I love to travel. Words cannot express the exhilaration I get from hopping in my car or on a plane to go traveling.
This week I went to my favorite country other than the U.S. ---> ARGENTINA!
I love this country. I have friends here. I love the food. I love the men. I love it when Argentines use the "voseo" in Spanish. It makes my underwear melt when those men tell me, "Vos sos muy linda". (You are very pretty.) I may be speaking from a tourist's point of view, but I feel right at home in Argentina. I left my son with his dad for a month, grabbed my luggage and exchange student with me and I never looked back.
Actually, part of the last line is such a lie. I did look back. A lot.
My flight leaves Miami on a Monday night at 10pm and will arrive in Rio the next day and then go to São Paulo then to Buenos Aires. I've packed several times over prior to my flight just to make sure that everything was okay and packed well.
Just to make sure that my suitcases are all good to go weight wise, I called the airline to check the weight limitations on Sunday night at 9pm.
I call TAM, Brasilian Airlines. A woman answers the phone, we speak for a few minutes and she tells me the information I want to hear. I can take two suitcases up to 70 lbs. a piece for free. Sweet! She then proceeds to ask me, "Do you have a Brasilian visa?"
I knew I needed a visa in order to wander around Brasil. Since I was just going to be puddle jumping airports, and not actually entering the country, I said, "No".
The lady then proceeds to tell me that my flights between Rio and São Paulo are considered "domestic." I would therefore need a visa to travel within Brasil, even though I was technically not leaving the plane nor airport. She then tells me I should go to the Brasilian Consulate "tomorrow morning".
I'm thinking to myself...this lady must be nuts. Does she not know where Jacksonville is located? Most people don't. FYI - Jacksonville is located in Northeast Florida, near Southern Georgia.
It's 10pm on a SUNDAY. To get to the Consulate at 9 am the following morning, means I would have to leave my house in Jacksonville at 3 am. I still have to repack all that crap that I'm bringing to Argentina. I have to go to bed. I have to eat. I have to do a lot of things. I'm turning into a dragon... rawr.
Also, my escort to the MIA, who also happens to be my BFF, had announced earlier in the day that she had invited a friend to come along with us. Not that I mind extra people coming with us. I love to socialize and I like to meet new people. It's just a little inconvenient to find out that an additional person plus the four pieces of large luggage is coming with us. There would be no room...anyways - more on that later on.
I ask the TAM ticket agent if I can change my flight right then and there. She said, "You have to call the travel agent you originally booked the flight with". The travel agent is an online company that's in Maryland. Not to mention, I think they were closed at that time of night.
I called the travel agent anyways to see if they could change my flight.
Thank God they were open at 11 pm at night! I did manage to spend most of the night, until 2 a.m. on the phone with them and also going back and forth with the airline to get this issue resolved.
$700 later...the issue was resolved. My original ticket was priced at a steal for $650! In order to change my flights to only have ONE layover in Brasil, I ended up spending the original cost of my ticket plus $50. I was not happy.
After repacking and finally nibbling on something, I went to bed around 4 a.m.. I awoke three hours later, groggy, with a massive headache. I got my suitcases ready. I started to do some work for my job.
I get a phone call from my friend who was taking us to the airport.
"So, change of plans!"
Oh dear, I thought.
"My friend invited another friend along."
Crap!
It turns out that BFF's friend had a friend who had been involved in a domestic dispute with her boyfriend the night before. The friend had gotten beaten up, so her friend, like most sane women, took her friend to file a police report the next morning. Friend #1 and Beat Up Friend were going to come with us to Miami so that Best Friend could have some friends for the drive back.
"Okay, so where the hell are we going to put this 5th person?" I asked.
I wondered the logistics of it all. I shouldn't complain as I am not the one driving my car six hours away. I realize that. My friend can invite anyone that she wants to come along. It's her car. But if there were already 5 people going and four 50 lb. suitcases going along, where the hell were we going to fit everyone and also put the luggage?
"She's tiny, so she can fit between you and Jackie."
"Ok...? What about the luggage?" I asked.
She suggested that we strap the suitcases on the roof. As she told me that, an image conjured up in my head and I saw natural elements ruining our suitcases. I also saw in my mind's eye that the suitcases flew off the roof of Best Friend's car and hit someone's windshield behind us. Flashback times!
Ok...
"What time are we leaving?" I asked. I am a person that likes to be beyond punctual for international flights. Especially when they are in another city five hours away.
One o'clock, she said.
Our flight was leaving at 6 pm...
You do the math.
I eventually told Best Friend why I was annoyed at the change in plans and how I felt that her friend and Beat Up Friend could not come.
"Hell no! Best Friend, I'm sorry about your friend's friend. I truly would not nor do not wish domestic violence on anyone. But your friends can go some other time. I have a plane to catch and I also had to pay out the ass for a new change to my flight."
I realize now looking back on it all, I was a little hangry. You know, hungry+angry? Equals hangry.
Why would I want to jeopardize my flight time by leaving my home town at 1 p.m. when it will take me five hours to get to the other airport? Check-in, especially at such a busy airport like Miami International takes at least 30 minutes, if not more. Going through security...you might as well sign up to donate your left kidney and wait for the hospital to bring you another one to you twenty years later in a beer cooler.
For me, it was the most illogical thing ever.
My Other Best Friend happened to call right afterwards. I began to vent.
"I will pay for you to rent a car because as you and I both know, Best Friend has some pretty wild ideas." said MOBF, taking pity on me and the situation.
It came to pass that Best Friend's friend was called into work after taking Beat Up Friend to the police station later on that morning. Thus Friend #1 and Beat Up Friend could not journey with us.
