Estou aqui!

hello all!
so I'm finally here at my host family's house. "Xuxu" (my host mother Manuela's nick name) took me on a mini driving tour of Lisboa right after she picked me up from the mission where the orientation was. Hm...where to start. gateway orientation was good; I was with everyone goign to spain, portugal, and italy. we had group activities, talked about rules and logistics, and mostly hung out.
The plane rides were good; on the first one i sat in the last possible seat on the plane next to a guy going to live in germany for 2 years with the army. I didn't do much; i read and looked out the window (didn't get any sleep). we got to frankfurt, and hung out in the airport for a while...I paid in euros for the first time to buy some water. some of the guys bought beer because we're in europe and they were relishing in the fact that there aren't many restrictions on drinking.
On the flight from frankfurt to Lisbon i stayed awake until exactly 24 hours after I had woken up the day before, then slept. soooo tired.
It was cool to hear german and portuguese and all other sorts of languages spoken.
When we got to Lisbon, we went to pick up my bags, but me and sarah (Vermont) and Meg (Alaska) didn't get ours. we waited for numerous hours, asked baggage claim people...couldn't find them. so we went and waited in the airport for more hours....I was quite tired so it wasn't too great. but got to meet more exchange students and nice volunteers.
Orientation was held in a mission, which was very pretty, with great views. The food was also great--I loved eating so much bread.
we spent the two days meeting people (from all different countries), doing activities, discussing portugal, portuguese and the portuguese people. we also talked about what we'd miss, then put it in a box to be "destroyed"--as a symbol that our life now is here, not back home. i do miss everyone, but i understand what they meant. we played some hilarious games, too....to illustrate how the portuguese use space, we had to stand in a circle, gradually getting closer so we were grabbing the waist of the person in front of the person in front of us and singing..guess what...guantadamera (spelling?). as in pre-show song, and shaking our hips. quite funny. there were other funny games, too, that i can't describe. ~last night we had a talent show--i did a handstand and hand clapping games with some other people. it was fun--peopple did dances, songs (three americans sang the whole bohemian rhapsody, which was quite funny). all the south americans did latino dancing at the end (which was at about 1:30 AM) and we all joined in. fun. but today i'm muito tired today. this morning we did some more activities, then the 5 of us missing bags (representing america, quebec, and guatemala) went to the airport to pick up our bags. i'd been wearing the same clothes for about 4 days straight, so I was quite happy to get my suitcase. very happy to have clean clothes.~
so now...the present. my host family's house is very nice, and I have a view of the ocean from my window, which is wonderful. the house is connected to Xuxu's brother's house--he has 4 kids. I've met the 3 little ones, pedro, eduardo, and carolina. carolina (5, 6, maybe?) keeps coming up to see what I'm doing...i tried to explain in portuguese, but it was quite difficult. oh welll, i'm working on it.
beijinhos! (little kisses--how the portuguese greet each other)
-Lydia
ps. pictures up soon hopefully
pps. for comments to work, I have to check them before they can be put on the site. so it mights take a couple days for your comment to show up. it does work, though!