O meu regresso (my return)

Hi everyone!
well right now i'm sitting in my room back in the U S of A! I got back saturday but things have been a bit crazy since then (traveling around new england a bit) so here I am, finally writing my last blog.
I guess you'd like to hear about my adventures traveling around portugal...
the friday after i went to porto i went to Leiria (in the coastal central area of Portugal) for an AFS camp, where we basically talked about what it would be like to go home. Monday and tuesday liz and I went to Évora, which is one of my favorite portuguese cities, i decided. it was beautiful! they had roman ruins and also some really nice churches and walls and things.
Wednesday we went on a guided tour of some towns north of lisbon--Óbidos, a beautiful medieval town, Nazaré, which had beautiful beaches--I couldn't believe the color of the water, Batalha, where we saw a beautiful church, Alcobaça, where we saw a beautiful monastery, and Fátima, the world famous religious site where three children apparently saw the virgin mary appear in 1917. I didn't care for the religious stuff much but I loved seeing the architecture and art in the monasteries and churches.
Friday we went to Coimbra, which is also pretty and houses one of europe's oldest universities. it was quite cool! i wish american universities were so pretty. i guess they're pretty in a different way.
Saturday i woke up at 5h30 am to go on a tour of an area near zezere, in the middle of the country. unfortunately i got there and was sick the whole day, so i stayed in the bus and slept for a lot of the time. when i got home i checked my temperature--101. so that wasn't the most enjoyable day.
sunday i had my dance performance, which was a lot of fun. it was in a nice theater with stone arches and big plastic balls decorating the stage. we actually did two performances, which both went well. it was a lot of fun--i fogot how much i enjoy performing.
The next week i went to three good-bye dinners of my exchange friends and spent some time at the pool and in Lisbon. on thursday i went to cascais with some friends and walked around there and got their famous ice cream. Friday morning i packed, then went out to lunch with my friends. it was so sad saying goodbye to them! goodbyes are always so difficult.
Friday night i went to the AFS camp with a bunch of students from various countries (not all the AFSers, but a good number of them). we stayed up until 4 sitting around and talking, then went to the airport to catch our flight at 7. i was exhausted! slept all the way from lisbon to frankfurt adn then i slept some on the other flight. i got to the airport in New York and met my parents. it was funny seeing them after 10 months--it almost felt like those ten months hadn't gone by!
Being home has been good. So far it hasn't been difficult. I do miss some things about portugal (like the lack of SUVs), but i'm enjoying seeing my friends and family here. Being in portugal for a year helped me realize how much i love new england.
it was interesting coming back for the 4th of july because it was a very american patriotic time. i couldn't avoid knowing i was in america.
well, i hope you enjoyed reading my blogs!
thanks for the comments and support throughout my year.
tchau!

O Algarve e O Porto!

Oláaaa a todos!
I finished school friday (we went to school and didn't do anything) which is awesome.
Thursday night i went to a circus show in the electricity museum which was cool because they led us all around the museum during the show. but they didn't do much circus, which made me frustrated.
Friday night i went out with debi and liz and some friends of debi's who were mostly foreign, too. that was fun.
then saturday i had to wake up kind of early to go to the ALGARVE (south of portugal)with xuxu, catarina and miguel. that was wonderful. we stayed in the house of some friends of the family and went to the beach both days. the weather was wonderful and the water too--i stayed in the water for about 2 hours saturday and sunday.
The Algarve is full of tourists--most of them english adn some german. so many blond people--it was crazy! i haven't seen so many blond people since i came here. saturday afternoon after the beach we went to eat little clam things (called cadelinhas which means little female dogs--cadela isn't a bad word in portuguese), and then had dinner in the marina of another town that night.
we also went to visit a town that was very touristy but very cool.
anyways, all in all the algarve was beautiful!
Then monday morning i took the train up to Oporto, which was also wonderful. I stayed with my host mom's cousin, and she took me all around to see everything. We went to the bolsa (stock exchange building) where I took a tour in english, met americans, and tasted wine (which i liked, surprisingly). also went ot visit a beautiful church and some museums, and the casa de música, which was a modern building but actually quite ugly. We also went to the Foz--the mouth of the river Douro--and the ribeira--the area by the river which looked really pretty at night.
Tuesday afternoon i took the train back, dumped my stuff at home, went to dance, and then went out again with some exchangers. today is a feriado nacional (national holiday) because it's Santo António day, but it's celebrate the night before. so there was a parade and lots of people selling sardinhas (sardines), which i should have eaten, but didn't. the streets were full of people--it was like a sea of people. i guess i don't like crowds much.
today i slept until 1 and it's a cleaning-my-room day. fun fun.
sorry about the lack of pix but i haven't been able to put them up since my computer broke!
love to all
beijinhos

Sem trabalho!

