This weekend was our 6 week point! We had an AFS orientation in a town called Coruche, which is about an hour away from Minde. We were supposed to bring food from our home country or area, so I brought biscochitos, which are traditional New Mexican cookies. I woke up early on Friday to make them, and accidentally burned the entire second batch. I wasn't too torn up about that though, because I got to eat those ones. My host family wasn't home because it was Friday morning, so Lina took me and Alexandra, the other New Mexican in Minde, to get our bus tickets to Lisboa. We rushed home, I finished packing and we walked to the bus stop. The bus to Lisboa only had 4 other passengers on it, so me and Alexandra took up the whole back row. When we got off the bus in Lisboa, we didn't see any AFS people, so we walked outside and sat down on a bench until another American, Emily, called us and found us. We then took the metro to another bus station, with a HUGE shopping mall on top. We ate lunch there, and did a little shopping and walking around. I had an amazing crepe in that mall. When all the other semester exchangers had arrived, we took a bus to Coruche, where we would be staying. We played a few name games that night, and went to bed kind of early. The next day we had a lot of discussions and activities about difficulties or problems we're having and how to solve them. We walked around Coruche a little bit too, and went to a museum and a room that had pictures all about bull fighting.
This whole time, I've been wanting to get more integrated with the South and Central Americans, because we didn't really get to know them at the last orientation because we got there late and they spoke only Spanish and we spoke only English. Most of them spoke a little English, and most of us a little Spanish, but not enough to really have a good time together. So on Saturday night, me and Emily asked them to teach us how to dance and show us their Latin music, and we stayed up until about 2 in the morning dancing and singing. The other Americans didn't really mingle with them like we did, and they really missed out because we took on several different cultures at once, made new friends and had an amazing time.
Sunday morning we woke up, did a few more activities and packed up all our stuff. At 2, the kids that were riding the busses back to their host communities left on a bus to Lisboa, and there were lots of beijinhos (little kisses) and hugs. A little after 2, the rest of our parents showed up and we waited until 5:30 for them to have an orientation, and then went home.
Also, the entire orientation was in Portuguese, which is probably what gave me the headache that prevented me from going to school today.
I had a field trip to Lisboa on Thursday, and had a great time with my friends and classmates. We went to a play called Os Maias, which is an old play about incest written by a famous Portuguese writer. I didn't understand much, but the actors kept coming into the audience and doing stuff with us, and I was in the front row, which was targeted the most. We went to the center of Lisboa and walked around this huge square for lunch. Inês, me, Diana and Helena all really had to go to the bathroom, but didn't want to have to buy something from a café to do so, so after about 30 minutes of frantic searching, we finally found one in a museum. It was a really warm day, which was nice because we could leave our jackets on the bus and enjoy the sun. (: Then we walked around a little bit with a guide, who told us all about places in Lisboa that were in the book Os Maias. It was really boring, but my class was really nice and they all talked to me (even the boys, who had never really talked to me before) to make sure I wasn't too incredibly bored. I love my class. The bus ride back was insane, people were running up and down the aisles (is that the right word? I'm seriously forgetting my English) and yelling and it was just an amazing day.
I never realize how amazing the other exchangers are until I leave them. I miss them all like crazy now, but I feel like this weekend really improved my Portuguese speaking skills.
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Me, Inês, Helena, Diana (: |
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Me and some of the South/Central American girls |
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Coruche |
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Bull fighting poster |
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Me and Coruche |
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Coruche a noite. |
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♥ |
Beijiinhos. (: