“Welcome aboard Sir”, “would you like some Coke, Coffee”,………….T&A;. I quickly realized as I looked about the Delta cabin interior that this was all a bad dream. Off to Brazil, leave the gate in Atlanta, and on to the runway…turn around…back to the gate. After some tests the problem proved to be a bad hydraulic valve, which we were assured was only really necessary on takeoff. Since we had not yet passed that point of the flight, “go ahead and replace it thank you very much”. Therefore I had dinner and most of the movie at the gate before we ever left Atlanta. It also made the start of the day in Sao Paulo a bit hectic – arriving 3 hours late. But Porto Alegre is hot and now quite rainy and very pleasant as our flight parked here in similar fashion to that of a shot duck – diving through a hole in the rain-clouds. And yes, we did have our 4.5-hour meeting, and yes I did nod off (twice) during the meeting. All is well though.

Cheers,

Dirk