God is great! I know you all thought that the blogs were done, however we decided to have one last hoorah. We started this interesting journey by leaving Ilha Grande. We all enjoyed the view of the blue water and surrounding island as we boated back to shore. Some of us were daring and sat on the front of the boat as it steered ahead for land. The whole team, saddened, boarded the bus and headed straight for the airport where our interesting night began.

We arrived at the airport and immediately went to check our bags. As it turned out we had to wait for the check-in to open so we sat around for over an hour waiting. In that time Kimmy found out she had ants in her bag and frantically went to the bathroom with Amy to shake out the clothes in her suitcase. After that we all started checking our bags, then found out that our plane needed to fuel up and take a pit stop at San Juan, Puerto Rico. Everyone was super mad because we would fly about 7 hours to there and 3 hours to Atlanta making it over a 10 hour trip.

After we sat at our gate (which was a bit of a challenge to find because everything was NOT in English) for a while before everyone boarded the plane. It seemed a bit old school compared to our flight here because the T.Vs were hanging from the ceiling with a giant flat screen at the front. As the flight took off it was a bit bumpy which caused some concern, but it was only some turbulence. Only after being on the plane for 40 minutes the captain decided to let us all know that we were having some minor problems and needed to head back to Rio. The problem seemed minor, but made us concerned for the mere fact that we need to head back to the airport. This issue had gotten worse because one of the flight attendants decided to act unprofessionally saying to some random man "This is an emergency and you need to take your seat. Would you want to be flying around in a broken plane?". So after that little comment lots of us started to panic thinking we were in trouble. Thankful we made it safely back to Rio.

All of us were clearly upset and exhausted after this incident because the flight ended up being canceled after sitting on the plane until 3:30 in the morning and we all just wanted to head home. Delta set up a hotel for all the passengers on the plane and told us to come back tomorrow. Turns out the hotel we went to was the 2nd best hotel in Rio. This place was BEAUTIFUL. We all settled in and went to bed after our emotionally and physically draining night. Some people ended up not going to sleep until the sunrise, but it was definitely worth seeing. It was very refreshing waking up and seeing the view from our rooms. The ocean looked huge. I'm pretty sure this was the nicest place we stayed all trip. Our lunch was so good with a variety of things to eat and fantastic desserts. Finally, we all got some sun from sitting up on the roof top pool where we also had the most perfect view of the "Christ the Redeemer" statue.

Coach and the head tour guide had been trying all morning to get us on a different flight because all of us were terrified to fly on that same plane. When it was time to leave the pool and go pack our things to head for the airport we found out that we were taking the same plane back to Atlanta. After that Hanny, Emmy and I headed downstairs to check out and wait for everyone. As we went to check out Coach was also down there doing the same thing. All of a sudden she got a phone call. It was the best news we heard all day. We were on a new flight with US Airways to Charlotte. The mood completely changed and everyone was so happy. All of us are so thankful for having an amazing Coach and all the work she put in, with the help of the head tour guide to get us home safely. Cya tomorrow Pittsburgh, Behrend Womens Basketball is coming home! :)

Natalie