Acabou Molesa! (break time´s over!)

I know it´s been a long time since I´ve written, and much has happened here during that time, so I´ll try to sumarize as best I can. Right now my life here is very very busy. (It is 2am and I am writing this, because this is the only free time I have right now, just to illustrate my point...) This is ok though, because all the activities I´m involved in are great and it´s much better than doing nothing. Hopefully I will eventually get things to balance out, but I just couldn´t go any longer without writing anything here!

To begin with, I got off track with my writing because I was sick. I had grippe (the flu - brazilian style) this lasted for about the first week and a half of Sept. It was not an enjoyable experience, and I am so glad to be well now. As my host dad told me, I´ve now had the flu, and experienced a flat tire, which makes me practically Brazilian. :)

Also, at the same time, Eduarda (my host sister) was preparing to leave for Canada. She left on Sept. 2, and will spend a year there. She is glad to be there, but is having a rough time. It really is hard to leave your family and friends and everything you know. She´s only 16, so I know that makes it even harder. Hopefully things will get better for her soon.

Before Eduarda left, we went to various parties: one was her going-away-party here in the salon de festas of our appartment. It was HUGE - multitudes of friends came, and there was music and some dancing, etc. It was alot of fun, but I was still kind of sick, so I had to leave early. Another party which occured right after this one was the Cha de Panela of Bebel, our cousin. This was kind of like a bachelorette/wedding shower party with lots of friends and family.

After I got over my illness, I went back to my portuguese class at the UFPE, which is still going very well. Now, Catherine, who is on a rotary exchange from Canada, has joined me in this class, and we are also studying at CEFET together. She is very nice, and we have a lot of fun together.

I also started taking guitar lessons! The studio where I have my lessons is within walking distance of our appartment, so it works out really well. The style of guitar that I´m learning is classical, so the technique is much different from everything I had learned previously, but it is really neat, and I am looking forward to learning more. I think I will also learn some typical brazilian music, maybe bossa nova or samba! very exciting!

Yet another new development- I´m still playing basketball, but I have now switched teams. The husband of my nautico coach is the coach of the womens basketball team at the Universidade Catolica, a private university here in Recife. He asked me to play on the team there, and it is good, because the other girls are more my age and level. I have been practicing there for a little over a week, and really enjoy it.

Just this week, my classes at CEFET (Centre Federal de Educaçao Technico) started. This is a state technical college, and I am studying Tourism. So far it is going really well. I have various classes within this theme (English, Spanish, Portuguese, history of Brazil, Theory of Tourism, Sociology, etc.) though I have not yet been to all of them. I have class there every day (weekdays) from 12:50 to 5:30, roughly. There are many interesting people in my class and everyone is very nice. Also, it is within walking distance from the UFPE, where my portuguese for estrangeiros class is, so Catherine and I walk from one class to the other. The first time we did this, we went the wrong way and it took 20 or 30 minutes to get there, but now that we know where we´re goining it´s actually much closer. :)

Today the classes we had were Portuguese (not for estrangeiros...) and Theory of Tourism. The Portuguese class started out with the teacher telling the class what we would be learning this semester. Basically, she said the following: "What are we going to learn in this class, you might ask, well... since all of you speak portuguese, and have had various years of studying the language, we will focus on reading and writing on a higher level. Everyone here speaks portuguese, you´re not estrangeiros (foreigners), so we´ll focus on things which will help you in the field of tourism" When she said this, everyone in the class laughed, because Catherine and I are definitely estrangeiros, and we look it, too. The professor didn´t realize that we were exchange students, because we are the first ones ever at this school. After this, someone told her, and it was very funny. :) After this class, we had a break and everyone walked around, or went to get a snack, etc. When we returned, another Professor was there to teach Theory of Tourism. Mostly we just introduced ourselves and then talked about what tourism really is, what jobs people might have, etc. I didn´t understand alot of what went on in the class, and the professor spent the last half hour of the class giving us a lecture about dressing propperly. Apparently she thought that it was inappropriate for people to wear flip-flop sandals to school. My classmates found this somewhat funny and somewhat irritating, I think. In reality, though, Brazil is THE country of flip-flops. They make them here, and everyone wears them. I´m pretty sure that if the school dress-code banned the wearing of flip-flops there would be a mass protest. :)

Oh, and one more thing--- This past weekend we went to my family´s appartment at Tamandare beach for the first time! It is so beautiful, and was alot of fun. I´ll post pictures as soon as I can, and more info on that trip later....

but now, I really must go to sleep!