To kill time at the gate (2 hours) we wanted to give our robots the opportunity to stretch their legs. As an error occured in the demo script, we placed Wheatley in an airport buggy to show him the terminal. In the meantime Nils fixed the bug.
The departure was on time and was followed by a short flight to Paris. We just had a short stay at the Charles de Gaulle airport, but we managed to pass most of the checkings quickly (more than two boarder supervisors wouldn’t be a bad idea for the amount of travellers…) and so there was time left for a short shopping. We bought chocolate and a french riddle magazine for amusement during the transatlantic flight.

For the long stay on board the riddle magazine alone was not a satisfying amusement. For this reason we were coding or we used the in flight entertainment system and the handed blankets and pillows for sleeping. The quality of the meals was very delicious, but the particular amount of food left some team mebers hungry. In particular in the vegetarian meal there were some kalories missing, but in return for this it was served clearly ahead of the others. We were especially glad for Dennis that everything worked well with the gluten free meal despite of some trouble we had during registering for it. At approximatly 4 pm brasilian time the first extensions of the south american continent appeared under our plane.

After the arrival in Rio de Janeiro the happenings of the last days were brought back to our memories: already at the passport cotrol the supervisors congratulated us to the win of the FIFA world championship. Behind the passport control we found Fuelco, the mascot of the FIFA world championship. Of course we took advantage of the situation and had a souvenir picture taken.

It seems to be unusual in Brazil that luggage is checked through to the final airport and so we had the chance to convince ourselves that also our luggage made it to the right country. Our plan was to directly check in our luggage again, pass the security check and spend the last five hours waiting time till the next flight at the gate. Unfortunatly the baggage check in opened just 2 hours in advance of the flight. For this reason we had the chance to send an expedition team to get in touch with the local food sources. A rich variation of food was located in the third floor of the aiport building, but the explorers were not able to get closer than 5 meter to each sale booth. Employees seemed to appear from nowhere to indefatigable promote the advantages of their english menu. After all team members were provided with food there was time to look and listen around. The latter appeared to be complicated as most of the announcements were made in Portugese. In general the knowledge of English was spread in different variety throughout the employees. Fortunately the see(curity)-check could be passed quickly. Last insight before the flight: Water from the water fountain could be probably used without any further treatment for a German swimming pool.
The flight to João Pessoa was a night flight and thats why not just our team but also most of the other passengers tried to sleep.
We left the aircraft at 1:20 a.m. on time, fetched our complete and intact luggage and met our contact person from the local transfer agency (who appeared to speak English very well). Surprisingly we already made it to the hotel at 3 a.m. We expected a lot more delay and a longer check out and for this reason we thought a room for another night is not necessary. We tried to make the best of the situation, left the luggage in the hotel and spend the time till sunrise at approximatley 5:30 a.m at the beach next to the hotel. During this time we took time by the forelock and made a first short meeting about the tasks for the next days.

As two of us dropped in at the hotel to ask for a toilet, the concierge surprised us with the offer to take two of the four rooms in advance and a breakfast for all of us for just a little extra charge. An offer we could not refuse.