Settling In At The Sao Paulo Airport Marriott

What a pleasant surprise to board our 777 last night at IAD and discover it's one that's been reconfigured. We both enjoyed a good night's sleep despite a bumpy flight from time to time, waking up only as the flight attendants were announcing breakfast.

We were among the first off the plane. The immigration lines were short, and we didn't have to wait too long for the Marriott shuttle.

Checking in at a Brazilian property is fairly labor-intensive for the clerk. He collected both of our passports and filled out a government information form for each of us that we were reqired to sign. He was very friendly throughout, and it was a treat having our room ready at 11:00 a.m. It seems to be a much more pleasant property than we'd anticipated from some of the reviews, and our room is clean and spacious with free Internet.

There's apparently a pool here and we'll probably try it out later. We both feel a lot better than we deserve to after flying a little over 13,000 miles since Tuesday. Since we'll have to take a taxi to the airport tomorrow at 5:15 a.m. to check in for our 7:20 a.m. flight, relaxation is the order of the day.

Update... The pool was a great spot to hang out for a couple of hours, but the water was a little too cool for our tastes.