We eventually left at the time that I wanted to, which was 11 o'clock and were on our way. On our way to the airport, we ended up in a rainstorm that took us an hour to drive through. Traffic slowed down to about 30 m.p.h. on I-95. We were still able to make our flight on time, though the ticket lady also asked me in Portuguese if I had a Brasilian visa...ugh...enough with the visas.
We arrive in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil the next day in the morning at around 7 a.m.. As I mentioned before, we weren't able to leave the airport. The closest I will get to the Cristo Redentor and we were conveniently trapped in the stupid airport overlooking the Pão de Azucar mountain and the bay. I was crushed. The closest I actually got to touching Brasilian soil was walking from my plane onto the tarmac and onto an airport bus. If my student hadn't been with me, I may have taken off running on the tarmac.
Within this holding area was a Brasilian bookstore, two gift shops, restrooms, and a pretty expensive jewelry shop.
Jackie and I had our backpacks with us. Mine had my laptop and other peripherals, and I certainly didn't want to leave them sitting around in a chair for someone to grab. Latinos, no matter if you're Spanish, Portuguese, Italian or French, have a tendency to be kleptomanaics for wayward belongings.
Downstairs, there was a small cafe that sold some pretty delicious croquetas of ham, chicken and cheese and sandwiches and desserts.
I speak a little Portuguese, so I was really excited to be practicing my skills with NATIVE Brasilians!
"Perdón, voces tem...." (Excuse me, do you all have...?) and then my brain shut down.
Because my Portuguese is pretty rusty, I could not remember how to say "chicken". I asked first, if the lady spoke Spanish. "Voce fala espanhol?"
"Não." No...
Crap...hmmm... I then asked if she spoke English. "Voce fala inglês?" Nope on that one too.
"Cómo se dice "pollo"? " She gave me a blank stare.
"Cómo se dice "chicken" em portugues?" I was mixing my Spanish and English with my Portuguese. At least I was trying!
Another blank stare.
I then began to do something that I find silly to admit, but what have you...I began to imitate chicken noises. "Bok, bok bok!"
My student began to roll on the floor with laughter and so did the lady behind the counter.
"O, voce quere FRANGO!!!"
Sim! Isso e o qué eu preciso. A minha estudiante não pode comer o "jamón". - Is what I told her. (Yes, that's what I want!) and I couldn't remember how to say "ham" in Portuguese.
I paid for a few chicken croquettes and a few ham and beef ones as well. Since Jackie follows Kosher, I ate the ham ones.
We ate, went back upstairs and then waited for our flight to leave at 1 p.m. in our holding tank.
I browsed around the gift shop and was pleased to see that they had 12" tall Cristos Redentores (Christ the Redeemer) statues in three shades of green, yellow and blue. At least if I can't see Cristo Redentor in person and up close and personal, I can buy one! Since my student is Jewish, I asked, "why don't we get one of these for your parents?" since her parents have a sense of humor. She laughed and said no.
At 1 p.m., we hop on our flight to Buenos Aires and arrive around 6 p.m.. It's cold. It's windy. It's rainy. I'm not having fun with the weather.
We get a taxi to take us the Estación del Omnibus in Retiro. It's a $50 cab ride there. It took us about an hour to arrive. At least, Jackie was able to see what kind of Speed-demons the Argentines really are.
Jackie was so excited when we arrived at the bus station, she began to chatter away like a little parrot. I had warned her ahead of time to keep her voice down in the bus station, but she must have forgotten.
Needless to say, her chatter alerted people around us that we were
- A) Foreigners and
- B) English-Speakers and by the way were dressed,
- C) Americans.
According to most of Latin Americans, Yankee's have lots of money. That meant we were sitting targets.
I am a woman of Faith, so I kept praying the entire time that we were there that we would not get accosted. While no one robbed us, we were interrogated by the local police after they realized that were were not Argentines.
Jackie was wearing a bright red sweatshirt, jeans and had two huge suitcases. I was wearing a big red coat and carrying two suitcases. One suitcase had a palm tree scene and the other had a scene of Paris. Argentines do not really wear or do most things that call attention to themselves when they are out in public. I am quite the exception. I want to make sure no one is going to steal my stuff at the airport nor at the bus station.
The police men saunter by and seeing that I am the older of the two, ask me in English, "Ladies, do you speak English?"
I roll my eyes, and respond in Spanish. "Si, hablo inglés. ¿Qué necesitan Ustedes, señores?" (Yes, I speak English. What do you need, sirs?)
"Can we see your passports and bus tickets, please?"
We fork over the passports. I cock my eyebrow at them. They look at me and smile.
I then ask "¿Para qué necesitan ver nuestros pasaportes y boletos?" (Why do you need to see our passports and tickets?)
I was trying to fly under the radar and not get noticed. These guys were jamming my vibes.
I think once they saw I really did speak Spanish and that I was annoyed, they left us alone. They thanked me in Spanish and wished us a good trip.
Finally, at 12 midnight, our bus came to get us. We were finally able to sit down in the lap of what I call Argentine luxury.
Buses in Argentina are amazing, especially the overnight ones. They are double decker buses that have seats that can fully recline. You get a pillow and blanket, a packet of food, you can watch a movie pirated from the US with Russian subtitles and dubbed in Spanish all night! You can draw a curtain between you and the person sleeping next to you for "privacy".
It's amazing!
The bus ride was a total of 8 hours and we arrived at around 8 a.m.. I awoke on the bus. We got off the bus, got our luggage and bid Jackie farewell at the bus station and she went off to her host family for two weeks.
And that, my friends, was the 43 hour trip I took just to go see some friends on the other side of the world.
I would do again in a heartbeat.
(This trip took place in July 2012)
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