Barra Bonita

I had an AFS conference in Barra Bonita last weekend. It was great because I got to meet other exchange students from around the world and that live near me in the next city. There were 8 of us total that were newbies to Brazil. 1 girl from New Zealand, 1 boy from Germany, 1 boy from Japan and 2 girls and 2 boys from Thailand. Later we met up with a boy from France and a girl from Italy and another girl from Thailand. During the day we went over culture shock, rules, and such. We got new information about different things we needed to know with AFS. Later that night, we were allowed to go out to a music concert that was playing near where we were staying. The music and singers were really bad so we ended up just walking around and seeing the town. We chatted a lot about Brazil and our home towns and countries. Afterwards, we met up with our AFS volunteers and ate pizza. Now I have to tell you that it's not the pizza you are used to. It's the same concept but it looks and tastes very different. Oh and it's very common to find chicken and corn with the light amount of tomato sause. Also whole olives and whole slices of tomatoes are usually on top as well. So if you ever visit Brazil, Pizza is not as good as you think. You are better off buying Brazilian style food because it tastes much better. : ) After sleeping and having a nice typical Brazilian breakfast, we left to go back home. It was a great experience and I'm so glad AFS does things like this.

Sao Paulo!

On Tuesday I went to São Paulo with my class. It was so much fun. We left the school at 11:30 pm and we drove on a bus for six hours to São Paulo. I tried to sleep but of course like in any group of teenagers, there are the ones that just don't want to sleep. So instead they sang all different types of songs. It was funny because they were very much off key but it was frustrating too because I was trying to get some sleep! So we arrived at our first destination which was the Museo de Futebol. We were too early to enter so we walked around in the Stadium for a bit then we went to this little outside Mercado (market). It is really cool to go to markets here because there are things I have never seen before. Lots of exotic fruits and of course some familiar fruits as well like Morango (Strawberry), Abacaxi (Pineapple), and Maça (Apple). They also had "Fair" food that you could buy. I tried a Pastel for the first time. It was really good. It's a filling of different varieties of meats, cheeses, and vegetables fried inside two pieces of dough. When it's done it has a flaky outside and it's warm on the inside. You can even get ones that have chocolate or bananas inside. The one I tried was carne com chedder. It was delicious. I also got to try a fruit called a Kaki. It looks like a tomato but its got a really sweet gooey inside. Very good and sticky!

So once we were finally inside the museo de futebol, we got to see all the exhibits and we were pretty much alone because we got there first thing in the morning. It has all sorts of exhibits tell the past about Brazilian futebol (Pronounced Fu-chee-bol by the way). It talked about the different players and history of soccer. It even talked about the different crazy moves that players do and how to do them. I'm probably not gonna try them though. haha. At one point we got to see how fast we kick a ball into the goal. I kicked 77 km/s. Yeah that's a good score! When left for lunch at around 11 am we went to this huge mall (and I mean HUGE) for lunch. We got to walk around afterwards and you'll never guess what I saw...A store called "Cori"!!!! Spelled just like I spell it. I was so happy that I took a photo to remember how awesome I am. lol

Afterwards, we went to a large university and walked around the science fair they were hosting. It was pretty cool. There were lots of different exhibits but sadly I wasn't able to understand anything. Well from what I saw, the people put really hard work into their projects and they were very professionally done.
Finally we started our journy home and you'll never guess but all the boys slept the whole way home. haha. I slept too a little bit. It was uncomfortable on the bus but that's okay. I could sleep in the next day because my class did not have school tomorrow. All in all it was a fun trip and I'm glad I went on it.

Tchau,
Cori

 Museo de Futebol

 São Paulo Skyline

 My class up above and below

                                               Yes the store named after me really does exist!

1 month already?

So I have officially been here for 4 weeks. It still seems like a couple days ago I finally landed here. I have gotten a lot better at understanding Portuguese. I am really bad at speaking still. I started taking lessons and they are helpful. In my course I'm going to start working on conjugating verbs which is the hardest and yet most necessary thing to learn. Carnaval was fun. It's like one big dance party in the street in Palmital! I watched the Parades in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janiero on the TV. They were very cool and very elaborate. The costumes and floats were large and very detailed. I enjoyed watching them Samba. I don't think as Americans we really understand the work that goes into these elaborate events but it is so worth it in the end. Very cool! I wish everyone could watch and understand Caranval.  Tuesday I'm going on a trip to Sao Paulo with my class. We are going to visit a big college that is going to be hosting a science fair and we will go to the soccer museum. I'm excited. School has been getting better. It is still hard to understand but things but I can mostly figure some classes out by reading the books like math and physics. Portuguese, sociology, and history are hard because there is a lot of writing and reading and it's hard to catch on to what the teacher is talking about.

When talking about Brazil, you can't forget to mention the food. The food here is very different. I eat lots of bread, meat of all kinds, beans and rice. I eat rice and beans everyday and least one meal a day. I eat some kind of meat several times a week. I also have gotten to try Suco. It is the best juice I have ever had! We have this place called Coco Suco in my town. I love it! It's my favorite place ever!

I finally went to the Federal Police station and applied for my ID card. I am now allowed to live in Brazil! I had an issue with one paper not being Authorized and I freaked out a little but lucky enough for me there was a place in town I could go and get it done. Literally every single document I brought to the Federal Police had stamps and signatures all over it. I'm surprised they could even read them with everything scribbled and signed over and over. After that I could breath a little easier though. It was a long bus ride to Marilia and then back again but I'm just glad it is over. No more worrying about papers and time limits. Now I can relax.


Here are some pictures of my new family and friends:

Top Picture: Meeting my host family for the first time. Bia, Marco, William (Jessica's Brother), Jessica's mother, Jessica, Flavia, Me, My mother, and my father.

Bottom Picture: My New Friends. Me, Bianca, Julian (AFS German Exchange Student), Flavia (My sister), and Miriam (Bianca's sister).