Hi all!

It's crazy, but my year here is almost over... i have less than a month, which i'm going to try to appreciate as much as possible.
it's really nice weather right now, and i finished all my work saturday, when i took the SATs. it was a bit strange, because i took them in an american school with a bunch of kids speaking american english and it almost felt like i was back in america. anyways, the exam went well and my teachers turned in the grades friday so now we don't have any work in school! i have school tomorrow, wednesday and friday (no school thursday) and then i'm done! i like the portuguese school year.
two weeks ago i went with xuxu to an islamic fair in a town near the south of portugal, which was really cool. they were selling lots of jewelry and other metal work, clothes (including belly dance costumes...it was really cool!
the week before last was full of tests so i didn't really do much. I did go see pirates of the caribbean saturday... it was really good!
i spent last week studying for the SATS...didn't do much else.
after the SAts we went and ate lunch at my host family's beach house near the coast which was really nice. it's so pretty out there and it's getting quite warm--beach season!
saturday night i went to the arraiail (fair type thing) at the church my family attends. they had games and stands selling things... and of course music and dancing. so that was fun.
yesterday i tried to go to a circus festival thing but for some reason took the wrong metro line. so i got there an hour before it ended and all the tickets were sold out. so i took the metro back (I've gotten used to public transportation!) to my host aunt and uncle's house where they had a family dinner with all the other aunts and uncles because it was one uncle's birthday. i have quite a huge host family.
hope everything's good back home! the weather here is beautiful and sunny and warm... hope you're getting some of this good weather, too!
beijinhos

Calor!

Olá! I think it's been three weeks exactly since I last wrote--sorry! But I think that's a good thing--I'm spending more time out now instead of staying home and doing nothing.
It's really hot today (title: heat)--I think it got up around 90 (or 30, depending on the sistem :D ). I got home and drank 5 glasses of water. I'm almost glad I'm going back to the US for July and August, just because I won't bake there (but knowing our weather, I probably will anyway). I have mixed feelings about going back--I'm excited to go back, but I know I'll really miss portugal when I get there.
Time flies by so quickly, I have to use my agenda to remember what I've done the past few weeks. One weekend i went to the Alentejo--the part of the country between the southern coast (Algarve) and Lisbon, which is very traditional. Lots of fields with cork trees and livestock. It's really pretty, and it was wonderful to breathe the "country air." We went to visit Xuxu's aunt and uncle's farm, where they raise pigs (to make ham to send to Spain, go figure), which was beautiful! There we ate a traditional lunch of lamb with vegetables on bread.
I also went to a going away party for an AFS friend, who left early with a bunch of other exchange students (from Bolivia, her country) to travel around Europe. It was fun to see lots of exchangers. The party was in Cascais (down the coast), so we took the train there, and then came back on the last one at 1h30 am! I still think I prefer parties that end sooner, but it was fun.
Last sunday was the dia da nossa senhora--celebrating the day when (in 1917) three children saw an apparition of the virgin mary, who talked to them. Because of this there was a procession in my area saturday night, which I went to with the band. 2 hours of walking up and down hills heavily uniformed, playing clarinet. It was interesting. But quite interesting--four people carried a display of flowers with a statue of the virgen mary, one person sang songs through a microfone as we walked, and a lot of other people walked with us carrying candles. There's something I wasn't used to seeing back home!
Today I went to the Museu da Etnologia (ethnological? don't remember how to say it in english), which was small, but interesting. Beforehand had lunch in Belém, a very touristy part of Lisbon, that has a particularly good sandwhich shop. Last week I went to the same sandwhich shop, then went to see a tropical garden there, which was quite pretty adn relaxing.
Oh I remembered one more thing--a couple weeks ago I had a dinner with my dance class in an indian restaurant in the baixa (downtown) which was really cool! I think I was the youngest person there, but it was fun. I really like my dance classes; it'll be sad to leave (though I'm really looking forward to trapeze and fabric....only 2 more months! hehe)
Next week I have 4 tests, so this weekend's basically going to be filled up with studying, for the tests adn for the SATs. yikes! I've been reading harry potter in portuguese, but I've also tried to read something in english to remember vocabulary and things.
Well adeus and I'll try to keep the blogs coming...

