Thursdays are definitely my favorite day of the school week! So I arrived at school about five minutes before the bell rang. My host brother went off with his friends so I decided to head up to my classroom. As I rounded the corner to the stairs, I saw a huge furry creature at the end of the hall. It was half waddling, half scampering as it plowed into the doorway of the office. I couldn't tell what it was at first. It was about the size of a small corgi dog and it had all different colored fur. As it disappeared into the office I realized it was a very fat cat. I asked one of my classmates and they explained that the school had two cats that lived there. There use to be a dog too, but now it's fertilizing dandelions (if you get what I mean). I think the cats use to be strays then someone fed them and they stayed. Personally, I think a cow would look lovely in the courtyard at my old high school.

In Psychology, we talked about hippies. The guys were eager to explain what American music artists influenced the era. In gym we played volleyball. I was so ecstatic that I didn't have to play before I left my other high school because playing volleyball usually consisted of me ducking and apologizing for missing the spiring orb that was coming crashing towards my head. Well I haven't improved much, though I tried not to duck. We joined with another class so I got to sit out with some other girls for the last few minutes. They proceeded to sing at the top of their lungs any song that popped into their heads. It was hysterical when the gym teacher started dancing. The kids bring their gym clothes in every gym day. There is a lady who takes their student card and in return gives them a key for a locker to use during class. The locker room is much smaller than at my old school, with only one row of lockers and three shower sections where we change. Even though it's warmer here than NY (around 50 degrees), the school is colder. Really, I'm not kidding, I know how cold my old school can be. But they have no central heating in the school so everyone just keeps their jackets on. Some kids even wear gloves in class. I can't wait for April when it'll be much warmer. In Sociology we finished watching The Constant Gardener and started The Dead Poets Society.

After school, my host mother picked me and my host brother up and we went out for lunch in Santarem. After we went to the heart of Santarem where all the shops are. I got the rest of my school books and got to window shop. The road around the shops is made of cobblestones and there are mosaics on many of the shop walls. We stopped at my favorite shop, the Pasteleria for croissants and rolls. We also went food shopping before heading home. My history teacher let me take home and finish my test that we took on Wednesday. After translating the question on the internet, I realized I wrote some completely different answers so I have to fix that. I have a psychology test Monday. Now that I have the book, I need to start translating it. I predict lots of studying for the weekend...

You expect us to Run?

Sunday I went to church with my family. I asked them what time church started and they replied noon, so I asked what time we would leave and they replied noon. That's Portugal for you! Promptness isn't always a concern. Students wander into class 10 minutes late and teachers hardly blink. Monday was the longest day of school. Who ever thought of these 1 hour 40 minute classes obviously never sat through one before. I can say I have perfected doodling in all my margins. Too bad I'm not in art. I had Psychology, History, and Portuguese. In Psychology we actually talk about the same things that I learned in the JCC class I took my junior year. We talked about some of the same experiments that I studied last year so I can understand some discussion. History was okay, but Portuguese was hopeless. All they do is read long poems and discuss them for 100 minutes.... I thought the class was never going to end! Today's classes were better because I had PE to break up listening to random words. I did research for my project in my first class then headed off to PE. It was freezing outside and inside today, but we went outside to run. I truly believe I was the only person who kept running for the whole 10-15 minutes we were outside. The guys here are girlier than the girls I joke with my friends and they agree. 3 out of the 5 guys in my class have compact mirrors and they check their reflection in any reflective surface possible, including the car windows as we headed back in the school after our run. The guys couldn't believe I didn't know any of Portugal's soccer stars. I had to explain that America was all about football, basketball and baseball. Soccer is a religion here and you can definitely tell by how good all the guys are at playing soccer. For the remainder of the class, we played soccer with another class and all the guys have amazing footwork skills. Tomorrow I have a mini History test that I think is about the Soviets spreading communism... at least that's what I hope it's on. I don't have any of my course books yet, so it's kind of hard to study, but there's always the internet.

Weekend

On Saturday, Jan. 23 I went with my host family to do some errands. We went to a pasteleria in Santerem. They had rows and rows of delicious looking pastries. One typical Portuguese pastry is phyllo dough in a mini pie shape filled with an egg mixture that is baked until it is browned. They had all kinds of cakes and donuts and fresh croissants. You could also get coffee there. I have yet to see anyone drink a cup of coffee. They have espresso that they serve in tiny tea cups a little bigger than the size of a shot glass. After purchasing some pastries and rolls we headed off to some more shops. We went to a bakery to get more fresh bread. The bread they get has a very hard crust, but is really soft of the inside. Perfect for spreading all the great cheeses on. They have really good goat cheese and other milder cheeses that are served with lunch and dinner. After the bakery, we went to a magazine shop and then to their "mall" to get me a portuguese/english dictionary. Then we went to the butcher shop. My family was surprised that I didn't have a butcher shop in my town. "Where do you get your meat?" They asked. "The supermarket." I replied. The butcher has the meat displayed behind glass. First pork, beef, lamb and then poultry. They told me if you want goat you have to call ahead to get it. The butcher had another display of sliced meat and sausages.

