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!