Brasil

Well that’s confusing.

Yeah, I’m in Paraguay. Brazil was just the most eventful stop on my journey. Starting with the fact that…I don’t speak Portuguese. I flew Continental all the way to Sao Paulo (ten hour flight…popped a benadryl and passed out, no problem.), but then switched to TAM, a South American airline. So I had to get my boarding pass for the last two flights in Sao Paulo and the lady behind the desk kept telling me (in some combination of Portuguese/Spanish/English that I somehow managed to make sense of) that she saw that I had a reservation but she couldn’t get a boarding pass for me without a confirmation number that I didn’t have, and later learned wouldn’t be able to get, because of where I bought my ticket. Which is a problem. So finally I told her (in my probably grammatically incorrect Spanish) that I was going to be on the plane and she needed to figure out a way to make that happen. I told her more politely than that. So she stood around for a few minutes, asked a few people what to do, stood around for a few more minutes, and then printed me a boarding pass. Awesome. Not sure why it was so complicated, but hey, I got my boarding pass so I don’t much care!

So after my Brazilian adventure, imagine my relief upon arriving in Asunción and hearing SPANISH! Now, I was expecting to be more confused than anything else at my sudden immersion into Spanish, but after a lot of hours of Portuguese, it was nothing less than wonderful.

And then there were a few minutes of fear after I got my bag and couldn’t find anyone who looked like they might want to take me home with them…well, I guess I probably could have found someone, but not a someone I was looking for too! But then the guy I’ve been emailing back and forth with walked in and took me where I belonged. Though not a familiar face, of course, it was at least a familiar person, of sorts. So that was nice.

And now I’m home! My home for the next two weeks, anyway. Then we’re moving. To a new house. A better house, apparently. But in the meantime, I got a tour of this house (in really really fast Spanish) from one of my new co-workers, after stumbling through a greeting with her. Apparently in Paraguay, when greeting another woman, you “kiss” both cheeks. Now I know. I won’t be so awkward next time, I swear!

And this internet rumor was true. I do in fact, have internet. Though this internet is slow and knows where I am and has transformed everything into Spanish. Full immersion, lets go! I’ll try to post again soon with how the first day goes, maybe pictures of the house, we’ll see! Now the adventure begins…