On our way home

Friday, March 3, 2023

I am writing this first thing in the morning, because I don’t know if we will get a chance later. We fly 4.5 hours from Manaus to Sao Paulo, wait 5 hours, fly 9.5 hours to Atlanta, wait 2 hours, fly 2.5 hours home. Here is yesterday’s quiz – we had to search for caiman before the answers were read, so we don’t know how our team fared. We have attached photos from our naturalist who graciously shared them with everyone.

Update from Sao Paulo: our time to leave the ship was four hours before our flight. We used all of that time, even though the airport was 16km away. We had to tender. Zoom to shore – then we sat on that little boat for over an hour while the police had dogs sniff our bags (bags were collected last night and sent over). Then the boat guys had to collect everyone’s hand luggage and have it sniffed. I don’t know why it would take 90 minutes to sniff bags of 40 people. We loaded buses and creeped through traffic. We were going the not busy way! Police had traffic stopped the other direction and seemed to be asking questions. Huh. At the airport we were second to last of our 40 people and we waited over an hour to get boarding passes. Our agent took our passports, typed something and waited for 10 minutes – just looking at the screen. I imagined Flintstones computers and the little squirrel dinosaurs were too tired to run the power treadmill. Security wasn’t bad – we didn’t make anything beep. We walked to the gate. Gates 1-8 ->…gates 2-8 ->, so on. We were going to 8, of course. After gate 6, there was a loooooong hall. Hurry. OH! I forgot to say all of this is without air conditioning and we are sweating so much we have to use shirttails to keep our eyes dry. Augh.

Anyway, we are hurrying and sweating and we finally get to another gate. Gate 13. AAAAHHHHHHH. Try to ask. Darn, we still don’t speak Portuguese. Gate agents don’t speak English. We wave our boarding passes and they point for us to get on this plane.

That is an unsettling feeling.

The bins were full in front so Keith had to go twenty rows back to put our carry-on bag. We sat. Of course there are no overhead air vents – just lights. Ew.

We watched Fast and Furious 9. 😂🤣😂

Here in Sao Paulo we made it to the international terminal. It took an hour but we have 5. We looked for food. They have Pizza Hut and Subway. I said we should have something not American, so somehow we ended up eating savory Dutch waffles. No one working in food service speaks aaaaany English. Ordering was hilarious. The food was stuff on waffles. 🙂

1. Where was the treaty to end WWI signed?
2. Who is Archibald Leach more famously known as?
3. What religious group got 10% of George Harrison’s estate when he died?
4. In what part of the cell is DNA found?
5. What two colors are on Poland’s flag?
6. What Nazi was arrested when he went on a secret trip to Scotland in 1941?
7. Who is the chief god in Norse mythology?
8. On what body of water is Vladivostok?
9. Which two cities have the busiest subways (# of passengers annually)?
10. What plant’s name means Lion’s Tooth in French?
11. What actress is Warren Beatty’s sister?
12. In what country is the seaport of Aden?
13. What gas propels the cork out of a bottle of champagne?
14. Who was the captain of Jules Verne’s Nautilus?
15. Name the six fields in which Nobel Prizes are given. (6 points)