...First Weeks in Brazil

It's now been 10 days since the time that I have arrived in Brazil. I have started school, gone site-seeing around the nearby towns, and faced the everlasting challenge on communication in a foreign country.

My first week of school was surprisingly uneventful... Monday, I had Portuguese as a second language(PSL); it lasted 15 min. Just an intro I guess. Tuesday I had PSL for the second time for a little longer; we studied advertisements and how to read them. Super basic but I guess it helps right? later on, I had 'various linguistics' it started 8:55, the teacher arrived at 9:20 and was boring as all hell... Wednesday, again had PSL; nothing eventful. Then I had graphic design and technical journalism. Well when I showed up to the campus, I learned that both teachers were gone and class was cancelled for the day. Amazing... Thursday I had 'various linguists' again, still boring... So a very uneventful week :(

As for the town, I am learning fast my way around, it's actually a pretty small town. Susan and I also went Tiradents. It's a small tourist town resembling toas about 20 min from where I live. I really enjoyed the place, very pretty but I definitely did not like the cost, like any tourist town I suppose...

Not to much else has happened, I've just been exploring the city and meeting hundreds of Brazilians... I've gotten a lot closer to my 6 other room mates, especially one named Lucas. He has helped me a lot here because he is the only one who speaks english. Every once in a while, we'll go bar hopping just so that I can practice my portuguese and he his english. I've really enjoyed my stay so far but as I start my classes I realize that it will be quite difficult to keep up; I'm in classes with a bunch on natives and they themselves have hard times but at least the can understand... Oh well, should be fun, we'll see what happens...

Cyrille Gindreau 7-21-2009

P.S. Pictures for Sao Joao and Tiadents soon to come! (working on the site for them...)