Ferias!

Olá! Ferias means holidays/vacation! yay! I'm not taking them for granted.
what have I done the past week? hm...
Last sunday I went to the supermarket to buy things for xuxu's party, which was saturday. Lunch next door with the aunt and uncle adn grandparents. after lunch I played hide and seek in the basement wiht my host cousins amidst boxes of godiva chocolate (my host aunt works for godiva. it's crazy).
Monday I had school. got a 19.95 on my english test because I messed up one sentence. hehe. After school I tried to go to a chorus rehearsal at the school (student and faculty christmas chorus) but no one else came. so after that went to mariana's house. we finished some geography work, watched girl with a pearl earring, then went to her old school, which is also Elizabeth's school. met some of her friends, then went home.
tuesday I got to practice with the chorus. it turned out being quite small, but oh well. we sang portuguese songs, which is good because I've been wanting to learn some portuguese christmas songs! Tuesday night after dance joana, miguel and I went to the birthday dinner of host cousin Teresa (on the Saldanha side). It was fun, though I'm still learning everybody's names! I think I'm getting better at being social, though.
Wednesday I sang a bit again, then went across the street to the hospital for lunch. I got a bean and meat dish that looked pretty good, but then on further inspection, then meat looked quite like tongue. so I decided just to eat the beans. usually I'm not very squeamish, but tongue just didn't sound very appetizing.
After school me, mariana, anne-lise and debora went to mariana's house to watch memoirs of a gheisha. I liked it. made me want to drink some green tea. hehe.
then thursday was my last day of classes, yay! we got out early from some and went outside to sit in the sun because it's so cold in school. no heaters eek! after school practiced again with the chorus, then went home to help Graça get ready for the "jantar de tia Xuxu" (aunt xuxu's dinner) that she has every year. Folded laundry, etc.
That night I went to dance, then went to Belém for a christmas party at another school. Got there and everything was closed up, and found out the party had been cancelled! boo hoo! So i decided to go to the party at school. It was incredibly crowded adn made me thankful for the nice auditorium at school at home. this was in a classroom with a stage and chairs set up. I found some classmates and sat with them. the show was pretty good. problem was, I got there too late to sing with the chorus (but I knew I'd be late!)
Got home late, and then had to get up kind of early friday to go to the party at school that morning (the same party...they had it twice). I was going to sing at that one. but because of various reasons, I got there quite late, and sat down just as the curtain opened for the chorus to sing. um....oops. At least practicing had been fun.
Watched the first part of the show, then sat outside reading Terrier for the part I'd already seen Thursday night.
After the show me, anne-lise, lisa, and debora went to IKEA for lunch. It had yummy scandinavian food and cool furniture, as IKEA normally does. yay
Came home and played with the band a bit, which was good. My mouth got tired though...I'm out of shape not having band 4x a week and lessons and a better practice schedule!
That night I went to a circus with catarina, miguelinho, the little host cousins and their grandmother. It was a circus on ice--so half the acts were on ice skates. Pretty cool--I liked the partner acro on ice. interesting. i think maybe I like circus better without ice skates, but it was cool anyway. and good to see a circus.
Saturday I woke up late, then helped out more getting ready for Xuxu's party. Then went to Scouts that afternoon and helped wash the tents that they had used the weekend before. nothing really exciting. After that I got ready for the AFS dinner that night. Went with my counselor, João, and we arrived 50 minutes late and were not the last ones to arrive. hehe. it was a lot of fun to see all the other AFSers there--and they had really good food! yum.
Afterwards I waited an hour for a taxi, and got home at 2h30. didn't really make the rest of Xuxu's party, which was annoying. oh well.
Sunday afternoon I went out with Catarina and one of her friends. we didn't do much--walked around, went to a café. It was good because it felt a bit easier to talk to Catarina. After that we got home and had dinner with Xuxu's parents and aunt and uncle. I played clarinet, which I hope they enjoyed. Once they left, we opened some presents my parents had sent (thank you!) to be opened before christmas. while listening to the Revels cd they sent (yay), my host brother miguelinho was fixing a little pistol thing. all of a sudden a quarter of the table blew up in flames and part of the hair on the sides of his head was burned off. It was quite rediculous and funny (once we knew he was ok).
yesterday I got up kind of early to go to the oceanarium with Elizabeth. it's in this cool modern place called the Expo. To get there we took the metro, and I noticed a girl carrying a bag with juggling clubs in it. turns out she goes to the circus school I looked at the beginning. we had a conversation in portuguese and she encouraged me to go look at the school again. I think i want to--I miss circus!
the oceanarium was really cool--marine ecosystems from the atlantic, pacific, and indian oceans: I have lots of fuzzy pictures.
Afterwards we had a mexican lunch (yum), then went shopping (I bought 1 out of 5 christmas presents I need to buy), the went in a little cable car ride. I took more fuzzy pictures.
All in all, it was fun.
came home from dinner, then got a call from elizabeth asking if I wanted to come to a concert. It was Luís Represas, a very good singer that Elizabeth's host mom knows. in the Casino Lisboa, which was awesome. we had a table on this center thing that turned around slowly, which was really cool. And before the concert there was a fabric act! It was good and made me miss fabric. Got home late, as usual.
Today I woke up at 11, and have been doing nothing ever since. seriously. today is a very unsocial day. ugh! I tried to invite mariana and anne-lise to a movie, but they both can't, so now I don't know what to do. hm. I'm still trying to learn how to be social--a skill I kind of lost after entering high school. This longer vacation is nice because of the relaxation involved, but it also means I have to work hard to be social, which I'm not too good at. eek! anyways, we'll see.
Miss you all!
Beijinhos!