For dinner Saturday night my host family's relatives came over. We had an indoors barbecue. We all sat around the kitchen table. There were two portable stove tops placed in the center of us. They had a square base and a teflon circular plate on top. There was some fuel in the base that made a flame under the plate so it was like a gas stove top. There were platters of meat and everyone took what they wanted and cooked it themselves on the hot plates. After dinner, my host sister and I watched an episode of Glee.

I have been keeping in touch with the other four American students who are in Portugal. We've commented that our host families are more American than we are. They watch all the American movies and TV shows. An important thing to do, or not to do I should say, is to have no expectations. It's hard, but it makes everything easier. If you don't have a preset mindset about how everything will be then you can be much more flexible when it doesn't go according to plan (and you can be surprised). There were also some stereotypes that us foreign exchange students related to the Portuguese culture, which weren't entirely true. For example, not all Portuguese take their time and have a slower pace than Americans. My family rushes around everywhere. Plus all Portuguese are not shorter than Americans. My family is very tall. The mother is close to 6 feet so me thinking I would be with people my height, yeah not really. ; )

It's a Small World

Yesterday I had Sociology, Project, and Psychology class. I have absolutely no idea what the teacher talked about in Sociology. All I know is that she went over the homework (which I couldn't do, since I don't have the books yet). In Project we went to the computer lab an looked up information for our report. And in Psychology we talked about conforming to groups. We had a girl step out of the room and the teacher drew three lines of different heights on the board labeled A, B, C. Then she drew another line the same size as C, but told us to all say that it matched line B. The girl came back in and we all said B matched the line so she did too, even though the evidence was right in front of her. Another thing about the school, which is kind of awkward, they don't have toilet paper in the stalls in the bathrooms. They have toilet paper as you walk in the bathroom, but not in the stalls, which I think is very strange. One of the girls in my class invited me to come to her martial arts class sometime. I think that would be lots of fun to do. My family picked me up from school early and we went to Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. It's about the distance from South Lewis to Watertown I think. Of course we made it there very quickly because Europeans drive very very fast. My host father reached 185 km/hr on the highway which is 115 mph! In Lisbon, we ate at an Italian Restaurant. The owner was American, but he learned to cook in Italy. The ironic thing was he knew where Syracuse was and expressed how much he liked upstate NY. "There really is no place like it!" he exclaimed. Thinking about it, I had to agree. You really don't realize how much you appreciate places, people, things until you don't have them anymore. (And there really is no place exactly like northern NY). We went to the hospital after to visit a relative with a broken leg. We went to one of the shopping malls after. The mall had expensive stores like Tommy Hilfiger, Prada, and Armani. Below the clothing shops was a supermarket. Portugal has some similar brand names (like Barilla Pasta and Vitamin Water), but lots of different European ones as well. Of course being close to the ocean, their seafood selection is much better than upstate NY too. The mall had moving ramps so people could take their shopping cart right to the parking garage. To get into and out of the parking garage, you have to drive on a winding ramp that is very very narrow. If I rolled down my window, I would only have to stick my pinky finger out and I could have touched the wall. That being said, I have only seem one hummer since I've arrived. Most everyone has very small cars because the streets are so narrow and there really is no need for enormous vehicles. Some Europeans refer to American vehicles as "muscle cars" because of their huge size. On the car ride back to Santarem, the roads were packed because it was rush hour. Europeans don't believe in leaving room in any direction when they drive. All the cars were literally bumper to bumper.

2nd Day of School

So today (1/20/2010) I had Portuguese class, Sociology class and then History. In Portuguese class they read a poem that was about some general (I really only knew that because there was a huge picture of a general on the page next to the words). They discussed it after and I tried to pick out words I knew. Then after the fifteen minute break I went to Sociology. I don`t really know what we talked about. Something about globalization.... The class had homework, but I don`t have my books yet, so I can`t do it. Then my final class was history. I had history yesterday too and today we had to take a test. The teacher let me use a book and try to answer the essay question. The test was a document on the Potstam Conferance after WWII and the students had to write about what the world was going through at this time. I used the book and tried to pick out phrases and words I knew. I wanted to say a lot more, but I didn`t know the Porguguese translation. I hope the teacher will be able to understand my broken Portuguese sentences. After the test, the teacher lectured. I could understand more today. I could understand that the main topic of discussion was alliances after WW II but I didn`t get all the details they talked about. I could answer a few questions the teacher asked me about NATO but mostly I just tried to follow along with the discussion.

A little bit more about my class... I am with the same group of students for all my courses. There are 15 students, not including me (5 boys and 10 girls). The school is under construction so we have some of our classes in trailer-like buildings that are set up outside. The buildings are two levels with four classrooms on each level. There are three rows of tables with about five tables in each row. Each table has two chairs. The teachers either speak or just write on the white boards. The walls are bare and white but there are windows on either side. One of my classes will be taking a trip to Lisbon to see Universities later in February so that should be fun. Tomorrow I will have Psychology class, Gym class, and Sociology. Every Thursday in Sociology we watch a movie so it will be easier to understand. My host mother is helping me learn pronunciations of words. I have to forget how letters sound in English and learn a whole new way to say the letters.

Handball!

So today (1/21/2010) I had psychology class first. My class is with another class for this course so there were about 30 students in the room. The teacher spoke English (thankfully) and had me introduce myself to the class. I can at least introduce myself in Portuguse. One of the girls told me that the guys were speaking English to me to try and impress me, which I thought was funny. In the class, they talked about peer pressure and how people change so they are excepted into groups. They had some discussion about how centries ago, people had different values and different looks were acceptable back then, but it`s different now. We had to go around the room and give an example (like how years ago pale skin was a status, the rich people were pale because they didn`t have to work, but now people tan to fit in) I gave an example about how religion isn`t as important. The class was very noisy, but when I talked they got dead silent and just listened.

Next, I had gym class and we played handball. The guys and the girls have class together. Handball was fun, but my throwing skills are not too good. In gym, they run warm up and stretch. The people aren`t anymore athletic than students in the US. Some of the guys get into it, but they aren`t all hardcore athletes. In Sociology class we watched The Constant Gardener in English with Portuguese subtitles so I could actually understand that.

Another thing that`s different in Europe is the amount of kids that smoke. Almost everyone smokes. During break, I went outside with one of the girls from my class and all her friends were smoking. It`s normal for kids here and nobody thinks twice. Another random new thing today, I tried Nutella for the first time. It`s the European version of peanut butter (they don`t have peanut butter here). It`s a chocolate hazelnut spread and it`s really good on toast.

First Day of School

I had my first day at my Portuguese school today (1/19/2010). Before school, I was ready to barf. I could just picture myself getting lost, no one understanding me, and being confused. Though I was confused in History class, the rest of the day went by much easier than I thought it would. I have classes from 8:30 am to 1:30 pm every day so 3:30 am to 8:30 am NY time. (So I am finished with school, by the time students at South Lewis finish first period.) I only have three classes every day, but before you all get jealous, know that they are very long. Each class is 1 hour 40 minutes with a 15 minute break in between each class. The kids were very nice and they helped me a lot. They are really gracious and went out of their way to make sure I knew where I was going. Most of them speak English and they are eager to help me with my Portuguese.

I had a project class first. All the seniors must work on a project for a year and I joined a group that is doing their project about prejudice against homosexuality. Then I had gym and then history. History was very hard because it was all in Portuguese and I could barely understand anything and the teacher kept trying to ask me questions in Portuguese. Like, "What document started The Cold War?" At least that was the translation I got so I was confused. I could answer a little about what the Marshall Plan was and how it provided aid to Europe. The students know more little details about US History than I do. I kept turning to the girl next to me to translate the teachers questions. In History, they are learning about the Cold War and they have a test tomorrow. The teacher wants me to try to take the test with the book open, but the book is in Portuguese so it will be hard. Tomorrow I have Portuguese, Sociology and then History again. I also have a Psychology class later in the week. I was put in a Humanities track so those are all the subjects in that track. The school is on a week schedule, instead of a 6 day schedule like at South Lewis. So every Monday I will have the same three classes and every Tuesday I will have a different three classes and so on and so on. Some classes I only have twice a week, History I have three times a week. Everyday I will come back to my host familys home for lunch since I do not have afternoon classes. I may get a tutor to help me learn Portuguese in the afternoon so I can actually understand what the teachers are talking about. So all in all my first day was not too bad. Hopefully, I will learn the language very fast so I can participate more in classes.

Not in NY Anymore...

Well a lot has happened, I have lost track of how much time as passed and how long I have been here. After my orientation in NYC all ten of us (5 going to Portugal and 5 to Ghana) all borded the same plane for London Thursday at 10:50 pm. In London we split up and we continued on to Portugal. The next time we will see each other, is on the plane ride from London back to America at the end of June. We arrived in Portugal at 7pm (their time) or as they say it 19:00 on Friday. The five of us were picked up by AFS volunteers at the Lisbon airport. As soon as we stepped off the plane all I could think is we are not in NY anymore. It was dark when we arrived and raining a little. It was about 55 degrees outside and there were palm trees lining the street. All these people were speaking fast around us. Portuguese is a beautiful language, but difficult to learn. We drove in a van to a town outside of Lisbon for our orientation. I could barely keep my eyes open on the ride there. I only slept about 2.5 hours since we left NYC; we were all exhausted. The traffic was horrible so we had to inch our way out of the city. And Europeans drive like racecar drivers. My host mother speeds around the cobble stone roads and tiny streets like it is no problem. Lisbon is a beautiful city. I kept falling half asleep and I would dream in English. But when I woke up, all I could hear was Portuguese so it felt like I was in a dream, where I could not understand anything at all. Except for the radio, that is. In Portugal they have to play 60% American and 40% Portuguese. LMFAO and the Black Eyed Peas played on the radio in the van. Once we reached the orientation site, we met the five other exchange students who are going to be studying in Portugal for 6 months. There were four students from Argentina and one from Chile. We all became close in the three days we spent together. The next orientation will be in about 6 weeks and all ten of us will get together again. Sunday afternoon we got to meet our host families. My host family could not come get me so I had to ride a bus for an hour and a half to the city Santarem, where they met me at the bus station. My host parents and my host brother Fernanda speak good English, but I am becoming a pro at sign language and acting out if they do not understand. My two host sisters speak some English as well. I am helping the family with their English and in return they will help me speak Portuguese.
Their house is really beautiful. They live outside of Santarem in the country surrounded by fields and vineyards. The father grows crops like corn and wheat. He also has a cork tree plantation in southern Portugal. The family has two huge black dogs, many horses and deer (but they do not raise the deer to eat). There is a woman who cooks for the family and they have maids to clean. The food is very good, but very rich. I better start running if I expect to be able to fit through the door. Portuguese eat with their left hands, except when eating soup, and getting use to eating like that is hard. We had pasta last night so that was a challenge (Next time you are eating spaghetti, try eating with your left hand). I have my own room, but I am still expected to make my bed every moring and keep it clean. I always laughed at people who said they could not learn how to flush the toilet. I mean how hard could it be? It took me about five minutes to figure out you had to turn this knob above the toilet to flush. Every little thing I figure out by myself, I feel accomplished as silly as that sounds. I still have not seen the gardens outside, but my host sister Maria said she would show me around when she gets back from school.
The high school I am going to has about 900 students. I start tomorrow and I am very nervous. I went there today to fill out some paperwork and the secretaries were very confused with my courses from NY. In Europe, students pick a track like art, math, science, humanities, or technology when they start high school. Then each year in high school they take the same courses, but at a higher level. They could not understand why I kept taking different classes each year and they could not understand that there was not a specific name or track to classify the classes I took. Finally my host mother worked it out, and I am in a humanities track. I will be in classes like Geography, History, English (maybe I can actually pass that), Portuguese, physical education and some more that I do not know. Everyone says that the math and science is much harder than the US. Everyone also says that school in general is very hard in Portugal and you have to study a lot. It should be interesting since all my classes are also in Portuguese. Every day my class schedule will be different. For example, Fernando only had math today in the morning and he is home for the rest of the day. Maria did not go into school until 1 and she only had math and P.E. today. Hopefully tomorrow I do not get lost at school and I actually meet some students who speak English. It is hard to stand there while people have conversations and you have no idea what they are talking about.
Last night I watched the Portuguese Idols, which is the Portuguese version of American Idol so it is funny to compare. They watch lots of American tv shows, but they have such long commercial breaks! The commercials can take 10 minutes or more.
Next time, I will write about how school goes for me. It will be interesting...

At the First Orientation

I can't believe I'll be in London in less than 24 hours and Portugal soon there after! It didn't even feel like I was leaving until the day before. I finished packing this morning before I left. I have one duffle and one huge suitcase, which are both thankfully under the weight limit. Right now, I'm at my Orientation in NYC. There are five kids (including myself), three girls and two boys, who are going to Portugal (these are all the kids from the US that are going for 6 months). There are five other kids who are going to be studying or doing community work in Ghana who are also at our orientation. All ten of us will depart tomorrow night for London. Once in London our groups will take different flights and five will head to Portugal and five will go to Ghana. I'm relieved that the other kids aren't completely fluent in the language because I am definitely not right now. Once in Portugal I will have another Orientation with all the kids from around the world that are going. Then it's off to my host family. During my stay in Portugal, the four kids who are traveling to Portugal and I will reconnect so that should be interesting so learn about all of our different experiences. I'm super excited to meet my host family!