My Brazilian exchange student life commenced exactly 2 months and one day ago when I arrived with my fellow exchange friend from Minnesota, Cristian Perez, in the airport on Belo Horizonte, after roughly a day of traveling, waiting and learning all the way to Brasil. This ambitious adventure started the moment I hugged my host dad and my three brothers and walked to the car in the parking lot while conversing sporadically in half English and Portguese.
Since my first day I have adapted to a completely different city life filled with buses, traffic, hobos, skyscrapers, and lots and lots of adventure.
My school is called Sebrae and it is a technical and business high school in BH. It has about 500 students from ages 15-18. I am in the second level, equivilant to junior year, because then next year I will move with my class to the third year, or senior year. Here I stay with the same class all day which is a great change from the continuous changing back home. I like it much more though because I have been able to get to know my class mates much better and make friends easier because I am with them all day.
Alphaville is quite far from the city yet I attend school in the city so i take two buses to and from school every morning unless my dad drives me in the morning.
Because Sebrae is a technical school I have to take normal classes along with business and technical classes, such as marketing, logistics, and business simulation.
In all my travels around the globe, I have never encountered such a welcoming and open culture in my life. The moment I set foot in Sebrae there were flocks of people attempting to talk to me in English and asking me questions about my family back home. I immediately made friends and I always have at least 4 invitiations to go out on the weekend. ´
Another wonderful thing about Brazilian youth is that in school there are groups but everyone talks to each other. No one judges each other so my school is an extremely open and loving environment that I have thrived in.
The relations with the teachers and students is so loving I was shocked. Students love to hug and kiss the teachers and tell them about their weekends. I too have started to greet my favorite teachers with a great big hug and a kiss on the cheek, followed by their interested questions of how I am adapting to school and the courses.
Buses were another huge adaptation that i cant even image my life with out now. Depending on the hour of the day the buses are crowded yet i love riding them because they show me the city and all the people living within. Buses here cost R$2.30 each time you get on so a good deal of my allowance is spent on the bus fare.
November 29, 2009
-
Skins
The British series called Skins is dragging me in. My brother introduced it to me and i am completely addicted to the series that follows a group of teenagers from Bristol as they go through life filled with partying, dysfunctional families, sex, drugs and death.
- video
-
Retiro Das Pedras
Retiro Das Pedras is a condominium, like a gated community, about 30 minutes outside of BH and where my Icelandic friend, Kristrún lives. It is the oldest condominium in all of Brasil and it is absolutely gorgeous. It has a marvelous view.
-
"Before you knock it, try it first."
- ~Ben Harper
-
Meu Aniversario
Today is my birthday (aniversario) and i am having a wonderful day so far! it started at midnight in the wee hours of the morning with all of my friends at a praca (park) singing happy birthday in 5 or more different languages! I loved it! It felt so great to have so many good friends from all over the world wishing me a great new year.
Today I am celebrating with my family by dining at an Indian restaurant, the only one in Belo Horizonte, because i miss the great Indian food from Northfield. There are not that many ethnic restaurants in Belo Horizonte, for example there is only one Mexican restaurant here!
I am about to complete my fourth month in Brasil and like so many people told me, every month goes by more quickly than the last. While hanging out with my exchange friends, who i got out with every weekend and spend most of my spare time with, i brought up how we are not going to be just lazying around Brasil forever and we are going to have to go back to our lives full of responsibility in less than 8 months!!!!!!! We all just looked at eachother and realized how much we loved eachother and how we have all become suck great friends in such a short time. I love my exchange friends because we are all going through the same adjustments to the Brazilian cuture and are all here by ourselves. I have come to realize how much i appreciate their friendship and support.
My closest friends here are Kristrún (Icelandic), Sophie (Dutch), Rui (South Africa), Cristian (USA, MN), Madelene (USA, Ohio), and Nilo (Brazilian). I am constantly with them and we have become our own little gang that all of the restaurants in Savassi, a district where a lot of younger people hang out, have started to recognize! We all have so much fun together and I cant even imagine what i am going to do when i have to leave them!
The Brazilian school year is almost over in a few weeks and then i will be home free from school for 2 months! At the moment i am in high school but i am looking into taking anthropology, sociology, or studying another language at a university here in BH because i can attend classes for free and they are much more interesting than repeating all the material from my high school years!
From Jan. 4th to the 28th i will be on the Northeast Dream Tour to all the beaches of the Northeast with 50 other exchange students from my district. Estou muito muito muito animado para o viagem!
November 11, 2009
-
Now that i am in a happy new family and am very accustomed to my new daily life, i have realized that i have no troubles, besides having too many things to do that i can´t fit them all in.
