome mass. I volunteered to carry the brazilian flag down while a local carried down the canadian flag. I put it in place and sat back down with the rest of the group. I was able to understand a lot of the mass. Afterwards, our whole group got up to introduce ourselves. We had a translator up there, so i didn't have to strain my tired brain for any more portuguese tonight. Afterwards, we were like movie stars. Everyone wanted photos with us. It was photo after photo after photo. Then finally, we left and finished the night off at a brazilian pizza place. It was good food. I talked with a group, explaining various things in canada before it was finally time to head back home and rest. I need it now - we start early tomorrow for a long day.

View from the house
Mass
All the pics
Our group
At pizza

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