Getting Here

My year abroad always seemed so far away - I had months to buy gifts, take Portuguese lessons, stalk other exchanger's blogs and dream about my own excahange. Despite this, my departure date creeped up out of no where. Suddenly I had only one week to pack and so many people to say goodbye to. Leaving home was a lot harder than I expected it to be, and I suppose that is a testament to what good family and friends I have in Minnesota.

My parents sent me off from the airport (Mark had his All State Choir concert and James was at St. Olaf watching), and despite a few fits of tears, everything went smoothly. From Minneapolis I traveled to Houston, and from Houston I had an overnight flight to São Paulo.

The São Paulo airport is probably the scariest place in the entire world. Rotary warned us about culture shock, but this stunned me even more than I imagined. As soon as I walked into the airport lobby there were hundreds of people waiting around the customs exit to meet people, and they were speaking Portuguese at a thousand words per minute - this was especially overwhelming as I didn't know where to go put my bags for the next flight! Through some awful, tear-hiding Portuguese, a man understood that I needed help, and he lead me to the correct area to drop my bags for my flight to Rolândia. There I got my flight information and was frustrated to hear that I didn't yet have a gate for my flight as it was still six hours away. I again found myself wandering the airport, looking for the area to go through security (you think that'd be obvious but it wasn't!), but with a little bit of help I found my way and was able to calm down quite a bit.

My flight from São Paulo had a stopover in Curitiba, the capital of Paranà (the state where I live), and next went to Londrina, a town about 20 km away from my home in Rolândia. There were over twenty people at the airport to greet me, and even more came to my house afterwards. The feeling of being at my home in Brazil is drastically different than being by myself in the airport - I feel so much better to be with my host family - they are some of the kindest people I have ever met and are very helpful with my Portuguese.

My family at the airport

The language is going better than I expected (especially after how difficult São Paulo was) - I understand about half of what is going on. Speaking is more difficult, but still okay. I do a lot of nodding and smiling, and my family is very excited when I'm able to speak a sophisticated sentence.

First day of school

Yesterday, I visited my school, got my uniform (yoga pants and a t-shirt with "Bom Jesus" on it), and walked around town with my host mom. I started school today - I will have to do another post on school later. The kids are VERY loud and the entire classroom dynamic is very different than that in the United States. My classmates are all very kind and ask alot of questions about the United States - if I drive, have I seen a baseball game, what type of music is popular, etc.

I am keeping very busy this week between visiting family, going to school, walking around town, getting my police papers settled, exercising at the club, and taking some greatly-needed naps. Tomorrow I have school until six pm (!!!) and then am going to Londrina for a special mass and dinner. Thursday night I have a Rotary meeting (there are 32 exchange students in my district but I am the only one in my town) and Friday my family is going out to dinner. I am very much enjoying my time here and can't wait until I better understand the language so I start fully participating in the Brazilian lifestyle!

Beijos,
Kate