sãos e salvos

After we landed and taxied for a short while, Brett and I were the first off of the plane. We got into the ‘foreigners’ queue and anxiously waited for our turn. I was freaking out at this point- were we going to be denied like the Delta woman said we would?

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A young girl (mid twenties) called us forward and we handed over our passports to be scrutinized. We couldn’t understand anything she was saying to her coworkers (though it just sounded like benign chatter). I tried to read her expressions while she looked over our visas and travel itinerary. Nothing bad so far. I watched her stamp my passport and move on to Brett’s. At one point she had to reboot her computer. She almost stamped Brett’s, but then grabbed my passport and looked at it again. I’m having a heart attack.

She moves on and stamps Brett’s passport and we’re through! We are in! Bags were already going around the loop at the baggage claim (we must’ve been the only flight arriving at 7 am). I hadn’t even had time to look for our bags when I noticed a large kennel being carried through the side door. I didn’t hear any dog noises coming out of it. Dread. We practically ran over (it was Desmond) and when he saw us through the bars he started crying and barking. So happy! Penny came in next and did the same thing when she saw us, except she can basically shake the whole crate. I stayed with them to keep them quiet while Brett snagged all of our bags from the belt. We had six bags and two extra large crates to carry through customs.

We had three more huge bags along with these.

We had the crates each on a cart with a bag on top of them to keep them stabilized. The dogs kept shifting their weight and tipping over. This happened probably three or four times. We must have looked like a bunch of crazy people. A man came up to us that spoke English and we asked him where we should go to get the dogs through customs, and he led us there and even pushed one of our three carts for us. Once there, I handed over the paperwork (my meticulous file folder came in handy) and it got thoroughly checked over. The only snag we ran into was that we didn’t know the dogs’ weight in kilograms. The customs guy sort of rolled his eyes after we couldn’t give him a number and said something in broken English like, “I can get it.. for people like you.” Alright, rude. Mental note to learn the metrics system and never forget it

Oh, we also had to dump out all of the dog food that we had brought (not much, just enough to transition them onto their new Brazilian food). But that was no big deal. I was happy to oblige the man as long as he signed the form and waved us through. I didn’t feel too bad because the man next to us had to dump out probably fifty dollars worth of dog bones/treats along with a bottle of Hidden Valley Ranch. Bummer. I bet he was really looking forward to that ranch dressing.

Finally, we were through customs and immigration. All that was left to do was to find the rental car service. We parked our carts and made a quick call to Claudio, the man who was renting us the apartment. He had offered to meet us at the airport and lead us to the apartment complex. He told us he would be about 15 minutes. Brett left to go get the rental car. In the meantime, I waited with the dogs. They were surprisingly calm. Claudio found me (the two huge crates were probably a good indicator) and we chatted while we waited for Brett to come back. He speaks very good English because he grew up in the United States. He even lived in Kansas City for two years!

Brett returned and we got the dogs loaded into the car, disassembled their crates, and put the luggage in the trunk. Luckily Claudio was there and offered to take some extra bags. We might have never fit everything otherwise! The drive to the apartment was about fifteen minutes. Traffic wasn’t terrible (it was still pretty early) and the drivers aren’t too crazy, but I wasn’t the one driving so I can’t really speak to that. We passed a zoo on our way as well- that could be an interesting weekend trip.

The apartment looks exactly like the pictures on airbnb.com, so we were very pleased. We are on the fourth floor with a nice little balcony and sitting area. I think I will be typing a lot of our posts from out there. We have two bedrooms and three (!) full bathrooms. We also have a little washing machine (no dryer, air dry only), a kitchen with a dishwasher and gas stove/oven, microwave, and refrigerator/freezer. We didn't, however, have internet access.

We will have another update chronicling our first outing to the Carrefour, a little bit more about the apartment complex, and how we are settling in. I am writing a lot of these entries before we have internet access, so updates should come pretty frequently as soon as we get the wifi installed.