An Empty Feeling & Mixed Emotions: Saturday, 10/5/13

The sun woke me up, peeking through partly cloudy skies, and beamed through the hotel room window just as it had done the prior 29 days.  My first order of business was to grab a quick breakfast because I only had about 6 ½ hours to finish packing, drop off small thank you gifts to Aline & Lumia, write another couple of blog entries, and check / recheck my room to ensure nothing was left behind.

When I got to the dining room, I immediately felt the difference.  There were no fellow CSC Team members there when I arrived.  In fact, I was the lone diner at 7:45AM.  I intentionally sat next to the open window, which faced west, and enjoyed the cool morning breeze. While eating scrambled eggs (for about the 29^th day out of the last 30), a buff-necked ibis flew by and called out with his loud kronk call.  The ibis was probably seeking out his “breakfast” too.  I missed hearing Mike A. (from New Zealand) tell me, "Well, Joel is here.  It must be time for me to go!"  (This was a standing joke between the 2 of us every time we saw each other during breakfast.) 

By 11:30, I had completed most of my “TO DOs” (and I was getting cabin fever), so I set out – with my trusty camera in hand – for one final walk around the neighborhood.  A dog was sunning himself close to where traffic flows.  People were running Saturday errands.  Flowers were blooming.  And when I stopped by the empty lot behind the hotel, I found out there were a total of cinco corujas (5 burrowing owls): 2 adults and 3 immature.  This city never ceases to amaze me!

Pictures Taken During My Last Walk In Uberlandia:

      

             

     

              

                                

                             

By 1:30, I was totally packed and ready to go.  It was time for the inevitable:  Head down to the lobby and wait for our taxi. 

Larissa had scheduled 2 taxis for a 2PM pick-up.  Four of us (Marc, Jill, Nirav, & I) were going to be on the same flight from Uberlandia -> Sao Paulo and Sao Paulo -> Rio de Janeiro.  Nirav and I took the first taxi.  As we drove on the hills above the city, it was the first time I could see the area, from that vantage point, by day.  “Urban sprawl” consumed the cerrado for almost as far as the eye could see.  

Having Nirav traveling with us helped immensely because he lived in Portugal for a number of years and is fluent in Portuguese.  He got us seating together during the 1^st leg of our journey.  In Sao Paulo, the layover was approximately 3 hours.  We found a place with a table, logged into the airport’s WiFi. 

The flight to Rio was only about 45 minutes.  Once we deplaned, we made our way through customs and went to Baggage Claim.  We all knew it was time to say good-bye.  Jill and Marc (coincidentally) were both staying in Rio, Nirav was flying back to London, and I was heading back to Tampa.  Saying my last good-byes to my fellow team members gave my assignment a feeling of finality.  From this point on, it was time to focus on getting home to the U.S.A.  

#ibmcsc brazil