The adventure beagins here!

Helsinki-Vaantaa 

The trip started like any other trip, at the airport of Helsinki-Vantaa. The air was a bit chilly when I left in the morning to my school to meet my friend before I left. We went out to eat at a chinese restuarant and after that we said our goodbyes. It didn´t feel realistic at the moment that I would make this trip, after all we had been planing this trip with Petra and our school for a very long time. Now when the moment had arrived when I was to take my last glance at Finland before I left, it didn´t feel real.

As I calmly walked towards Petras house from the scool, I took my time looking around at the snow that had allready started to melt, spring was making its passage. The gentle breeze that was blowing felt cold and good against my cheaks. I arrived at Petras house three hours before we were to leave for the airport. 

We made shure that we both had everything we needed for the last time before we left, we both were stressing a bit. As we finaly were finished with the last check we headed to the car. It didn´t take long to arrive to the airport of Helsinki-Vantaa, there we said our goodbyes to Petras mom and sister who had given us the lift. 

At the airport we had two friends who had came to say their goodbyes as well. They left after queing with us at the check-in and luggage dropp. Now we made our way to the inner part of the airport. We bought some snacks for the flight and off we went, towards Madrid where we were to make our transit to another plane. 

 Here is where the adventure started. In the airplane we noticed that in the flight ticket it said that our next flight would leave the next day at 07.15 when it should have departed at 00.05 on the same day! The person at the flight desk had forgotten to tell us that the fligt was delayed 7 hours. We were furious and I felt how the anger swelled inside of me. We could not do anything else than wait for more information when we arived in Madrid. It was a weird feeling of both eagor and disapointment. I tried my best to sleap or take a nap during the 4 hours we felw but it was useless, I just couldn force myself to sleap. 4 hours and two flight meals later we arrived at the airport in Madrid. It was an amazing building and had many terminalls and modern structures. I had fogotten my worries in an instant. 

Free hotel

We went to the information point to ask what had happened and they told that there was a delay in the flight and that the flight company would compensate it with a free night at a hotel in Madrid. The stay included: lunch and breakfeast. we had to wait a long time for the hotell buss and when it finaly came, we didn´t all fit in so we waited 10 minutes for the next one. The air outside was fresh and relaxing, just like I remembered it form the last time I had been in Spain with my spanish class from school. The next buss couldn´t take us eighter so we waited one more time for the next one and then we were finaly on our way to the hotel. 

You would propably think that we had allready given up all of our energy and become bitter but we lived only on sheere willpower. We were both ignorant in thinking that this was the worst of it, unknowing of what laid ahead. 

Free food & Wine 

At the hotel we had to wait further 20 minutes before we could get our rooms and go eat. We went to our hotel room and took a shower before going to sleep. We didn´t have much time to sleep because we had to make shure that we made it in time to the next airport buss. I slept like a log untill we had to wake upp. As the alarm rang from my mobile I imediatly sprung up from the bead to put on my clothes. Petra had allso woken up. 

We didn´t have time for breakfeast so we both hurried to take our stuff and go downstairs to the reception to give back our room keys. We were now loaded with new energy for our next flight. We were in luck, we made it to the first buss that left for the airport. At the airport we met our next obsticle the flight had been delayed utterly by one hour. Well we didn´t care at that point so much because we had allready been delayed 7 hour and for that reason missed our next flight in Brasil ,destined to fly at 13.40. to Passo fundo from São Paluo. We had breakfeast at the airport. I had a couple of coffeys to kickstart my motor. The soothing aroma of a dark roast coffey gently caressed my tastebuds. Afterwards we had a long 10-11 hours flight ahead of us. I could guess from experience that  I would not get any sleep during the flight. 

Outside of GIG airport 

Hotel in Porto Alegre

And I didn´t. Instead I got myself to take a nap but you could barely say that I was sleaping, rather in a transe.The time passed with meals and with conversations and games with petra. My ass was hurting like hell! Well ready for our next shock we tought we would take our stuff and go to the Service desk of Avianca and try to get new flight tickets to Passo Fundo. This is the funny part. Our baggage had not arrived! We later got the message that they were sent to Amsterdam for god knows what reason. We took it prety well considering the sircumbstansess. We had luck with us that the contact person who we had in Finland had allready sent her daughter who lived in São Paulo to meet us at the airport. She was going to help us to get new tickets. Well easier said than done. Eventhough she could speak fluent portugugese, they had issues at the servicepoint. They could not fix us new tickets to Passo Fundo for free and if we were to pay we had to take the next flight that went the next day. Well we were starting to fear the worst when the sales person told  us, that as she knew it wasn´t our fault we missed the flight she could only give us a free flight to Porto Alegre. We took it since we had had it as an possibility from the start. From there we were to take a buss to Passo Fundo and from there we would be picked up by someone from the school (INSTITUTO EDUCAR). Well we flew for an hour and a half and arrived at 23.30 in Porto Alegre and decided we would  check in a hotel. This was our first time that we tried our portugese for real. We got a room and went straigth to sleap. The next morning we woke up well rested and refreshed. I took a shower, it felt really refreshing.

Open road

We went downstairs to eat breakfeast and were dumbfounded by the diversity of fruits and breads and everything that laid infront of us to pick from. I tried to taste everything, but as it was impossible I  quit after my third plate. We checked out and asked the receptionist if he knew what bus we should take to Passo Fundo and he responded kindly in great detail. We were suposed to take the buss from Rodavaria Centrall but we could buy the ticket from the airport, and so we did. We took a taxi to the buss terminall and   after that we were of on our next long trip. You can propably imagine the mental exhausion that I and Petra experienced. First the flight, then the bagage, then the other flight and so on. Well at least we made slowly our way towards Pontão and Instituto Educar.