Brasil 2004: Arrival from Portland
The view out my window facing the vast escarpment between São and Cubatão. It is about 3000 feet in elevation between the two cities.
x(address not posted on web site)
You will need to put the Brasil part of that in large letters, otherwise the USA post office machines assume that the zip code is a US zip code and send the letters somewhere in Iowa.
From the USA, the phone number is:
011-55-13-xxxx-xxxx (phone number not posted on web site)
The 011 is what you need to dial in the USA to get an international line. The 55 is the Brazilian international country code, the 13 is the city code for São Paulo and surrounding areas. Recently Brazil has standardized on 8 digits for all telephone numbers, though apparently in some cities the US-style 7 digit phone numbers remain usable.
Left for the airport at 9 Portland time. They say to leave 3 hours for airport stuff when making an international trip. I was through security and all that in 20 minutes. They seemed to have a fascination for belts this time. Even women whose belts were little more than shoe strings holding their dresses tight were asked to take them off. Only a few were taking their shoes off. I put my belt though, went through X-ray with shoes on, and had no problems. I counted myself lucky as I watched TSA completely take apart some poor lady's wheelchair.
Arrived in Newark, NJ at about 6 pm Portland time. Timetable listed about 1 hour to make the transfer. I check the depature gate on the boarding pass they gave me for this next flight. Gate C-130? 130 gates just on concourse C? It's going to take me a day just to find this place. We arrive at gate C-84 or something like that. Despite the size of the airport, it only takes me 10 minutes to find the gate.
The television at the gate is turned to CNN. Some talk show. They are having some psychic diagnose people over the phone. This is news worthy of CNN? I thought I was heading *to* a country filled with a bunch of goofy spiritism and black magic practices. The TV is turned up too high for me to be able to hear what the announcements for the gate are saying. They have a bunch of benches in the main hallway, so I wait there. Unfortunately that area is dominated by a bunch of announcements for flights leaving from gates that seem to be in some other building, and also make it impossible to hear gate announcemtnst for the flight 20 feet away. I can tell this is a flight going to Brazil due to the crowded clumping of people around the entrance to the flight.
Left airport there about 8 Portland time. Within about 45 minutes, I was watching the lights of Atlantic City disappear behind us. Brasil is far south, but also pretty far east of the US Atlantic coast, such that they fly SE over the Atlantic Ocean for some distance. I do sleep through some of this part of the flight. However, about 1 in the morning Saturday, Portland time, everyone on the plane wakes up when the thing drops suddenly by about three feet. There always seems to be a bunch of turbulance in the air around the northern edge of South America, and this flight turns out to be no different. After a few minutes we make landfall for the first time since New Jersey. I saw the lights of the right side of the plane. Nearest city on the map is on the left side of the plane, and that is Georgetown. So, this was some small community near Georgetown. At this point I was too tired to be able to read, could not get comfortable enought to sleep, and couldn't keep my mind focused enough to be abçle to even follow the plots of the low grade movies available on the video system. I attempted praying for you all but I was in such a mental state at that point I~m not sure what I prayed even made much sense to me. We can trust that God understands even these things. Since we were over Georgetown I immediately thought of those of you working away in former British colonies (Gary and Sheila in Uganda, that is particulary for you two).
According to the altimeter, we are at 34,000 feet above the earth. I awake at about 3 am Portland time (7 am in São Paulo) with the sun coming in the east side of the plane, smelling something hot. At 34,000 feet this isn't such a pleasant thought. It turns out to be a bunch of breakfast rolls that were heated up and eventually filled the plane with the smell of baked bread. The wakeup call aside, the breakfast is good to wake up to, even at 3 am in my time zone. Unfortunately, I am on an American airline company and I can~t request a nice cup of guaranà (Brazilian soft drink that is made from a very high caffeene fruit from the Amazon basin) to wake up more. I pass on the coffee.
Even coming out of New York, São Paulo is an amazing city to fly into during the day. All international flights from the USA that I have taken in the past arrived so early in the morning that it is still dark out, but not this flight. It is about 9 in the morning São Paulo standard time (5 in the morning Portland daylight time), as I look out over the city. They estimate that the city of São Paulo itself has about 22 million people in it. Add a few of the larger suburban cities around it and the metro area has more people that the entire state of California. Even compared to New York, there are high rise buildings further than the eye can see, to an impressive distance, when the plane turns for its final approach.
Despite the size of the city, São Paulo is separated from the cities to the southeast by a wilderness that includes a 3,000 foot drop from the highlands to the sea. During clear weather, this spectacular drop is perhpas one of the most astonishing interstate highways in the Americas. I can't say freeway because in Brasil the highways that are built to freeway standards are toll roads. At US freeway speeds it takes us about 20 minutes to travel the 1/4 of a mile horizontally, and 3,000 feet virtically, between the highlands and the city of Cubatão.
I arrive at the missions house here at about 7:45 am Portland time, or about 11:45 am São Paulo time, after nearly 23 hours of being in transit. All in all a relatively uneventful journey, what for being strapped into an aluminum can and blasted halfway across the planet and all.
Here, I set my watch for local time. For Portland right now, it is a 4 hour time difference. This changes to 5 hours when Brasil starts Brasilian daylight savings time, and becomes 6 hours during the USA winter when the USA switches to standard time. From here on out, all times I give you in messages will be in local time.
I'm hearing large explosions in the streets and lots of people yelling, so I guess brasil must be doing really well in the South American Cup tournaments. This is the preparation tournaments for the World Cup Futebol championship in 2006. In 1998 a missions team I was on went through the Guarulus airport during a wold cup game, and all the TV monitors had been turned to the game. The enitre airport had come to a complete stop for the game, and every time Brasil scored a goal they set off fireworks in the lobby of the airport - the traditional method of celebrating Brasilian futebol progress, I guess.
I've already met a number of wonderful people in the church here. I wish I could take the time to say more about what is going on here, but that will have to wait for another time. There are, after all, three other missionaries that live here, and besides also it is almost midnight and I need to get some sleep in an actual bed for a change.
I pray that God will give you a special blessing this day as he continues to hold you in his hands,
- Glenn