6 days out

so my last post was depressing, so this one is going to be a post of my 10 favourite things about brasil. 
Good things, not bad. 


so here we go...


10- Portuguese
I really love Portuguese. To me, it is a beautiful language (if used correctly) and is often more flowing than english. It is a hard language to learn, and im far from fluent, all the gramatical stuff is enough to give you a headache, but i preffer to talk portuguese whenever i can, and i CAN talk to people, write, read and understand everything. 


9- Brasilian Parties
yes yes, i do like parties here, but there are a few reasons to why that is, OTHER than what you would normally excpect from an exchange student. I love the fact that family parties here are literally the ENTIRE family, with lots of chatter and excitement, good food & singing and dancing. i have watched a lady who had to have been in her 80's dancing frivolously with a full to the brim cup of beer in her hand, and she didnt manage to spill a drop. now THATS skill for ya :) 


8- Music
naturally, music is on my list of favourites, even more so, because the brasilian culture is rich with musical influence. there are lots of types of music here, and i like almost all of them! i am currently learning quite a few songs on the guitar, because what else are we going to do in our 5 hour stop overs at the airports on the way home! i love the music here :)


7- Dance
Talking about music leads me to another one of my favourite parts of the brasilian culture. Dance. There are a few typical brasilian dances which are very comon here, and its uncommon for a brasilian to not know the basic steps to forro or samba. i took dance lessons here for 2 months and loved every minute, dancing forro, samba and bolero. Forro and samba are both brasilian and bolero i think is spanish. 
this friday i am going to a dance night at the place where i did lessons with my host parents. its going to be my last goodbye to brasilian dance. i have to make sure someone films me this time, so that ican prove that i actually know how to dance!


6- Fruit
I know this seems like such a silly thing to write about, but i LOVE tropical fruit, and here it is either really really cheap, or you can just walk up to a tree and pick it. I eat lychees, mangos, starfruit, guava, pitanga, acerola, banana and passionfruit on a daily basis because it is just so accessable here!
i drink fresh made fruit juice on a daily basis as well, because it is all just so accessible!


5- Açai
one fruit in particular that i love here, is Açai. I havnt actually eaten the berry fresh, but the best way to eat it is frozen, with guarana syrup and banana. :) mmmmmmmm. i am in love with acai! i have promised myself that i will eat acai, or drink an acai juice every day this week while im still here. i will miss it! 


4- Parks
i love how here in brasil, you can go to a park in the middle of the city, and see little monkeys in the trees and coatis running around in the bushes :) i love that the parks are always full of beautiful colorful flowers whatever the season, and that they just seem so alive. 


3- Country of diversity
Brasil is a lot like australia, in the way that it is very diverse country, with mountains, rainforests and coastal areas; with tropical weather up north and colder weather in the south. the wildlife is as diverse as the landscape, as are the people who live here, different regions having different food, accents appearances, and mannerisms. 


2- brasilians
brasilians are also alike to australians, meaning that they are generally open and warm, willing to give you a smile. They hug a lot and kiss always when greeeting or saying goodbye; even in school, to greet someone you kiss them on the cheek. i think my first day of school i was a bit overwhelmed by the fact that i was being kissed by everyone who came up to talk to me. 
Brasilians do have their faults, as do all people, but their good parts make up for the parts lacking. 


1- Exchange
without exchange i wouldnt have come to brasil and experienced the things that i have. i wouldnt have changed and grown as i have over the past year, and i wouldnt have life long connections with friends from all over the world. 
therefore exchange is the best part about brasil... because with out rotary youth exchange program, none of this would have happened to me. 


i hope you like my list, and that you have a bit more of an idea of just why i love brasil so much. 


tchau for now!


em

8 days out...

so right now, i dont exactly know what to think about everything that is going on. 
i mean, things dont feel like they are coming to an end. 
it doesnt feel like i have spent a year in this wonderful country. 
it doesnt feel like everything is going to drasticly change once more.
i dont exactly know how i feel. 
im doing all these every day normal life routine things; for instance, i just spent the past 5 days in Sao joao del rei with rita and cissa again. Once again, i had an amazing time, and it wasnt until it was time to say goodbye that I realised that it was a last time thing, not a see you later type of thing. 
this keeps happening to me, and its so much harder than you can ever imagine. 
my host mum said to me the other day that i am now into the 'last' stage, meaning that every day from now on, i will be saying to myself 'this is my last wednesday in brasil' or ' this is the last time i will see these people' or 'this is my last bowl of acai in brasil' and its just so true and so hard to deal with. 


