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!