Getting there...

I left Minneapolis for Brazil on February 24, 2012. In spite of nerves, sadness, and excitement, it was a pretty uneventful trip (in a good way). Though I was dreading the 6 hour layover in Kennedy airport, I ended up meeting several other Fulbrighters who were on the same flight to Brazil as I was. The two first people I saw at the airport were the two people I'd gotten to know the most at the Fulbright orientation in Washington D.C. last June. It was great to see familiar faces at that moment!

The actual flight to Sao Paulo, Brazil was a bit more eventful than I would have liked...due to bad weather, we hit some pretty crazy turbulence the first hour and a half or so of the flight. Mind you, I may be exaggerating a bit...I find that every time I get on a plane I'm becoming more and more similar to my sister, who will not set foot on a plane. So I guess you could call me a "nervous flyer." But, to my left was a person with a white knuckle grip on the arm rest, to my right was a person silently mumbling prayers in Portuguese, and in the center was me, wide-eyed, staring straight ahead, trying not to freak out on a plane full of strangers. But, luckily, 10 hours later I was in Sao Paulo!