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...
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