The Honeymoon

Right now I'm going through what exchangers/AFS call the "honeymoon" phase when you first get to your host country and everything is interesting and new. Travelling was a pain but now that I'm settled everything here is great. Friday night was the flight to London and it wasn't bad I had a whole row to myself so I slept the whole time. Then a 5 hour layover and a 3 hour flight to Lisbon and I was in Portugal. I was really excited until I found out my luggage was lost. I went to the lost and found office and gave them my address and then the five of us Americans exchanging in Portugal left with two AFS Portugal volunteers to the orientation in Lisbon(Lisboa in Portuguese). There we met about 10 other kids all from South America(mostly Argentina and Chile). The orientation in Lisbon was kind of fun, a lot better than the one in New York. Sunday at about 1:30 me and the four other students that are staying in the north of Portugal went to the train station with an AFS volunteer so we could take the train to Porto(second largest city, about three hours north of Lisbon by train). I had no clothes to change into so I was in the same thing for 3 days until I bought a shirt and a pair of pants in the train station. After a lot of travelling I'm finally in my host family's house in Viana do Castelo. My host dad Lucío, host sister Inês, and host grandmother picked me up at the train station in Porto and we drove about an hour north to Viana. The house is really nice and modern. I have my own room and they have these electric shutters that are in between the glass panes that you press a button and it makes them go up or down and I put them down and I slept until 12:30pm because it blocks out all sunlight I thought it was dark when i woke up.
    At 5:30 today I had a meeting at the school I'll be going to. It's called Escola Secundaria Santa Maria Maior. My host parents and I went and talked for a while and finally settled on a schedule for me. I'm in Class G in the 10th grade(10G). You pick a "curso," like a track to be in which has four mandatory classes and then three electives. There is Science& Technology, Math, Chemistry& Physics, Humanities(like languages and history classes), and Art. I'm in art. The meeting was really confusing and I didn't really know what was going on. I start school tomorrow and here is my schedule:



Monday
English 8:30 to 10
Philosophy 10:15 to 11:45
P.E. 11:55 to 1:25
Free Afternoon

Tuesday
Drawing/art 11:00 to 1:25
History and Culture of Art3:05 to 4:35

Wednesday
P.E. 10:15 to 11:45
Portuguese 1:25 to 2:55
History and Culture of Art 15:05 to 16:35
English 4:25 to 6:15

Thursday
History and Culture of Art 11:00 to 11:45
Drawing/Art 11:55 to 13:25
Free Afternoon

Friday
Drawing/art 8:30 to 10:00
Philosophy 10:15 to 11:45
Portuguese 11:55 to 1:25
Free Afternoon

My school is also providing private 'Portuguese for Foreigners' lessons for me. I think they will start in the next few weeks and I will meet with my tutor twice a week for one and a half hours.

   On the days with a free afternoon I will eat lunch at home with my host family, we did this today we had soup and pasta and then fruit. The Portuguese eat a lot and so far I've always had three+ courses when we eat. Last night we had soup, turkey(which was semi-raw, it's not dangerous to eat because it's not raised on some meat farm with tons of chemicals), rice, salad, tomatoes, and oranges. Fruit  is always the last thing you eat and until the bowl of fruit comes to the table you're not done eating. My host parents go to the bakery to get bread, the butcher to get meat, etc etc. And they go everyday everything's really fresh and they don't wrap up the bread they leave it in a bowl and it doesn't go stale it's really weird. Also people in Portugal eat cereal with hot milk and it makes the cereal soggy it's really gross.
   Also I have rowing Monday through Friday from 6:00 to 7:30pm, it's short but I don't mind, haha. But it gets dark at 5:30 here so I don't know how rowing in the dark will work. And when it rains(it's been raining the whole time since I've been here) we will just work inside with weights and on the erg machine. I think I'm going to start rowing next week though, and my host brother will join the club too.
Here's some pictures of my room and one of the foyer in the house and one of Lisbon. I'll take more pictures of the house and my town later. I still haven't really been into my town but we're going tonight after dinner.

A picture of the view from the hostel we stayed at in Lisbon, it had a view of downtown Lisbon across the river:

Here are some pictures of my room:

And a picture of the foyer in the house: