the past few days have just been travel

I guess day 1, Thursday, was really spent in transit.
Wake: 3am. Leave house: 4am. Leave Nashville airport: 6am. Leave Miami airport: 12pm. Arrive Sao Paulo airspace: 7pm.
Land (on one of the shortest airstrips, outside of aircraft carries), go through passport control and flash our fancy Brazilian visas, retrieve our bags, and wave down the airport Marriot shuttle and leave Sao Paulo airport: 8pm.
All in all, it was the easiest trip I think I’ve ever taken abroad. All of my tickets turned out to be legitimate and in the computers, I entered the country legally and with a proper visa. Nothing broke down, nothing ran late. The only time I ran to catch anything was the shuttle from the airport, and that was only a light jog, not a full out sprint. I did not have to haggle in a foreign language to get a lost bag. We did not get swarmed with offers for taxis, nor were 100 people jammed into the 25 seater shuttle.
It was…almost unbelievably smooth. My mom wins the award for planning the smoothest international travel experience ever known. My dad wins for best enjoyment of inflight entertainment (o brother where art thou)…and providing the means for the trip! And my brother, as usual, wins my favorite brother award, for being who he is.

So, TODAY, kind of a more legit day one, though still in transit, we made our way from Sao Paulo to Florianopolis, where my sister has been living.
First, we had a lovely breakfast at the hotel. I have to mention it because I learned one of my favorite things. I love when, and I’ve only seen this in foreign countries or when I order café au lait at a coffee shop in the town where I went to college, they bring you super strong black coffee and hot milk. I don’t know why exactly, but hot or steamed milk makes all the difference to me.
Then, back to the airport, back on a plane.
A- met us at the airport. Such a cutie. She wins my favorite sister award, hands down.
We loaded up our spiffy VW mini wagon Hertz rental (Brazil is so legit…at the airport in Sao Paulo the food is even put on board by Sky Chefs. AND when we first got off the plane, the first thing I saw was an ad for Amarula, a fruit cream liquor I first tried in Tanzania…ah, globalization).
It was getting dark even though it was only 6pm because its winter here, and we’re pretty darn far south (see map), so we headed for where my sis lives. We had dinner with the woman A rents her room from in a beautiful beautiful house. The woman had made dinner for us. She only really speaks Portuguese though, so my sister did a ROCKING job of translating all night for us, even though she was tired. Then I’m afraid we took our leave pretty early, as 2 days and too many hours of travel has us all pretty tired.

Today, Saturday, is day 3, but kind of our first real day.
Will post pics as soon as I get my camera back from my sister!