unfortunatly, i know that one thing that wont be the last until the very last minute will be the thought 'this is the last time i cry in brasil' because i know that i still have a week full of goodbyes, and lots and lots of tears to come. and thats the thing that is most unfair, because i wish more than anything that i could say to myself that this IS going to be the last time i cry, but it just doesnt work that way. 
so im not going to tell myself to toughen up, instead i will buy myself a box or two of tissues, and accept that the next week is going to be filled with lots of memories that i can keep with me forever, as well as ones that i am going to want to forget for a while, at least until i am back into the swing of things with my life back in australia, and am contempt enough to look back and remember how hard it was to leave brasil, and all of my friends, and my families, and my life, and to go back. 


so tomorrow, im going to get up in the morning, and be the strongest i can be, go to feira hippy for the last time, see two of my families for the last time and once again keep fighting on for this to be the best week of my life, because soon it feels like my life will be over, even though i know this is just a small stepping stone to bigger things in my life, and my life is infact just beginning. 
it just doesnt feel that way at the moment. 


so now you know a little bit more about how hard it is for an exchanger like me to come home; do one thing for me. dont pity me, or the situation that i am in; but also dont act like me coming home is the best thing in the  world, because for me, its not... its one of the hardest things ive had to do in my life, and although im going to be glad to be home, with my family and friends, i know that i am going to be craving the world that i will be leaving behind when i get on that plane on sunday. 


...


i guess theres nothing more to say except for...see you soon 


em

the end is near... so lets enjoy things while we can :)

first of all, i would just love to say

FELIZ NATAL to everyone!

if you hadn't guessed, that means Merry Christmas!

i hope that you all had a lovely christmas with your loved ones, full of happiness  and peace.

I sure had a lovely christmas here in brasil, and although slightly different to what i am used to, it was amazing all the same.

on christmas eve the whole of my host dads side of the family got together, (photo of my 'grandad' and all his grandaughters)

and on chrissy day, my host mums family all got together. 

it was just like chrissy at home, nice weather, nice food and great company. 

i really had a lovely chrissy, and didnt even feel homesick. i suppose things were like that for me, because i knew that i was going to see my real family in less than a month, so i was enjoying fully everything that happens to me here :)

and these days, its not even like your family are that far away, with the greatness of skype and facebook, i could talk to my family and open up my presents from mum on  chrissy morning 'with the family'. 

she sent me bliss n eso's new album, and angus and julia stones new album too :D

my favourite chrissy present that i got was from my host mums family in the kris kringle thingie. I was given a specially made mug, with my picture on it, and it has my name and says 'brasileira de coracao' which means brasilian at heart.

i got all choked up and teary and didnt know what to say. it was the most lovely present that they could have given me, and i will never forget this family. 

Meggie sent me a beautiful bracelet which says 'sing... as though no one can hear you' its so beautiful!

my host family was very nice and gave me a bottle of amazing cachaca because i had been saying that i wanted to buy a bottle and take it home to open on my 18th. 

A few days before christmas, me and my friends went to praca da liberdade at night time to have a look around. 

 

IT WAS AMAZING! 

completly decked out, pretty much every tree sparking! 

it was unfortunatly the last day that i saw andy, and we had to say goodbye, which dampened the mood somewhat, but it was still an amazing night. 

So now christmas is over for another year, and i have come to realise that i seriously only ahve a very short amount of time left here in brasil. 

i remember a time when i was counting down to leaving for brasil and being totally excited to come, and wondering whether i would feel the same when it came close to coming home. well... it doesn't.

i mean sure im excited to come home for some aspects, but there is just so much that i havnt done here yet, so many things that i am yet to experience, not to mention that goodbyes here are 10 times harder becuase you have no idea if you are ever going to see them again.

so that is what i ahve in store for the next few weeks. sounds fun huh? 

oh well, im keeping myself ocupied with shopping for things to take home, organising what im leaving behind,visiting, going out, and maybe even a little bit of travel :)

so i will talk to you guys again very soon indeed, and i hope that you ahve a lovely start off to your 2011. 

see you this year!

tchau,

Em