Tu, voce, o senhor, a senhora, voces, vos, os senhores, as senhoras

Well I thought I'd just title this blog with the eight ways to say "you" in portuguese (with accents= tu, você, o senhor, a senhora, vocês, vós, os senhores, as senhoras). I think we get along well with just one way in english, yeah? And there are two ways to say "to be." And the world for parsley is salsa. But I like portuguese, despite all this. Yay!
My life here is going nicely. Ups and downs, but I'm getting less homesick.
Wednesday was my host cousin Carlotta's 18th birthday, so we had a dinner with the whole family (big!) I ate way too much, but had a good time. It's quite strange having many host cousins my age. Plus carlotta's friends were there, so us teenagers took up a whole table. I'm not used to that! Also just having such a big family is crazy. So many names I don't know. Yesterday and today I've just been concentrating on telling my twin host cousins apart.
Anyway, that was fun.
Thusday, I was sick, so i came home and went to bed after school.
Friday, Anne-Lise, Nadia, Sofia, and I went to Jerónimos monestery and Belém. There was a funeral in Jerónimos, though, so we couldn't stay long. We bought lunch in a nice café called Pão Pão Queijo Queijo (bread bread cheese cheese) and ate it in the garden in Belém. Went and looked at the Belém cultural center, then I went home and rested again. Friday was Miguel (host dad)'s birthday, but he and Xuxu were in Madrid, so we didn't celebrate it then.
Saturday Anne-Lise and I organized a trip to Cristo Rei, the big christ statue across the river that you can go up in and get a view of the city, but it got a bit to late after we had finally found each other, coming from different forms of public transport (bus and train), so we had hot chocolate in a café. I have yet to find really good european hot chocolate here. (like melted chocolate bars--I had some amazing chocolate in italy). boo hoo. But i did find that if you mix a lot of nesquik powder in a bit of milk and heat it up, it tastes similar, which is interesting/tasty/sad. hehe.
Sunday we celebrated Miguel's birthday. In the morning Xuxu and Catarina and I went grocery shopping, and I found ben and jerry's! In portugal!!!!!! For 6€. hm. But it was quite awesome to have ben and jerry's chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream after lunch.
Also, speaking of chocolate, that morning a bunch of the host cousins and miguelinho walked into the house carrying boxes of godiva chocolate, a lot of it huge easter rabbits, and eggs and chickens and chocolate bars. Turns out my host aunt runs (or something like that) godiva in portugal, so they have a lot of chocolate next door. hm... might be a problem....
WE had a very nice dinner, again with a ton of food and family. lots more people to meet! I spoke portuginglês, with a bit of french thrown in there, with my host grandmother. It's quite crazy, though, I have lost almost all my french! seriously, if I try to speak french, it comes out portuguese. Like I can't even conjugate parler in present indicative. Nous parlons came out as nous parlamos. Ask me how to say "to learn" and I will most likely answer "aprender." I think only if I don't know the portuguese equivalent, I can say it in french.
By the way, the Jazz A CD a big hit here. Miguel loves blasting it, which he did at the dinner. And a bunch of the relative started dancing. Funny. I miss the band program back home. How's pep band going?
Today....school. lunch at macdonald's (gasp!) with Anne-Lise, Nadia, and two of nadia's friends. i ate a salad, and was happy to recieve an oil and vinager dressing, not gloppy american stuff! yay! There's a little cultural difference.
In the afternoon, português para estrangeiros with Anne-Lise and Lisa. Transports públicos home, and I haven't done much.
I went on the treadmill, and felt like a good person. yay for me. Let's try to be consistent. I don't want to weigh myself right now.
It's raining and gusting wind outside, which is kind of exciting. I'd love to see a tropical storm here. Do they have tropical storms near here? I don't know.
So far in school the only class I really have no idea about it filosofia. Can't understand at all. I know we're talking about logic, but since I don't really know what people study in filosofia, I can't really understand what I'm supposed to be learning.
English is incredibly hard for people who don't speak it. Today there was a word in the text we were reading that I'd never seen before! It's crazy the vocab. And the kids in my class are of all different levels--some are really good, then there are others who don't speak English at all. We're studying things like global warming and natural disasters, which is kind of strange.
My english teacher speaks almost perfect english. In Portuguese, to say "right?" you say "não é?" like "isn't it?" so my teacher always says "isn't it?" when there's not real "it" involved. And pronounces adjective adJECtive, and drought "droft" and things like that. I guess I'm the only one who notices, though. Unless those are british things. yay for british english!
Well, almost dinner time, I should go.
Abraços e bjx! (beijinhos in text message language) hehe.