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July 5-6, 2006—Wednedsay-Thursday California to Miami to Ouro Preto

For the first time ever, we took three flights to our first tour destination: SFO to Miami to Sao Paolo to Belo Horizonte. Many hours later, we're all safe and sound at Centro Dom Bosco outside Ouro Preto. From SFO to Miami, they showed Ice Age 2 and Shrek, prompting Marcia to say, "Just like Intermezzi tour." We got to Miami in the evening and met up with Page, our tour escort, there. Our flight from Miami to Sao Paolo was about eight hours almost due south. With the time change, we ended up landing about 5am, and we were starting to get disoriented timewise. Most slept on the long flight but were still tired. We went down to fetch our luggage, go through customs, and recheck for the final flight. Gareth got stuck in customs, but thanks to parents who put their prescription drugs in their original contains, he got cleared to go after a while. "The containers saved my butt," he said. The group split into two in Sao Paolo, with Continuum on TAM and Troubadors on Gol. Fortunately, we had plenty of time to check in; we arrived at 7:30 and our flight was leaving at 11. Mr Kula volunteered to be the staff person to check us in. To make a long story short, it took them nearly three-and-a-half hours to check us in, a new record for any tour I've been on, and especially frustrating considering it's a 50-minute flight. As guys got checked in, others were taken to Jet Burger (the only other option other than coffee stand food), and we had a burger brunch at 10am. The boys didn't seem to mind burgers at that hour, probably since they didn't really know what time it was anyway. I almost missed the flight. They held the plane for me as I made sure the last choirpieces got checked in and our weight overage got paid, which is something we've never had to do. And by the way, they don't take foreign VISA cards or US cash. Pam raced to the bank and went to the plane as I went to get change and a receipt for the bill. When we landed, again we were hassled about luggage, with them asking for boarding passes (just yellow receipt paper) they hadn't told us to hold on to. The good news was we all had our luggage and all the choir equipment made it as planned.

The terrain in Belo Horizonte is not something we've seen before on any PBA tour, and nothing I've personally seen before. There are sparsely forrested mountains, maybe like Idaho with different trees: palms and acacia-like trees intead of evergreens. We had a two-hour drive to Ouro Preto, where we first started to see Brazil is very different than what we're used to. There is earth redder than anything I've seen in person. There were street vendors, people watching us as we drove by in our bus provided by the City of Ouro Preto. Maybe I've been to Europe too many times, because this seems far more foreign. The architecture (such as it is), the billboards, the Brasil flags everywhere, the kids playing soccer everywhere, no sidewalks, it's exciting.

It is often said these days you can get pretty much anywhere in the world in 24 hours. We got to Centro Dom Bosco, where we're staying, at about 4pm local time, or 29 hours after we took off from SFO. The boys are a mixture of excited and tired. This is a retreat center, kind of like Bishop's Ranch, out in in country, and they have a futbal field here (with lights for night play!!), as well as basketball and volleyball courts. They said they had a "snack" for us on arrival, which was a double buffet spread with all sorts of different foods. There was so much food there was no way to try everything. Everybody kept saying "If this is the snack, I wonder what dinner is." After snack, the boys had a choice of soccer, basketball/hackeysack, or a hike to nearby waterfalls. I took a small group on the hike. Most boys played soccer, and there were some local schoolchildren here for after school activities, and the boys played basketball and soccer with them.

Since it is winter, the sun goes down early, about 5:30, and the stars are an unfamiliar configuration. I can't tell where we stand on the direction of toilet flishing, but I've seen that phenonenon demonstrated before myself. It gets cold when the sun goes down. Dinner was a similar affair to the "snack," and after dinner we had a rehearsal. Most of the boys were tired, which was perfect since we try to beat jet lag with one rule: be tired when it's time to go to bed. After rehearsal was bedtime, and the boys were asleep quickly. Garrett was feeling sick in Sao Paolo but looks and says he feels fine now. Our guest singers are bringing a great spirit to the tour; they love tour, even if they haven't been on one for a while. It's about 11:45 p.m., we're charging phones, cameras, and walkie-talkies, the usual after-hours drill. Tomorrow we go sightseeing in Ouro Preto, have lunch with the mayor, then a concert in one of the landmark churches of this old town with the mayor present, and dinner following.

--Mr. Fox