ARRIVING IN BRAZIL

The last time I was in Brazil, my Dad was picking me up from my mission in Recife, a city on the Northeast coast. This time around, I’ve found myself in São Paulo working as an intern in the marketing department for Azul Airlines, a brand new Brazilian airline founded by legendary JetBlue founder David Neeleman. I graduated in May from the University of Utah with degrees in Political Science and International Studies. As a political science major, I had the great opportunity to get involved with the Hinckley Institute of Politics. I spent my last winter interning in Washington DC, and spent the summer with Attorney General Mark Shurtleff’s U.S. Senate campaign. The HIP also happens to have connections at Azul, and since I had recently decided to go to business school to get an MBA in international business this was the perfect opportunity to help me get in to the grad school of my dreams!

My journey, and I do mean journey – or maybe ordeal is a better word – began at 8am as I left my parent’s house. I then flew to JFK where I had a 5 hour layover, and those are NEVER fun. I finally got on the plane at 9pm, and promptly sat on the runway for another TWO hours before taking off. Azul had arranged for a taxi to pick me up at the airport, and two of my former mission companions were going to meet me at the airport in Sao Paulo. Well, since my flight was two hours late, the cab driver gave up waiting for me. One comp didn’t make it because of his sick, pregnant wife and the other didn’t get the flight information in time. AGH! It reminded me of my mission, when after telling us that it wouldn’t be like The Other Side of Heaven and that someone would be there to pick us up, we were stranded in the Sao Paulo airport clueless and alone for an hour before some weird-looking guy with no ID told us he was here to pick us up. Fortunately, this time around I was an experienced traveler and I spoke the language fluently! So I found myself a cab – and then began my fantastic, two hour cab ride through rush hour traffic in a city with a 20million+ population and a terrible highway infrastructure. Finally, 26 hours after I left my house in Salt Lake I arrived at my new apartment in Alphaville.

Just when I thought my ordeal was over, the receptionist tells me that there was a misunderstanding and that my apartment wasn’t ready! So I waited around for another hour or so for my new boss to show up, then we drove over to a hotel and I slept the day away. The next day I started work, and got settled in to my apartment only to realize that my cell phone was about to die and I left my charger at the hotel the night before. On top of that my new apartment didn’t come equipped with wi-fi like I expected, so I felt completely disconnected without my cell phone or an internet connection. Luckily when I went back in the morning, they still had it. NOW my ordeal was finally over. It totally sucked while it was going on, but I already am looking back and laughing, so it’s all good!