by Honors students and siblings Aline, Eduardo, and Fernando Milach Teixeira
Hello again, and thanks for coming along on yet another adventure with us. If you are new here, our names are Aline Milach Teixeira (senior in Chem E), Eduardo Milach Teixeira (sophomore in Aero E), and Fernando Milach Teixeira (sophomore in Mech E), and we are documenting our yearly trip home to Brazil to visit our family.
Throughout our trip, we took 3 flights:
DSM (Des Moines) – ATL (Atlanta) from 5:35 pm to 8 pm on December 20th
ATL – GRU (Sao Paulo) from 9 pm on December 20th to 8:15 am on December 21st
GRU – POA (Porto Alegre) from 9:15 am to 11:30 am on December 21st
However, things didn’t quite turn out this way… But we are getting ahead of ourselves…
Before our trip, we went to the store and outdid last year’s snacks with a selection of belVita breakfast biscuits (Aline), Reese’s white chocolate PB cups (Eduardo), and the return of the 1.8 lbs of Hot Tamales (not sponsored)(485 g sugar)(Fernando). We did not go to oovoo javer this time, but instead phoned our friend Nic Zimmerman to drive us to the airport.


We took our first flight and gracefully arrived in ATL at 8:15 pm.
Instead of 6 to 12-hour layovers, we made the opposite mistake of booking layovers of less than one hour, so we ran to our next flight, arriving right on time. Little did we know that it would be delayed 2 hours after our arrival…
Our experience went a little something like this:
9:00 pm – expected boarding time (ATL to GRU flight)
9:15 pm – The plane had arrived late from the Netherlands and had to be cleaned
9:30 pm – Boarding began
10:00 pm – The gates were closed, and we sat there awaiting take-off
10:15 pm – Captain announces that there is a ~small~ complication with the plane’s weight distribution, and that they would need some more time to reorganize the suitcases under the plane prior to take-off
11:00 pm – The captain makes another announcement, saying that the problem was finally fixed, and that we would be on our way
11:15 pm – The plane enters the runway, and the pilot does the final safety checks
11:18 pm – An announcement is made that the plane’s rudder failed its safety check, and that we would need to stop by the airplane mechanic station to figure out the issue
11:30 pm – The mechanic enters the plane and does his thing
12:15 am – The pilot announces that it is not safe for us to take off, and that they would need to take the night to resolve the issue. We were given options for hotels and meal vouchers and left the plane.
UGHHHHHHHH!!!!


Tired and frustrated, we booked the best (and most expensive) hotel possible knowing that the airline would pay for it. It had a pool and gym and good food service. They did somehow convince Ed and Fern to give their $60 meal vouchers in exchange for two large pizzas, but that was the least of our frustrations at this point.


(not pictured: some bussin’ supreme and Mediterranean pizza)
Cool cool cool, tight tight tight. So! Aline woke up early to punch away her frustrations at the Hotel’s gym boxing station, and the Teixeiras left for the Atlanta airport once more. We arrived at the gate at 11 am, one hour before our noon flight time. And the adventure began once again…
noon – expected boarding time (new ATL to GRU flight)
12:30 pm – The new plane had arrived late from Tokyo and had to be cleaned
1:00 pm – Boarding began
1:15 pm – We scanned our ticket, and a big “X” appeared. A group of 15-20 people were not allowed to board the plane (including all 3 Teixeiras) for reasons unbeknownst to us.
1:30 pm – We were asked to step aside until everyone that was able to board did so.
1:45 pm – Delta Airlines employees were calling everyone in existence trying to figure out why passengers that clearly had tickets to this flight could not board the plane.
2:00 pm – The airplane captain kept coming in and out, saying that the Sao Paulo airport closed at 2 am and that if we were not able to leave soon, we would not be able to arrive in time and everyone would have to leave the plane and wait another several hours prior to departure. He also threatened to leave without us. Delta employees were desperate at this point and began running back and forth screaming (basically). At this moment, Aline was past her breaking point, and began to pace back and forth and pray a rosary.


2:15 pm – They were able to let one guy in out of the 20(ish) people outside, and began treating each passenger case individually, letting us in one-by-one.
While this was happening: all the Brazilians waiting to board with us made a WhatsApp group chat called “lost friends” and began excessively messaging each other non-stop for days.

3:20 pm – Over 10 of us were able to successfully board the plane, and the three of us were the last people to board before they closed the gate for good. Two people were left behind. RIP Analu and Cesar (pictured above behind Aline wearing black and white, respectively).
The issue: because our original connecting flight time (From GRU – POA) was around the same time as our new flight from ATL – GRU, the Delta computing system thought that we were on our way to our final destination (in the POA flight), even though we had never even left ATL. Since one cannot be in two flights at once, they did not let us board our actual flight. Everyone else with a similar connecting flight had this issue.
We somehow made it in and headed to Brazil. For the confusion, Delta Airlines gave us each R$80 (Reais) meal vouchers, which we spent exclusively on pao de queijo and coxinhas de frango upon arrival.


This entry has been insufferably long, so to close off, here is what each of us did during our flights as recounted by the other two siblings 😉:
Aline: Aline drank the whole time. She was drunk. She stunk the whole plane to the point that we had to evacuate the aircraft and delay for the next day.
Fernando: A baby cried the entire 9-hour flight to Brazil. It was Fern. He was upset that the Delta employees did not allow his anime body pillow on the flight.
Eduardo: Ed re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-rewatched the ENTIRE Twilight series movies again. Afterwards, he violently sobbed and journaled about Taylor Lautner.
Thank you for tuning in, and happy holidays!
