Brazil! World Cup! Migraines!

Hey folks - Well, the adventure begins. Tomorrow Janneke, Tess and Quinn come pick me up at school and we drive to the airport in New York. Quinn and I board an 8:30 plane to Toronto for some reason, then recover our senses and board another plane to Sao Paulo. An all-night flight should put us on the ground mid-morning of the 18th, whence we'll take a taxi of a particular brand that I have researched online over to the Pousada Dos Franceses. Where I will probably last ten minutes before (1) napping, and then (2) collapsing into a blubbering mess and admitting to the staff that I don't know how we're going to get to the stadium for Uruguay vs England, the ticket pictured below. My hope is that the entire hostel is going to be peopled with match-goers, and we'll all pile into a Partridge Family-style bus and convoy on over to the stadium.

Things We Have Packed that you Might Not Have Expected:

Flags of Uruguay, Chile, and Argentina.

My hair trimmers.

An "Argentina" poster and a "Holand" (sic) poster, made by Tess, which we are to hold up at each match.

Five kinds of cheese.

A deflated soccer ball and a pump.

Nothing else out of the ordinary, really. I have a paranoid fantasy that I've forgotten something, but so far, nothing has sprung to mind. I'll have a few hours at school before Janneke drives down - if I think of anything - or if you do, and tell me - I'll have Janneke throw it in the suitcase before she drives down.

My stress headache has been with me since yesterday, brought on by a number of hours standing in the sun watching Quinn's soccer tournament. (Route 22A in Vermont, by the way, is so gorgeous they should charge people to drive it. I will never go to Burlington by any other route again.) It's abating now, but it's been a doozy. Janneke was massaging my scalp twice this evening to ease it away, and it's pretty much worked. Still, I'll breathe  a big sigh of relief when we're sprawled on our beds at the Pousada.

I have a Blogger app on my phone (which, barring symptom descriptions at the doctor's office, is probably the least sexy thing I've ever said in my life), so we may be updating this bad boy from the airport(s). Or any old where, really. WiFi at the Pousada means you should get wall-to-wall coverage of our adventures. Wish us luck, and send me a message - quick - if you can think of anything I really ought to have packed.

And yes: I was lying about the cheeses.