Final Post

I arrived back in the United States last Saturday, June 26. The last two weeks were just a blur. I got a chance to visit a friend in Geneva, Switzerland so I flew to Geneva for five days. Switzerland is a gorgeous country. They speak French, but everything is written in three languages; French, German and Italian because different parts of Switzerland speak different languages. It was strange to again be put into a country where I could understand nothing. I know no French except for “Bonjour” and “Merci”. I explored on my own a lot and saw the world’s largest fountain and the flower clock in Geneva. The World Cup was a huge deal. Everyone had their country’s flags hanging out of their apartments and they wore their country’s jersey, I went to an outdoor plaza where they were projecting the game across a huge TV in front of a Rolex building. People had their country flags and were waving them and cheering on the players on the screen. Switzerland was so intercultural. I met people from Spain, the US, Greece and Norway. Many people rode bikes, motorcycles or mopeds around and a lot of people used public transportation like the trams and trains. After being in Portugal, the surrounding countryside was so different. The houses all had painted shutters and the Alps loomed in the background. There was a music festival in Geneva. There were tents set up all around the city featuring different groups and food stands with food from all around the world. I also visited the United Nations and took a tour, which was really interesting. I would love to live in Geneva, the city was clean, almost every culture is featured, and it’s in a perfect location. You can take a train and be in France in 3 hours. My friend was saying how if she wanted to go to Italy to get pasta, it was easy. That’s one thing I love about Europe, it is very easy to travel. Switzerland is not in the European Union, but traveling in Europe is a breeze compared to traveling to the US. I didn’t have to pass through customs when I arrived in Switzerland and it was only and 2 and a half hour flight from Portugal. There is a huge sense of world community in Switzerland, Portugal and in Europe. I think partly it’s attributed to the fact that in Europe the countries are so close together. Sometimes, I feel that in the US we feel like we are the center. When I went to Portugal, I was amazed by how much the students knew of every country. My host sisters know the capitals of over 50 countries. They know the flags of every nation, which was something I was never taught in the US. Another thing, when they go shopping they have to pay for the paper (not plastic) bags they use. People are a lot more conscious about what they buy and how much. There is no “bulk” and they buy what they need, which is a different mentality than in the U.S.

I arrived back in Portugal on Monday, June 20. I spent the time with my family at the beach. I had a good-bye dinner with my friends and two teachers and had my final pastries from Bijou, my favorite Pasteleria. One of my host sisters has been studying abroad in Oregon since September and she arrived home on Friday, June 25 so I got to meet her for a few hours. Everyone was asking, “How awkward was that?” but it wasn’t at all. It felt like we already knew each other. My host family was incredible, it was so hard to leave and say good-bye to my host sisters, who feel just like my real sisters. Luckily, they are traveling to the states in August to visit their relatives so my family in NY will get to meet them. Two of my host sisters are spending this coming school year in the US so I plan on seeing them a lot. They already have arranged to stay in my dorm room at college.

Friday, June 25 all the exchange students had to meet in Lisbon so we could all catch our flights on Saturday, June 26. We didn’t sleep the whole night and the five Americans (including me) who had been on the semester program were the first group to leave for the airport at 4:50 a.m. It was a bittersweet good-bye to all the other students. When the five of us split up in NYC to catch connecting flights or meet up with parents, it was so sad.

I was apprehensive about coming home. A few months ago I was excited, but as it approached I was just nervous. Home was the same, but what about me? I was completely different, my world perception altered. In January, it felt like going home would never happen, but it was already here. Seeing my friends and family was great, but still I wish that I could be in two places at once, Portugal and NY. It’s nice to be sleeping in my own bed and to be able to drive myself around.

I’ve learned so much since I’ve been here: about myself, the world, and other cultures. I would do my experience all over in a heartbeat. I really should have planned ahead and gone for a whole year, but then I wouldn’t have met my host family, my new friends and had the experience that I’ve had and I wouldn’t change that for anything. I would encourage any student to study abroad; it’s one of the best things you can do. When you have opportunities, seize them and make the most out of them. I am one of the few foreign exchange students who is going to college next year. Most kids are still in high school. Some other seniors have to go back and finish taking credits, but quite a few are taking a gap year and traveling more. This was very tempting to me, but I felt like now is the best time for me to be in NYC and start college. The college I’m attending has a good abroad and internship program so traveling will definitely be in my future. Thank you for reading my blog posts these past 6 months. I wish you all the best.

Finished with School

On Saturday, June 5 the girls’ grandmother arrived. She lives in the US and came to visit. She insisted on taking us shopping and it was lots of fun, she was so sweet. This summer, my host family is going to the US to visit their relatives so hopefully I will see them all in August. I went to the agriculture fair in Santarém with my host sister and her friends. We arrived around 11 p.m. and left after 4 a.m. Mostly we just talked with friends and listened to a concert. The following day, Sunday, Carolina and I went to a bullfight in Santarém. They had six cavaleiros, one for each bull. We had to leave before it finished to see my youngest host sister perform her Spanish dancing at the agriculture fair.

Tuesday, June 8 was my last day of high school. In a way, I already felt like I had finished. The other students didn’t seem as excited about summer vacation. At my school in NY, I was use to kids running down the halls screaming on the last day. My classmates still have to take their national exams and won’t know if they’ve passed high school until July so maybe that was part of it. Almost half my class didn’t even attend the last class we had on Tuesday. I was glad to be done because I can travel more now.

The next day, Wednesday, I took a bus to Evora to visit Ari, one of the other American exchange students. I fell asleep and when I woke up I saw a sign that said Evora with an arrow. The bus went that way and pulled into a bus stop so I assumed we were there. I should have been paying more attention and realized that we were early (buses are never early to arrive here in Portugal). I ended up getting off at Montemor, a city a little north of Evora. It was only 20 minutes from Evora so Ari’s host mom picked me up, which was really nice of her. It definitely could have been worse though. One exchange student said they once got on the wrong bus and went to the northern tip of Portugal instead of going south. Ari showed me around Evora. It’s a much smaller city than Santarém. She took me to her favorite Pasteleria and we tried beijinhos (translates to kisses). They were small round orange sweets that had thin hard sugar covering a creamy melt-in-your-mouth custard/cream filling. I saw the Roman Temple of Diana again; we walked and saw the shops, a theater, and a park where there were peacocks. If you’ve never heard a peacock make noise, they sound exactly like Kevin from the movie Up, which I thought was hilarious. Luckily, I made all the right connections to get home.

These past few days, I’ve been unsuccessfully trying to slow down time and hanging out with friends in Santarém. Yesterday, a group of us watched the Portugal vs. Côte d’Ivoire World Cup soccer game at a café. Portugal has the best player in the world, Christiano Ronaldo, but they aren’t a very strong team as a whole. There was a group of people with Portuguese shirts in the café all watching, jumping up when it looked like we had a chance to score, groaning when the team didn’t make a pass. We have to play Brazil to move on past the first group and Brazil is a powerful team.

Today, Wednesday, June 16 I’m going to Geneva, Switzerland to visit a friend until Sunday, June 20. It is going to be fun to see more of Europe. When I come back I only have 6 more days before I leave, which is so sad!

Coimbra, Lisbon, Cascais

Last weekend I had my “goodbye” final AFS camp before departure. There are about 70 other AFS foreign exchange students here in Portugal. They divided us up and half of us went to Coimbra and half went to Braga. I traveled to the camp in Coimbra with 34 other students. Coimbra is nicknamed the “college” town because of all the universities in the city. Portugal is a very relaxed country and the people just flow with changes. Nothing is usually planned. If you have plans, they will probably change ten times before you actually pick what to do. They like spontaneity and aren’t upset if things don’t go according to plan. The train I was supposed to take to the camp at 4 p.m. was full so I had to go on one two hours later. I thought I was going to be late, but I was one of the first ones to arrive. When people in Portugal have meetings or plans at 8 a.m. that means 8:30. If you do arrive on time, you’re just embarrassed to be the only one there.

There were students from over 10 different countries at my camp including: New Zealand, Thailand, China, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Argentina, Germany, Austria, Mexico, and the US of course. Ari and I and three kids from Argentina were the only ones from the semester program at the Coimbra camp. The rest of the kids had been here since September. I met another girl, Rebecca, from Washington, D.C. There are more Americans who have been here the full year, but they were at the Braga camp so I will meet them on the plane ride home. Rebecca said two American students went home around December; it just wasn’t for them. Another student, I learned went home 3 days after arriving in Portugal, they never even met their host family or gave it a chance. All the students knew each other because they had previous camps and programs together. Some lived in the same town as each other. It was really cool to meet so many kids from so many different countries. At the camp we did different activities and talked about going home. The camp was conducted all in Portuguese. Most of the year long kids could understand everything. I had to have them repeat a lot and say it slower so I could understand. I can understand more easily now, just my pronunciation is awful. Some of the yearlong kids knew as much as I did though, so that made me feel better. I think you really need at least a year to learn and develop the basic skills for a new language. Everyone missed home, but very few of us were ready to leave. Most people thought that the middle months were the hardest, but now Portugal is like their second home. Going home will be nice, but home will always be there. You never know when you will see your friends in Portugal and when you will see your new friends from New Zealand, Germany and Norway. I’m so excited to have bagels and tacos again, but who knows when I’ll have pampilhos and a dish with bacalhau. It’s not just the food, but also the people, the culture, the cities. I can’t express how strange it is to think that I will be in NY in 4 weeks. It never felt like I was really leaving for Portugal until I arrived, so I don’t think it will hit me until I’m on the plane or when I see my house. Enough of the rapidly approaching departure blues…

