Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Traveling Mercies

I find this expression a little strange, but I use it anyway, because I strive to sound and think as "natively" as possible in English.

This has been an intensive week of traveling for our family members. My parents are probably traveling right now or perhaps have just arrived in my childhood town of Curitiba, Paraná, in Brazil (As I was writing this at 3 pm today). I am hoping they had a safe trip, hence the title of this post.

Yesterday my mother and father-in-law I arrived in Brazil from the United States. They had a safe trip, but the customs in Brazil forced my mother-in-law to pay taxes for a three-year-old computer that she had been bringing back-and-forth from the United States for three years, so she missed her connecting flight and was stuck for four hours before she could fly and join her husband who hadn't lost the flight. They got home only 10 PM, 32 hours after they started their trip.

Also yesterday, there was some serious traveling trouble with my brother and his family. They were driving from São Paulo to Curitiba (tomorrow will be the wedding of one of our second cousins) when smoke started coming out from under the hood of the car. They stopped, and there were actually flames (which thankfully didn't spread). As calmly as possible they took the children and all the luggage out of the car. The extinguisher didn't work, so my brother threw some water on the fire. 

A tow truck came and took them to a gas station by the road where they ate and waited for a long time for a taxi to come from the city, over an hour (60 miles) away. Then the taxi came and it wouldn't fit the kids' car-seats, so they had to wait for yet another taxi, so their trip also was very long. I hope the car can be fixed, or else it will be pretty bad for my brother.

I found through a comment my mom wrote on the latest facebook post by the bride that they had arrived safely, after 8 hours of travel. Sometimes social media is useful. :-)

In any case, I hope nobody else in the family has travel troubles in the near future! (my sister-in-law and nephews return to Egypt next Monday).

No comments: