Greetings!

Just like after any vacation, waking up early to go to school was difficult. Half of my school has been closed off and under construction since last summer. The newly renovated half was opened the day we arrived back to school. The half we were using is now closed down for construction. The workers moved the trailer like classrooms to the new side of the school because there still aren’t enough classrooms open inside the school. I have a few classes in the outside classrooms, but most are in the school. They repainted the school a brilliant mustard yellow. The color is so obtrusive and it burns your eyes to look at it when the sun reflects off of it. The inside is much calmer, though they must like bright colors because every classroom door is bright red with reddish/pinkish plexiglas in the middle. Sadly, the classrooms are painted a stark white. The teachers don’t move class to class so there is nothing on the walls. Everyone seems to like the renovations though. Besides the paint colors, I can’t complain. The new half is a lot nicer and fresher than the old side. We also have a huge new gym. It’s not finished yet though and I don’t know when it will be open.

On Wednesday I celebrated my 18^th birthday. My host sister passed her driving test so she drove me to school. I had lunch with my friends in a restaurant decorated with bull fighting posters and pictures. The food was delicious and we had lots of fun.

I don’t believe I’ve talked about how Portuguese greet people. When you greet someone, you give him or her one or two kisses (Guys to guys give handshakes or just say “hey”). You start moving to the left so your right cheek brushes their right cheek and then give an air kiss. Some people kiss cheeks if they know you better. The next step is tricky. Unfortunately, you can’t tell just by looking at a person if they give one or two kisses. You have to pull back slowly and see if the person moves to the right to kiss your left cheek or if they pull back. If they go in for another kiss, you have to do the same or else it’s awkward. While meeting someone for the first time I gave one kiss then pulled back, but the other person leaned in. I proceeded to lean in, right as they were pulling away. We clumsily knocked cheeks for the second kiss and it was very awkward. After that experience, when meeting new people my host sister tries to whisper to me or hold up one or two fingers to let me know how many kisses to give. There’s definitely an art to the Portuguese greeting. Now if people are across the street you don’t have to run over to give them kisses a wave will suffice for that. Sometimes people just say “hey” when they greet each other and just skip the kissing part, but you never really know what they’re going to do. Portuguese also kiss goodbye too.

This past weekend I was supposed to go to Galeana. My host sister’s father was going to pick the cows for breeding. They have a mock bullfight so they can find the most aggressive cows and use them for breeding aggressive bulls. It rained all last week and over the weekend so it was canceled. It is tentatively changed to this next weekend so hopefully I will get to go. Instead of going all the way to Galeana, we went to visit their grandparents in Evora for the weekend, which was nice. We’re supposed to have thunderstorms for the rest of the week, but at least it’s not snow. For an end statement: Beijinhos! Kisses! (It’s something Portuguese say when they’re saying good-bye to someone on the phone, someone in person (after giving actual kisses), or an ending for an informal letter.)