Habituada

Hi to all!
the title of this post is "habituada" which means adapted or used to. I think, after almost 8 months, that Im starting to feel comfortable here. It's a long, hard process getting used to living in another culture, but I think I'm finally there (who knows it may just be another mood swing hehe).
What have I been doing recently?
Two saturdays ago I went to the jardim botânico (botanical garden) with Liz and Debi, which was fun (and so peaceful). That night I went with Lisa to a football (I mean soccer) game, which was also cool. Wow, the portuguese and their football. I've come to appreciate soccer this year. And baseball, too actually, because no one knows what it is here but I find it a really cool game. (I think I've already said this, but it's "cool" here to wear clothes with the yankees logo on it. But they don't actually know what they're doing! It's not right! hehe). Sunday I had a band concert in the really hot sun. Before the concert a big procession passed by carrying statues of the virgin mary and singing and playing guitars and things. Really long. I realized that's not something you'd find back home.
The concert was ok but quite sweaty, and I was scared for my clarinet.
Thursday I went to the Ribatejo--the part east of Lisbon, where they have bullfighting (portuguese style--it's different from spanish)It was a group of 9 AFSers; AFSers are always fun. We visited a middle school and a high school, walked around the town, did a type of scavenger hunt in the town, and saw the horses and the bulls! It was really cool--we went to a farm nearby and saw them practicing for bullfighting--although I'm not into violent sports much, this was quite cool, and very traditional.
I stayed with a family, which was very nice--they had two kids, 10 and 6. On Sunday we went to Santarém, the capital of the Ribatejo, and saw a castle type thing (I love portuguese castles!), then went to see my "host brother"'s handball game, which was cool.
Saturday night we went out to a bar/discoteca, which I think I'm finally used to. After almost 8 months. I don't know if I'll ever really love it, but I guess it was ok. They had guys breathing fire there, which made it more interesting than usual.
So that was really fun!
I took lots of pictures, but here's the thing. Monday I managed to break my computer. I'll try to put pix up using this one (my host brother's), but I'm not sure when that'll be.
I also managed to shut my cell phone in a car door, so I had to buy a new one (the repair cost was bigger than the buying cost). not my week for technical devices. Sunday was my host cousin Marta's birthday, and tuesday my host cousin Pedro's... so lots of family dinners, as usual. Both sides of the family have learned that I know morse code and somehow that topic always comes up at family dinners so then they all start "beeping" at me and saying "Lydia! say ____ in morse code!" a bit embarrassing....
Yesterday was the 25 of abril--25 de abril, a holiday here. In 1974 there was a peaceful revolution type thing that ended the dictatorship of salazar, a dictator who had "ruled" for a long time before then. So we had not school, adn I went shopping with some friends from my class.
It's crazy to think that we only have 30 days of school left! lots of testes between now and then, but it is nice to have a shorter school year.
I'm taking the SATs in june! how exciting! it's going to be wonderful after not reading much english the past 8 months...
Well ttfn e tchau!
ps. thanks for the comments!

Hallo!!!!!!!!