This week I went to school Monday, but on Tuesday and Wednesday I went to Lisbon with my host sister. She showed me all around the city on Tuesday. Lisbon is such a beautiful, relaxed city. It was about 95 degrees on Tuesday, just typical Portuguese summer weather. I hadn’t planned on staying over, but in Portugal I’ve learned to be flexible with “plans”. So on Wednesday we went to H&M to get swimsuits then headed off to the beach. We met up with my sister’s friend who showed us around Cascais. Cascais is just south of Lisbon. It is a gorgeous city and beautifully kept up with flowers adoring the patterned streets and brightly painted buildings. The beach we went to was little but it was not crowded. The water was cold, but you got use to it. We got ice cream from an ice cream shop that was one of the first in the city. There’s so much more of Portugal I have to explore!

Thursday I didn’t have school because it was a holiday. This Friday morning I went to Sociology class where we watched a movie and then I didn’t have any more classes. I only have two days of school left; I don’t know how many classes I will have though. Santarèm is hosting agriculture fair next week so that will be fun!

Rock in Rio!!!

Rock in Rio!!!

Rock in Rio is a huge music festival in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, which takes place the last two weekends in May. I went with my host sister and friends to Rock in Rio on Friday. We took the train to Lisbon and a metro to the park where Rock in Rio was held. There was a long line of people pouring out of the metro station, walking up to the entrance. We couldn’t take any food or liquids into the park and everyone had their bags checked. We finally made it to the entrance. The park was huge! There was a giant main stage in the center of a huge field. Right above the stage there was a giant zip line. People were zip lining over the crowd all through out the night. I thought it was pretty epic especially when there was a huge finale to a song and a person would zip across the screaming crowd. There were tons of food vendors, carnival rides, and smaller stages around. When we arrived, Mariza, a famous fado singer was performing. Fado is a traditional type of Portuguese music. Ivete Sangalo, a popular Brazilian singer, was on the main stage next. During these performances we walked around and took in all the sights. One stand was doing face painting so we got stripes of paint that glowed under mini black lights. We got free sunglasses from the Pepsi stand and free straw hats when we went on a ride. We were standing in line for a ride, similar to the tower of terror, when I heard my name. I turned around and saw Lily, one of the exchange students from America who came to Portugal for 6 months too. Over 50,000 people come to Rock in Rio everyday and we were lucky to bump into each other. She was with her host sister and another exchange student from the US who is on the year exchange program.

We walked back to find a good spot to watch John Mayer. The field around the stage filled up quickly. We were right on top of a hill looking down to the stage from the right side. There were people sitting down in front of us so we had a perfect view. John Mayer started singing at 10:00 p.m. and sang until 11:15. Let me just say, he is an insane guitar player. He switched guitars for every song. After the performance, the stage crew wheeled a huge box filled with guitars on the stage (there must have been over 30). There was a 30-minute break before Shakira took the stage. Fireworks lit up the sky and music played over the speakers. We sat down during the break and people took our original spots. I pushed my way forward to get some pictures when Shakira started singing but the music was loud so it didn’t matter that we couldn’t see. Shakira was amazing live and her song “She Wolf” was fantastic. We didn’t see the end of her performance because we decided to go to the huge tent blasting techno music that people were dancing too. The strobe lights were flashing and it was packed, but lots of fun. We left the park after 2 am and took the metro back to an apartment in Lisbon to spend the night. I was still really full of energy from the concerts and I think I got about 3 hours of sleep. My host mom picked us up in the morning and we went back to Santarèm for a half hour, just enough time to shower and repack. We drove to Evora and saw some of my host family’s relatives. It was my host sister’s birthday and we went go carting and hung out by the relative’s pool.

Before 8 p.m., my host sister and I put our party dresses and heels on and left to go to her cousins 18^th birthday party. Her cousin rented a building in the countryside outside of Evora for her party. We had dinner and there was a DJ outside so everyone danced under the stars. Portuguese like to party very very late so by the time we left it was after 5 a.m. We stayed at a friend’s house in Evora. As we walked up to the house, the morning chorus of birds was singing and the sky was getting lighter. We slept until 12:30 and the friend’s mom made us a huge lunch with soup, salad, lasagna, and fruit before we left. When we finally got back to Santarèm later that afternoon, I fell right asleep, waking up only to watch Glee with my host sisters and then fell back to bed. A very busy weekend, but it was so much fun!

Since school is almost over, this week is very packed with tests and projects to present. This weekend I have my “Good-Bye” Program in Coimbra. There are about 80 exchange students in Portugal from all around the world so they divided the group in half for the good-bye program. There are 35 students going to Coimbra and I think the rest are going to Braga. Ari is also going to Coimbra and some of the students from Argentina who arrived to Portugal in January. The other students are from the yearlong program and are from countries like Germany, Mexico, Italy, Norway, China and Turkey. I haven’t seen the other Americans since February so I’ll miss seeing them next weekend, but it will be fun to meet other exchange students since I’m the only one in Santarèm. Even though our plane departs to London, then NYC on June 26, we have to meet in Lisbon on June 25 for a “debriefing”. The host families aren’t allowed to see us to our plane. I don’t know how many of us would actually leave if they did come so it’s probably for the best. I can’t believe I only have five weeks left!

No School

Last Thursday I did not have school because the Pope came to Portugal. Some people believe that all Portuguese are very Catholic and very religious, but it really depends on the family. My first family went to church almost every week; my second family never goes. When I went to Galeana a few weeks ago there were groups people walking along the highway. In each group, there were about 2 to 5 people. Some had walking sticks and bright neon construction vests. If they had anything else, it was a small backpack or fanny pack. My host sister explained that they were going on “pilgrimages” to Leiria. To show their devotion to God, they sleep on the floors at places like fire stations. When the Pope came to Portugal he went to Lisbon first and then to Leiria to give a mass. Lots of people from Santarèm went in groups and walked to see him speak.

I took advantage of the day off from school and had another foreign exchange student visit me. Ari is also from the US and is here for 6 months. The five other Americans and I have kept in contact with each other. We email each other a lot and have been planning to get together. She is in Evora and really wanted to see more of Portugal so she came to visit me in Santarèm. Since Portugal, is a small country you can take a bus pretty much anywhere. My host sister went with me and we showed Ari around the city. We went back to Portas de Sol, looked at the old churches, and explored all the little shops. I showed her my school (I think I was the only student who went near the school on a day it was closed). The sun was shining and it was a perfect day to be outside. Santarèm is known for two pastries, pampilhos and celestes, so we went to the best pasteleria in the city to get them. Pampilhos are made of a sweet dough about an inch wide and three inches long and filled with a sweet custard. Celestes are made of an egg custard mixture and have chopped almonds mixed in and are wrapped in a paper-thin dough. We went to an Italian restaurant for lunch (It’s not that we’re sick of Portuguese food, but good Italian pizza sounded delicious). Wandering on one of the narrow roads we found an amazing chocolate shop. Tucked off to the side, with a small door and tiny window display, we walked right passed the first time. Luckily we realized our mistake and turned around. The inside was filled with a wall of wine, a wall of jam and a glass counter filled with chocolates. The flavors were endless: butter cream and champagne, caramel, praline, strawberry, apricot, cherries dipped in chocolate with liquor, dark chocolate mouse and ten types of truffles including, cappuccino, almond, dark chocolate. We did limit ourselves to one chocolate apiece since we were still full from lunch. We found a little shop with Portuguese souvenirs and we both finally bought a Portuguese flag. Our feet were sore by the end of the day, but we had so much fun! I may take a bus to Evora later this week so she can show me around her city.

Futebol!

Portuguese love their soccer (or futebol) teams. When I first arrived everyone asked, “So what club are you?” and I had no idea what they were talking about. Everyone still asks what my club is, but now I can answer. My family is Sporting Clube de Portugal so that’s the club I cheer for. There are different levels of soccer teams. The team in Santarèm is in a lower level because they aren’t very good. The three best teams are Benfica, Sporting Clube de Portugal and Porto. Benfica and Sporting are based in Lisbon and Porto is from Porto in northern Portugal. Yesterday, Benfica won the Portuguese League Crown for the 32 time. Before the Benfica game started, they were predicted to have a 94% chance of winning. Before the game started cars were honking in the streets and it sounded like fireworks were going off. After it was official that Benfica won, Benfica fans rushed to their cars and paraded down the street. They were honking and waving Benfica flags out the windows. The honking continued until after 11 p.m. In school today, Benfica fans were running down the halls with red scarves. In class, one guy laid out a red Benfica banner on his desk. The Sporting fans silently sulked. Sporting and Benfica are like the Yankees and Red Socks rivalry. Everyone will unite in June during the World Cup to cheer on Portugal.