The Trip

I had half a mind to turn around pre-boarding. "What do ya know, I've been put on the international travel blacklist," I could say. Or maybe "my plane had snakes. Supposedly that happens sometimes." I'm glad it didn't, I dislike snakes. Propelled along by months of inertia and talk, I boarded and took my seat. In my notebook under the heading 'BRAZIL' written boldly, intending to mark a departure from all previous notes and ideas, I wrote my first thought upon boarding. It wasn't 'oh boy here is the first day of the rest of my life' or anything soppy like that but rather 'hey, the plane's entertainment system runs on Linux. That's neat.'

Arriving in Houston I was treated to a final dose of Americana. Might as well, I was going to be away for a while. What struck me was that terminals were named after football players and the floors were cleaned with tennis balls stuck on the end of broomsticks [UPDATE: ditto in the Leblon Mall]. Everyone who passed through the airport was, of course, subject to various screenings, searches and intimidating announcements. But perhaps the most effective security apparatus was a bronze statue of H.W. Bush, the airport's namesake, striding confidently into the wind with book in hand and a jacket slung over his shoulder, looking down on us with a stern gaze saying, "don'chu fuck with my airport, terrorist." Under his eyes I felt guilty of something and fidgeted around uncomfortably. Maybe they put those microwave emitters recalled from Afghanistan in there, I dunno. 

A fitful night's sleep filled with reruns of 'The A-Team' and 'Salt,' both of which had errors so egregious I had to fight to not comment to my neighbor about them, was interrupted by arrival in Rio. Leaving the security of the American plane I was immediately awash in a turbulent sea of incomprehensibility. I put my default phrase, "Eu nao entendo Portuguese," on defcon 1 to launch out of my mouth in case anyone tried communication. My defenses were not tested, and I made it through immigration without any problems, putting to rest months of arguing over whether I should have gotten a visa. From there on out, I was winging it. No legal status, no job, no language, and a suitcase filled with wishful thinking (read: free condoms from a thrift shop in Soho). But what I did have was waiting for me in the arrivals area of Rio's delightfully 70's poured-concrete airport.