It's good to be back in Brazil! The weather is beautiful, the sun's pretty much always shining, and the beach is nearby. :D My Portuguese is much better than I thought it was, which is weird, since I haven't actually used Portuguese at all in the past three years and I didn't think it was great to begin with! ;)
I'm in the city Vitória, which is beautiful. I haven't actually gone into the city center at all, since it's far from where I'm staying for now, but I'm excited to move into my apartment next week and start getting more involved in teaching at the university and exploring the city! I actually picked this city because it looked beautiful and warm and had lots of fun things to do. Apparently there are some cool monasteries and museums here, and a forró festival somewhere relatively nearby! I'm excited to see and do it all :)
[Random sidenote: The girl sitting next to me in the computer lab is singing to herself and it's very distracting, but kind of entertaining.] :)
I've been here for exactly three weeks as of today! I arrived on February 27, and have been staying with a cute Brazilian family that Tom Lund put me in touch with. Vanessa and her husband, Glauciano (Glau), have a darling little boy named Daví. He is SO cute and is a very energetic little two-year-old. He wouldn't even talk to me for a while, but the other day he crawled up on my lap and just gave me a huge hug and kiss. I think he's warming up to me ;)
This week we started going into English classes to introduce ourselves and pass out a survey so that we can learn more about what the students are interested in (since the subject matter of our lessons and workshops is totally our decision).
The class visit I just got out of was a lot of fun; the students were Level 4 (out of 5), and spoke very well. It was fun to get to know them, and they seemed very excited to have us here. Some of them already asked if we'd be interested in spending time with them outside of class (so they can show us around, etc) and I'm SO excited! :D
Well, that's about it for now. I'm at the school library so I don't have my camera/pictures with me, but you can just google "Vitória Brazil" and be super jealous of the beautiful place I get to be in every day for the next 9 months! :)
This week we started going into English classes to introduce ourselves and pass out a survey so that we can learn more about what the students are interested in (since the subject matter of our lessons and workshops is totally our decision).
The class visit I just got out of was a lot of fun; the students were Level 4 (out of 5), and spoke very well. It was fun to get to know them, and they seemed very excited to have us here. Some of them already asked if we'd be interested in spending time with them outside of class (so they can show us around, etc) and I'm SO excited! :D
Well, that's about it for now. I'm at the school library so I don't have my camera/pictures with me, but you can just google "Vitória Brazil" and be super jealous of the beautiful place I get to be in every day for the next 9 months! :)
Life is good and wonderful here. It's already had many frustrating and discouraging moments, but overall I am happy and optimistic about how the coming months will unfold! AND the new apartment I have (move-in set for next weekend!) has a couch that folds out into a bed so...come visit! :)