Right now i am taking Portuguese classes with about 20 other exchange students who are living in Belo Horizonte with me. They are three times a week and i have gotten to really enjoy them because i have gotten to know all the exchange students very well because we are together for six hours of class and then go out afterwards. I am so happy that i have a solid group of people that i can count on at any moment. Unfortunately the lessons will end next week on Monday so i guess we are going to have to try a little harder to get together but that wont be a problem because we are always in touch.
I also am going to start taking kick boxing classes two days a week so i can stay in shape. In my last house i was able to run outside and around the lake because i lived out of the city but now i live in the heart of the city and there is no running area. People do run in the middle median which separates the two lanes of road but i am always returning home around 7 or 8 every night because of my late school schedule and hour long bus ride so it is not very safe if i ran at night time. So boxing and the building work out area is where is am exercising now, or attempting to.
The exchange students in Brazil have an option to go on several trips around Brazil and i have decided to go on the Northeast trip. This trip takes a bus load or two of exchange students for one month to tour all of the Northeast beaches of Brazil and Rio! I have heard from everyone that this trip is the best trip that they offer and you get to see so much of Brazil. I am extatic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The trip in from Jan. 4-26th so hopefully i will be a little tan by the time i return to BH and not a tomato!
October 20, 2009
-
Since my last entry much has changed. I have moved to my second family and my life has taken on a marvelous glow. I now live in a district or bairro called Ipiranga, which is about 25 minutes by bus to the center or the bairro of Savassi (where all the teenagers hang out). This is a magnificent change since I was previously used to an hour to just get to school. Unfortunately the bus ride to school is pretty lengthly yet I only have to take one bus instead of two.
I now live in an apartment which I love cause i get to have my own set of keys, which I find extremely fun. It must be because in Northfield we don´t even lock our doors so a set of keys to myself is very grown up! Living in an apartment means very little space so I share a room with Raquel and also a closet! At this time of the year, spring, it rains almost everyday which effects the electiricity so our lights go off and on during the storms. I don´t mind it in the least except that we have to unplug all the computers and tv because otherwise they might get electricuted. Also here when it is raining most people dont pick up their home phone lines because they think that they will get electricuted.
My new family is wonderful and has helped me so much with my sudden move. I have one brother, Markinho (17), one sister, Raquel (15), my mom´s name is Regane and my dad´s name is Marco. I also have a poodle, Maggie, who is 15 years old. I have never even seen a dog that old before and it surprisingly can still jumps onto beds and beg for food without much difficulty.
My mom is a Portuguese teacher and is also at the moment taking night classes to get degrees in both Environmental Conservation and Sociology. She also paints and there are a couple paintings in our apartment.
My dad works for an insurance, Liberty Mutual. He is passionate about three things: soccer, coffee and Carnaval! I seriously can´t think of anything better. Due to his coffee obsession, my family has a country house about two hours south of Belo Horizonte, in Santo Antonio, with a coffee farm! We usually go to the sitio every other weekend. I love going to the country because it gives me a needed break from the city. Similar to Minnesota where every family has a cabin, in Belo Horizonte everyone has a sitio or fazenda (farm) in the country where they go on the weekends.
Here in BH there are three teams: Atlético, Cruzeiro, and Galo. Yet my dad, sister, and brother are Corinthians fans (from São Paulo). And almost every Sunday my dad and sister go to the Mineirão, the enormous soccer stadium where some of the World Cup games are going to be played in 2014. So on Sunday I went to a Cruzeiro vs. Botafogo (Rio) and entered the world of futebol. It was amazing to feel the togetherness of an entire crowd all against the other fans and team.
October 8, 2009
-
everything nice... and yoga
On Tuesday i commenced the long and winding road destined toward meditation and self control. Marcello, a Rotarian who chaperoned my first orientation, is a personal yoga trainer and invited me to join his classes every Tuesday and Thursday at 15:00. Never actually attending a yoga class in my life and only with the thoughts of how it “changed” the lives of so many before me, i entered the matted and blue-painted room filled with cushions and smelling of inscents. yum… my first instinctive thought. That train of thought clung to me the entire hour of class, while i twisted, turned and pushed my body in way i thought impossible. Let´s just say that i will continue down this path with out hesitation.
October 4, 2009
-
the city itself
Since I have been here a while, everything is very normal to me so I forgot to tell you a little about Belo Horizonte.
BH is the capital of the state of Minas Gerais and is completely surrounded by mountains, thus the sunsets are absolutely gorgeous. It is the third largest city in Brasil, with aprox. 5.4 million with the surrounding metropolitan area. The city it self has aprox. 2.4 million.
Here is a link with much more information and pictures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belo_Horizonte
