One Month Babyyyyy

I can't believe I have been here for a month! There was a point when i didn't think a week was possible!

Many people told me exchange would fly by, and to be honest i never quite believed them all. I mean how could time possibly move at a faster pace! Buuuut I must admit I was wrong, although i look back on my 4 weeks here and think, 'boy have i not been home in a while', the time in between has passed surprisingly quickly and i swear i arrived just a week ago! There have been ups and downs along the way, exchange is not easy! You've left your home, comforts, family, friends, language all behind and have to adapt to a new routine, friends, family and language! But the insanely credible moments definitely outway any shaky ones!

So time to let you all know what I've been up to in the couple of weeks!

The 9th - 12th was Carnival here in Brasil and it has been a weekend i will never forget! I left for a little town, Porto Ferrira on Saturday to celebrate and had no idea what to expect! It all sounded so crazy, and as a foreigner, rather strange! My family had been telling me about bulls, and cows and crazy street people, and when these were mostly the only words I could understand in the sentence of Portuguese it sounded terrifying!

That first night was spent going to a club, a country club not a nightclub, I was surprised when we arrived at the location because as far as I knew there was only one type of club! :P Going with the Brazilian way it didn't start until 12am, which made it a rather late night! There was samba music, a cow dancing in the middle of the dance floor, and then me looking like an idiot trying to Samba :P

The days were spent relaxing by the pool and on Monday many of my families friends came to the house we were staying in. They call the house a farm and it has taken me a looooong time to get my head around hahaha because it doesn't actually have any animals, instead it is called a farm because it has lots of 'land' i guess you could say. It was so much fun just hanging with everyone and HAVING NO SCHOOL! :D

Theeeeeen my favourite part of all! That night we went to the 'bloco do boi' which i rightly nicknamed in English 'the bull thing'. There is this fake bull made out of thick iron rods and pretty much the aim of the game is for people to hold the bull up, drunk locals i might add, and to run around crazily, and aimlessly, bringing about a certain element of suprise and therefore more casualties and hit as many people as possible! At first little me from good ol' NZ was terrified! These people were crazy! But as the night went i gained more confidence, and then before I knew it aaaand because I'm an exchange student and all, I found myself riding the bullll!!! Gotta live life right? ;)

It was back to school on Thursday, and i've decided to make those 5 hours useful and use my 'Portuguese for Dummies' book to help me learn the language faster! The other exchange students have been here for 6 -7 months and i can't wait to be as fluent as them!

The weather is so hot here i literally can't do anything but swim and do nothing hahahahahah they have air conditioning but never use it! although the weather is hot there's just about one thunderstorm a day! and the other night it was so loud the whole house shook and the lightening looked like it was landing on our roof! i was terrified!

I am super excited for my trips! and my next one is in 3 weeks! I can't wait!



I swear I am taking exchange eating to a whole new level! The first week i was here i didn't eat much and cruised along, but now that my family are introducing me to all these nice foods aaaand my mum sent me some NZ food including peanut butter, I just want to eat aaaaaaaall the time! On Saturday night I went to a Japanese restaurant which was a very interesting experience! I went with just my host sister and translating from Japanese to Portuguese to English proved a little too difficult! Instead we told the waiter to bring us something and he brung us this magnificent boat of every different style! Along with a plate full of spring rolls, and two other plates of something else! Much too our dismay we found out for every one piece we didn't eat we had to pay 1 real (60c)! Lets just say I ate allooooooot! However i keep telling myself....your only an exchanger once ;)

I will leave here for now and talk to you all lateerrrrr :)