Sao Paulo

Day 1

Well it began at 4am when I had to rise to make sure I got to the airport on time. My Dad dropped me off and I successfully met Lucio the head of the Brazilian section. We checked in and said goodbye to our luggage. All well so far. The plane was delayed an hour and a half leaving, which meant we missed our connecting flight in Paris we arrived at 9.40am twenty minutes after it left. For some reason the French had decided to dig up one of their runways during the busiest flying season. We spent all morning waiting in the transfers line, when after an hour an a half of queuing we got to the front they said we could either go on the waiting list for the flight at 11pm that night, or fly the following day. We went on the waiting list as Lucio had a meeting he needed to get to. Our luggage was safe they said, so we went off to spend the afternoon in Paris. 10pm that night we were pleased to discover that we'd made it onto the flight and had been upgraded to business. "YAY!" Were our bags on the flight, yes they said. We took off and after watching Spiderman I fell asleep.

Day 2

It's a 12 hour flight, I slept lots, business class is very nice :-) Arriving at 6.30am Sao Paulo time we went to collect our bags. Guess what, I know you have already due to the amount I've mentioned them, they hadn't arrived. One of mine was in Paris, the one with my clothes. The other one of mine containing half the equipment I need for the work I've come here to do, was probably in Paris, although the big label they put on it had come off, but they found it and said it's probably mine. Lucio's was gone completely. We fly to Rio tomorrow morning, they promise to send them on, but without us there to explain to customs what they are we could have problem getting the equipment into the country. I've got my fingers crossed, we do have a backup way of doing the job and it's not happening until Monday, but I've got one thing to say. Don't fly Air France ;-)

The thing about not having any luggage is that you basically don't have any off the stuff you need, which means you have to go shopping and armed with the promise of $50 from the airline that's exactly what we did. Buying underwear is something I usually do on my own, but now I not only had to do it with Lucio, I also had to get him to translate everything for me "no have you got a different size" etc, we must have come off looking like a very odd couple.

During the day we visited the radio station Eldorado with whom we have a co-production with, and now I know why they sound so bad. I used to think it was the line they were using to send the audio to us, now I know it comes out of there studio like that. We had lunch in a restaurant where you fill your plate with stuff and then they weigh it to work out how much to charge you.

Sao Paulo is an interesting city, it's all about work, there is no tourism and probably with good reason. The air is so thick you can practically see it, and it proceeded to bung up my nose within hours of arrival. 20 million people live there but there is no real centre, there's no focal point it's just a sprawling mass of new and old buildings right next to each other, it's fascinating and other than not being able to breathe I quite liked it.