The night before my planned business trip to Belo Horizonte, I was talking to my colleagues about various cultures’ ways of wishing luck to each other. We mentioned “break a leg” at the end of the conversation and parted with those words.
The following day, I supposed I got off on the wrong foot (pun intended) and as I was hurrying outside my building to catch the cab to the airport, I lost my balance and fell forward on the marble steps in the front, hitting my shins on the edge of a step and luckily enough breaking with my forehead hitting the metal gate whose bars I caught with my hands in front of me instead of falling face forward on the cemented street.
I was pretty shocked from the fall but managed to focus and catch the cab to my destination. Then in the cab I stopped to look at my legs and discovered some of the ugliest bruises ever having the pleasure of residing on my body with a swelling the size of a tennis ball. After messaging some knowledgeable experts (friends who respond to msgs at 7am), we diagnosed this as a non-issue and I proceeded business as usual.
Upon arriving to the BH office, I am sure I made quite an impression when the first thing I asked for was to be taken to the medical office. The whole experience was quite entertaining as I negatively impacted the company’s health & safety stats and kept receiving calls from colleagues in Rio asking me what happened and thinking I fell from the stairs in the mine site.
I also enjoyed the different office experience as the place is located in the middle of a forest-like landscape on an old mine site. There were horses in the parking lot and possums taking over the trash cans. Dr. Souss, anyone?
My bruises were then bandaged like two tree trunks and I decided to tell everyone from now on that I suffered a sports injury ( I think that this sounds more glamorous than admitting my endless clumsiness).
The rest of my trip was very interesting as I got to visit some active mines (which reminded me of Machu Picchu with their carved out stairs) and meet colleagues from different paths (accountant/aspiring musician who had to work as a truck driver to earn money but was later was discovered by the site manager due to his fluency in English and promoted to visitors guide and general assistant). I also got free work boots after touring the operations. If I ever decide to go hiking in mud, I am all set.
In next part I will write about the actual city of Belo Horizonte, where I also had a great experience. Now I’ve got to fly back to Rio!
Grobetrotter 
Feel better!
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