We made it!

We made it!  I am typing this post from our new apartment in Brasilia, and it is a great place (more on that later). 

This is a picture of most of our pile of luggage at the American Airlines desk in Redmond.  We also each had a carry on and the world’s bulkiest personal items, so it was a no messing around pile of stuff.  Hannah isn’t in this shot because she is off chatting with two of her friends Kendall and Penelope, who decided to come see her off at the airport.  Amazing!

The baggage embargo decided to rear it’s ugly head for one last final attack on our plans.   Despite all of our best efforts, EAB’s efforts, and honestly the efforts of the agent in Redmond, we could not crack the airline bureaucracy and were only able to bring eight of our eleven bags with us. It may seem like losing about 30% of your luggage would be catastrophic, but remember, we had only gotten the information on Monday morning that we might be able to bring more than eight bags anyways.  The three bags we had to leave behind were two inflatable stand up paddle boards and one bike box (small cry there from me).  Despite all of our concerns initially, and because eight bags is all we thought we were allowed until Monday; we actually fit all the stuff for our family of four in those eight bags.  400 pounds of stuff is nothing to laugh at.  And at least no extra bags means no baggage fees!

Now I’m sure there are things we will wish we had brought, but I think that would be the case no matter how many bags we were allowed.

The flights were mostly smooth.  Redmond to Phoenix was straightforward.  Our Phoenix flight was delayed forty minutes, and with an hour layover turned to 10 minutes in Miami to make our Brazil flight, we got to practice the fine art of two terminal airport sprinting.  And just to raise the stakes during our sprint, they were calling our names over the loudspeaker saying that they were erasing our reservations and closing the doors.  But despite American Airlines’ inflexibility in their baggage policy, they actually held the plane for us in Miami.  That was a very welcome minor miracle.

Passport control, customs, and the in country flight in Brazil were easy, and it was interesting to go through their security and see their priorities.   Totally relaxed about some things like leaving shoes on, full water bottles, and not a word about three ounce containers of liquids.  Their picture signs about prohibited items included work tools (agreed, saws and hammers probably shouldn’t be on planes), hand grenades and Wile E. Coyote style TNT bombs (fair enough), police cudgels and brass knuckles (maybe a leftover from World Cup hooligans?), and guns (which almost seemed like an afterthought).

And now it’s 9:30 local time and I’m the only one still awake.  It’s been a long couple of days, but we are here, relatively settled and excited for two family days just exploring Brasilia before work begins.