Mother's Arrival

About one week later...
Many things have happened in the past week so I wasn’t able to/too lazy to finish my last entry. Things like my mother arriving, my computer breaking, getting a new computer, and dealing with a little cold...
But, first things first, the conclusion to the Rio trip. As I was saying, I grabbed a double shot and headed towards the consulate. I decided to walk because I still had about two hours before I needed to be there. After about an hour of walking, I started getting a bit tired. So I sat down, next to the peri, and started thinking to myself: wow, this now makes 24 hrs without sleep. Alright, after the consulate, find a place to sleep. And that’s what I did. The consulate wasn’t to eventful; I walked in, they gave me my new passport, I walked back out. I grabbed a bus and went to the bus station. I bought my ticket back to São João and found a quite place to catch a few Z’s. It was about 3:00 and at that time, I thought that my bus left at 7:00 so I slept in one of the most uncomfortable chairs ever created for about two and a half hours. After taking my little power nap, I went outside for a smoke. While doing so I double checked my ticket information. Turns out I was being a bit dyslexic or something because the actually left at 9 that night. “Ugg, two more hours of waiting...” So I can’t get back to sleep but I’m to tired to read or write anything. So now I have three hours to do nothing.. I sat there for probably about 15 minuets trying to figure out what to do until I just said fuck it, I’ll hit up Starbucks again! Hop on a bus(45min), get an expresso(10min), go outside to drink it and enjoy the night life of Rio(30min), get on a bus back to the station(45 min), and arrive having seen the city at night with an extra adventure to tell in about two hours. Shortly thereafter, I feel asleep on the bus and woke up in SJDR with a nasty little cold.

...The following week after that was a bit hectic. I had about three days to get over my cold because my mom was coming. I sat at home and drank ridiculous amounts of tea because as soon as my mother arrived, I knew I wouldn’t have any more time to rest. Unfortunately, that’s not quite what happened. The day I was supposed to pick up my mom, I slept in in way past my alarm; I missed the first two busses to Belo Horizonte. Finally after getting on one, there was a lot of traffic in Belo so the bus made me even later. So I’m at the bus station, my mom probably already waiting for me, and I still need to get to the airport. So I say screw, I’ll take a cab, it’ll be faster. Turns out that the airport is on the outskirts of the completely other side of town. So I gave the cab driver my arm and a leg and started franticly searching for my mother. After my first tour of the airport with no luck, I decide I should do this a bit more systematically. Good thing the airport wasn’t big or my one hour of searching could of turned to hell. After still no luck, I go to information to call her on the intercom. I wait, 5min, 10min, 20min... I think to myself: no way did she try to get to São João by herself, she’s either way late or stuck in São Paulo. Thinking that this was going to be a quick grab and go, I didn’t bring any of my things so I ended up paying R$5 to use the internet at an airport computer. Turns out that I received a message stating that she would be about five hours late. Well that was two hours ago so I had three more to go. I find another uncomfortable chair in a quite place in the airport and fall asleep. At about 6p.m., five hours after she left that message, I go back to the computer. Strange though, a two hour nap made me feel a world better in terms of my cold. Nothing new from my mom so I grab her flight number to see what I can find out about it. At information, they tell me that it had been cancelled and all the passengers were rescheduled for a different flight. When the flight came, no mother to be seen. I walked around looking, double checked the new flight number, nothing... I decided that I would wait until 9 and then just go home, what else could I do? But a good hour after her re-scheduled flight, she arrived.