Leaving is so strange as right now it still just feels like just another holiday. We are so glad to have left the last moments of madness, of running from one place to another arranging sorting and completing. And before we knew it we were in the calm of the airport saying our goodbyes to loved ones.

Our flight from London to São Paolo was decidedly un eventful apart from waking a couple of times to find Alex lying across the passenger sat next to him, who seemed nonplussed.

The four hour wait for our next flight to Salvador was a little tedious but we amused ourselves people watching, arguing (the boys… Again), and wandering around the behemoth that is Gru airport. I have never seen so much coronary inducing food under one roof, in my life, it was amazing. You know things are bad when McDonald’s is the healthiest option, but this may also have been because I managed to lose some weight while waiting in the queue as the staff moved at a glacial pace. It wasn’t that they weren’t that interested, or trying, it was just that no matter how hard they tried they just couldn’t do things quickly. I’ve never seen anything like it, they also seemed to be side tracked by anything vaguely more interesting than serving people, which amounted to pretty much anything really. Of course when one of them decided to try to tune the TV in, well the whole place virtually ground to a halt!

Finally able to check in for the connection flight, which meant more security checks and the inevitable hilarity as dad set off the alarm and had to be double checked… Again! Although this wasn’t as intrusive as the Heathrow check, as this guy was either thoroughly convinced I was a terrorist and determined to prove so and conduct the most thorough check short of producing rubber gloves or he fancied me!

So we finally made it to the hotel, only to find we had booked the wrong dates AND I didn’t have my PIN numbers for my new credit cards so can’t use them! And this is only day one…