September 1,

Happiest Birthday Sister!!!

Jeff woke me at six, as it seems our flight might have been cancelled! So we readied and left our place by 0635. We arrived at the airport by 0640. Jeff dropped me off – to find out anything – as he went to return the car. The boards only listed through 0830 departures, so I had to walk quite a ways to the Azul counters at Check-in #1. It took me a bit as I went slow. The counter was packed and the only Azul personnel were behind the counters with long lines of people checking in!! I finally found someone who assured me the flight was not cancelled. I passed this on to Jeff, who meanwhile, was having his own issues trying to even find the car rental return area! He finally went to another car return to find out our car return area was four kms from the airport! When Jeff arrived back, we tried to label our baggage but the machine did not acknowledge our flight. So we got in line. At our turn the agent processed us and took our checked bags. Our flight had been cancelled and she booked us on a later flight to Sao Paulo with an even later connection to our final destination of Florianopolis. We were given breakfast of two boxes of snack stuff, and a voucher for lunch, as a consolation. Long story, short…we won’t be arriving at 1430, as planned. So now we had lots of time before our first flight of 1300! It was around 0800. Honestly, I don’t even remember at this point. We went through security and my boarding pass had come out of the tray on the floor under the x-ray machine. Wowza!!! What a morning!

We went into a lounge. This all worked well, thankfully. We had breakfast, which was bacon; tiny “chicken pizza” flats; little ham quiches; chicken skewers; sliced cheeses & meats; a fruit selection and dessert selection. It was a nice spread – good lounge to pass some time… lots of time. I saw an Azul plane come in that was pink with big white daisies. It was a Daisy Duck plane!! It had a Daisy Duck figure painted on its tail…even the nose of the plane was painted yellow-orange to symbolize a beak! The words “Walt Disney World” were blazened on the side. What fun!! I immediately thought of a special person who is enamored with everything Disney and sent her a picture of the plane. She loved it! We passed most of the time in the lounge – people came and went…we stayed, as there wasn’t a time limit. Another blessing as some lounges have a 3-hour time cap. The staff changed over the food from breakfast to lunch. We liked the selection so we stayed instead of going to the restaurant for the free voucher we were given. We had little meatloaf balls stuffed with mozzarella; sauteed potatoes with onion and ham bits; meat stuffed cheese bread; salad with mango and sweet semi-dried tomatoes; relishes of olives or pickles; and desserts- one was a fudge/mousse ball covered with chocolate bits. More people came and went.

We were ready to leave the lounge around 1220 when the board suddenly showed “last call”! What?!?! It just showed “proceed to gate”! I never saw boarding. Anyway, Jeff rushed to the gate. I hobbled behind. We made it fine and weren’t the last by far…mumble, grumble, mumble. We sat and I prayed to reset my brain. The plane backed up at 1255 with take off at 1307. We were given snacks: cassava chips and those airplane gummies – that alone should make anyone smile. Our plane touched down at 1402, and we were at the gate by 1407. Now we exited and went slowly to one of the three lounges in Sao Paulo we hadn’t frequented… yet, for a 3-hr layover. I caught up with this blog and Jeff read as we each had another glass of wine. We had snacks at the lounge, not too hungry, and left at 1720 when the board showed boarding. Along our way, it changed to boarding immediately. Really??? So Jeff hurried on to the gate, and I hobbled to catch up. I arrived in time, no problem. They had just turned around the #1 group sign (this was another “perk” we were given for the cancellation). We boarded and the plane backed up at 1805 with take-off at 1826. A beautiful sunset evolved, but I wasn’t by the window! The guy at the window obliged me to get some pics though. Our snacks were sweet popcorn and a kind of chocolate biscuit (no plane gummies). I tried the “Guarana Antarctica” soda drink. I liked it…way better than the cashew drink I had tried previously. The young man next to me spoke some English. He wrote out the drink name on my Google translate, and said it was made from a Brazilian fruit. We touched down at 1928, rocking and rolling!😟😯  But the pilots did it, one-wheel-at-a-time landing, so it was fine!😰 That was worrisome to say in the least! At 1932 at the gate, at 1940 we exited, at 1950 we had our bags, at 2000 in shuttle to get our car, and 2055 we were in our car driving to our place. At 2150 we were in our place and in bed by 2230. What a crazy day!!! Life and times of Jeff and Paula!