This post is titled Hallo!!!!!!!! not because I'm spelling hello wrong but because hallo is hello in Flemish!
Belgium was tons of fun... but I guess I'll start with the day before I went...
Liz, Lisa, Rosario (Chile) and I went to an elementary school to do an activity that we knew hardly anything about. turned out we were doing activities with some elementary school kids there to help them learn about countries and international things. First we did an activity where we painted apples and grapes in two "country" teams, and then had to cut them out adn put equal numbers in a basket-- like an agreement between countries at an international meeting. The kids were wild and got covered in paint, but it was fun.
Afterwards they had to ask us questions about us--where we were from, our names, what language we speak, our age, typical things from our countries, etc. there was a lot of energy and little question asking, but oh well. they were 7-10 years old... small attention span. overall it was fun--I like working with kids, even when they are a bit out of control. Afterwards we were all quite exhausted... went home and packed.
Wednesday I woke up early and took a taxi to the airport... arrived with plenty of time. My flight was fine, but they didn't give us anything for free. not even water. So after my apple and banana breakfast, I didn't eat anything until dinner. I arrived a bit delayed in Belgium, and met Vreni. It was so great to see her again! A bit strange in the foreign context, but really cool. That afternoon we walked around her town, bought some belgian chocolate, and i kept talking and talking about all the differences I saw. Everything made out of brick! People didn't yell! (that was nice!) We ate dinner at six! Don't use olive oil! And... everything was in Flemish, which was quite cool. I really liked hearing a germanic language--so different from latin languages.
The next day we went to Gent, a really cool old city, with 59 catholic churches! wow. After some confusion in finding a bus, we finally got there, and stopped in a café for lunch--croque monsieurs yum. I also ordered hot chocolate, which was not just a cup of hot chocolate... it was a cup of hot chocolate with chocolate chips, a chocolate egg, a little pot of whipped cream, a thing with cream, and sugar. wow. awesome.
Afterwards we went to see a really cool castle and then took a boat tour on the canal, which was awesome (narrated in english, french, flemish and german). Gent has a cool history!
I bought a postcard and we got some ice cream, then went to see a church and a famous van Eyck painting--the adoration of the lamb. It was pretty cool--we got free headphones that gave us lots of info about every panel. The church was pretty, too.
Friday was a shopping day--went with Vreni and her cousin Lien to Antwerp, where we walked down a long shopping street, stopping in stores when we wanted to. When the stores started repeating themselves, we turned around.... hehe. I didn't buy anything, but it was fun anyways.
Saturday was Brussels day! We took the trian in, as usual, and started off the day with a tour bus ride. But it was cold and the headphones didn't work to well and the bus got stuck in traffic, so we got off. I got a couple good pictures though.
For lunch we went to a Thai restaurant, and I got pad thai, of course. soo good.
After having eaten and gotten warm, we walked around more and went to see the grand place, which was really cool. Basically it's a big square with pretty building around it, including one built by an architect who got it wrong (the door was off center), so he committed suicide. yikes.
Saw an essential site--Mannekin pis--a statue of a little boy peeing. it's quite rediculous. but they put it on all the tourist souvenirs and everything--so funny. They also dress him up in costumes--when we went he was wearing a diving suit!
The streets in Brussels were really pretty--lots of chocolate shops! We saw a mall type place full of chocolate shops that led to another awesome street that I think was called "rue de bouchée," where we saw a lot of touristy restaurants--it was really pretty!
After looking around at a market thing we took the train back and ate dinner... at 6! woo. went to visit vreni's grandparents; it was her grandmother's birthday, so we had champagne, I talked a bit of french with them, and we tried to decipher an italian game show that was on. Afterwards Vreni and I watched shark tale--in english, with flemish subtitles.
Sunday was easter--I had a wonderful chocolaty breakfast, and then we stayed home playing games and cards, which was nice. had tiny little birds for easter lunch, and of course chocolate. After lunch we drove to the airport and I got on a plane full of french-speaking teenagers. Surprisingly, even though I didn't speak much french during my visit to Belgium, I think my french improved while I was there. I came back wanting to speak french! It was cool to see everything in french, though I have to say it was weird not seeing or hearing any portuguese.
Anyways... just one last thing. As the plane was taking off I looked out the window and saw what looked like hundreds of little rabbits jumping around in the grass by the runway! It was an awesome easter present.
Got back to Lisbon, where it was raining.
And well I've got to go to bed now but I'll write more later! and I'll hopefully put up pictures sometime... maybe before next december.... hehe
tchau!

Em Casa da Liz

Hi!
So here I am at Liz's house (em casa da Liz), which has been fun. We haven't been doing much... yesterday we went shopping, today relaxed.... we both ahve books to read for school so we've been doing that. I only have about 100 pages left to read! (out of about 500!) yay!!
I do remember what I did sunday and tuesday and felt a bit stupid about the fact that I hadn't remembered. Tonight at dinner I was talking with Liz's host parents about the fact that my memory is really bad now that my brain is being taken up with learning portuguese. oh well...
sunday I had a band concert! It was to celebrate the signing of the "Tratado de Roma" (Rome treaty) aka the beginning of the european union. So at 4 PM, along with supposedly a lot of other bands, we played the hymn of the EU (Ode to Joy), and then played some other pieces. Quite different from the concerts at home, but ok (our uniform is so rediculous!).
Tuesday.... I spent the whole day painting my host grandfather's fence! with my host brother, host uncle and host cousins. It was um trabalhão! (lots of work!) but fun. I got paint all over my hands and face and I think I still have some in my hair... hehe.
Tomorrow Liz and Lisa and I are going to some sort of international meeting about exchange students.... we don't know more than that, but should be fun!
Then wednesday I'm off to Belgium! yay!
Hope everything isn't too cold at home... hehe (don't worry, it hasn't been tropical here. we have lots of lereiras! (fires in the fireplace)).
Hugs e abraços!