I'm here! All of my connections ended up being extremely rushed, mostly because Toronto was pretty backed up, but I made them all okay. I met up with a few people on my program in Sao Paulo, and Oelito picked us all up from the airport in Fortaleza. I cannot describe to you the joy I felt when I realized who Oelito was - he is this tiny, constantly smiling Brazilian man, and his wife is the homestay coordinator for the program. He apparently was using his daughter's phone, and the ringtone was a Ke$ha song, obviously. We're still missing one girl, who Oelito thinks missed her connection in Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro, so they're trying to figure that out, but Oelito took the rest of us back to this strange convent-ish building across the street from our program center, where we ate dinner and then all walked over to the center with Bill the long-winded but very heartfelt and ideologically awesome program director to use the internet.
Friday and Saturday we'll be here, having orientation, Sunday we go to our homestay families, and next week we start classes!
Some quick first impressions - to begin with, it's incredibly humid and hot here. I thought I understood. I didn't. I am now fully prepared to be sweating every minute of every day that I'm here. Seriously, the sun went down two and a half hours ago, and it's still sweltering.
I'm not sure what the story is on driving here, but I'm sure glad I don't have to do it. I can't seem to tell whether what we've been driving on are highways or just massive streets, and it just all seems to be this massive game of chicken.
I have to go now, but I'll update when I can! Take care, everyone at home and abroad!
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