Sunday, April 23, 2006

Few things in life make me want to cry: the death of a relative or close friend, City of Angels, the United States loss to Germany in the 2002 World Cup, and missing my international flight home this weekend.

I arrived at terminal 1 of the Rio de Janeiro International Airport at 6:30 pm, Friday evening. Thinking my flight left at 8:20, I wasn’t too upset when I realized I had to trek across the entire airport to get to the last section of terminal 2. As I meandered along I remembered I had R$45 I needed to spend; so, I stopped at a souvenir booth and bought some presents for my two new nieces, and other family members. It was about 7 o’clock when I arrived at the deserted United Airlines check-in counter – it was closed. Maybe I should have panicked then, but I was pretty confident my flight was at 8:20; I thought maybe I would take a Varig flight to São Paulo, and then switched to United, after all, Varig and United are related. I waited through Varig’s international check-in to be told that they did not have me in their system – now I started to panic. I then went to an internet booth and printed out my itinerary (they wanted to charge me R$3,50 for 5 minutes but I didn’t realize they didn’t accept credit cards and ended up only giving all my change, R$1,40). I looked at my itinerary, and half way down the page, in bold red, letters it read: 8:20 pm São Paulo to Chicago. My stomach dropped; my eyes went to the top of the page; in plain, black text it read: 6:30 pm Rio de Janeiro to São Paulo. I had missed my flight! Not only did I miss my flight, but United was closed until 10 the next morning, I had spent all my Brazilian money, and I was homeless.

It was about this time that I wanted to cry. Ha… I think it was the stress and self-anger and longing to be home. I didn’t actually cry, but it was just a frustrating situation.

Luckily, I still had a Brazilian phone card with which I called my friend Andeson in Rio. He wasn’t there. I then called my only other friend, Jocileia, who was excited and confused to hear from me. When I explained the situation, she was more than helpful. I took a taxi to her apartment in Jardim Botánico (Botanical Gardens) in Rio de Janeiro, and I ended up sleeping at her neighbor’s house since he was at home for the weekend. Right after I arrived at her apartment, we walked a few blocks to PUC – RIO, the university she attends. There I was able to quickly access internet and send an email to Dad.

So I learned some important lessons from the situation: print out the flight itinerary when it is first received; and check-in is the first priority when arriving at the airport.

Since there wasn’t another flight home until the same time on Saturday, Jocileia helped me make the most of my last, last day in Rio. We spent the morning trying to find a place to check email, but that didn’t work out. So after lunch we went to Leblon (a rich neighborhood in Rio) and enjoyed the beach – soft sand, cloudless sky, warm spring air and cool breeze.

We soaked in the rays until 4 o’clock, when we went to the mall near Jocileia’s house; I bought some more gifts for family; took a shower and than caught a cab for the airport.

Though I asked to be dropped off at the 2nd terminal, I believe he still left me at the 1st, because I still had a long walk to the United gate. I was surprised to be called by my name as I approached the check-in; “Mr. McAllister?, in broken english.” They were waiting for me. After paying the $100 late fee, I got checked in and went straight to the gate. They told me I had almost missed the cutoff for the international check-in… that wouldn’t of been good.