The flight from Calgary was uneventful but the landing was a little tricky. Must have been windy because he was struggling to keep it even.

But from Dallas to Sao Paulo was another story It is always encouraging when the pilot comes on and says "the flight is going to be delayed because the ground crew has noticed some fluid leaking from one of the engines." Much better than saying it halfway across Caribbean.

Take a much time as you need. Just means more sleep time on the plane. I wasn't all that crazy about arriving at 4 AM anyway. Well, what my body thinks is 4. In Sao Paulo it would be 7.

Originally he said it would take 20 minutes. It took 2 hours and 20 minutes which is a long time to sit on a plane doing nothing. It was tough for the mothers with young children and there was great applause when the pilot finally announced we were ready for takeoff.

The bad part of the delay was dinner wasn't served until 1 AM but the good part was it was possible to get a bit more sleep as the plane gently rocked you to sleep. (Although some times it wasn't all that gentle). It was bumpy almost the entire way but since I was sleeping it wasn't too bad.

Flying into the city was interesting. A forest of skyscrapers as far as the eye could city. Not surprising since there are 20 million people here.

I arrived at 9:20 and managed to make my way to the hotel without finding one person that could speak English. This is not a city ready for tourism. I managed to figure out the bus but had to use my credit card since only Brazilian reals are accepted and I didn't yet have any.

Exchanging money was another adventure. Who knew banks won't exchange cash and that you have to go to a special place to have that done. Took a lot of figuring that out. Again the language barrier.

The hotel is an easy uphill walk to Paulista Ave, the main artery of the city. The streets are very crowded and food is not inexpensive. Although the biggest problem is trying to find someplace to sit once you have it. I ate at a Sushi place not so much for the food as they were the only reasonable place I found with there own seating.

There are numerous courtyard type malls in the area so finding stuff isn't a problem. But I'm sure I'll discover more. Only been here a couple of hours.