Holidays

Easter!!

Exchange year, Holidays, Host family, Places, Stories

Where do I start….

Well, my Brazilian family is like 4 times the size of my American family! I am lucky all my host families are connected somehow so even though I’ve moved to another household I still get to see my previous siblings and parents, pretty often! I have a total of 6 parents, 7 siblings, an additional 8 cousins and 3 grandparents that I have met throughout the year.

This year my Grandma celebrated her 80th birthday and it just so happened to fall on Easter! What an amazing day for two very important celebrations!

Easter Sunday is typically the most well-attended Sunday service of the year for Christian churches. Without Easter, without the Resurrection of Christ, there would be no Christian Faith. Christ’s Resurrection is the proof of His Divinity. My Brazilian Grandma is a strong Catholic believer so all her children organized a private mass earlier that morning that was followed by her birthday party. Sounds like the best birthday an 80-year-old could imagine!

And so it begins… 2017

Beach, Brazil, Exchange year, Holidays, host families, Rotary, Stories, Travel

A normal New Year’s resolution usually is about traveling to the city of your dreams AND I got to start the New Year in the Country of my dreams. How lucky am I? A year ago I didn’t know this city even existed and now everything in my life happens here.

Today is my 147th day in Brazil! I am told by the people around me that I am growing up to be someone more wise, mature, outgoing and friendlier than the person I was 5 months ago. I think it’s the amazing people that surround me, and the time spent with each and every day with that has had a huge influence on who I have become.

I enjoy meeting new people and building all kinds of different relationships. My connection with all the other inbound students in Brazil started because we are all students exploring a foreign country, learning a new language and culture. The connections I have with friends in SUMMIT is built amongst everyday hobbies, class, sports (etc…) we have in common. The friendships are both important but built on different experiences.

Traveling makes it easy to see different cultures, but to have a relationship with the culture is special. I might post pictures like a total tourist, but I have stories behind them that say otherwise. The touristic side and local sides are very opposite. I think sharing the holidays with my host families makes a huge impact on my experience. In my opinion, the way you spend holidays with your parents would stay the same where ever you might be to spend it. But to celebrate with your host parents you really get the feeling of the another culture and new traditions.

The best news to finishing out 2016 was our host parent’s surprise was to spend New Years at the beach here in Parana. It’s not ideal paradise, but we made the most of it. It recently had a hard rainstorm that wiped out most of the sidewalk along the beach and knocked out the cellphone signal. For the last 4 days of the year, If we weren’t laying out in the sun at the beach in Mathinos, we were playing cards, cooking delicious fish or churrasco and listened to Brazilian music. Each day the beach got more and more crowded with families visiting for the holiday. It was tough taking photos without someone standing in the background!

Here in Brazil, it’s a tradition to wear all white representing peace with colored underwear representing how you are feeling. For example loved = pink, happiness = yellow, lucky = green. Everyone stays up until midnight then heads down to the beach to pop some champagne while you watch the fireworks. After doing so, you think of 7 wishes for the new year and jump 7 waves for good luck.

Fireworks

She was my Mid-night Kiss

3… JUMP

2016 Highlights:

The greatest lesson I learned, your best friends will be the ones that notice when you’re gone and miss you but more importantly can’t wait until I get home!

The most difficult thing of 2016 was letting go of my past so I could stop being defined by past mistakes and start living for the new challenges and strive to be a better me.

Favorite memory would be my school trip to Spain only because that was the first time I flew overseas without my family. That was the first time I lived with a host family. The first time I got super close to new people both from my school and in Spain!

I will never forget meeting all the other exchange students that are living in Curitiba. Our friendships are built off the experiences we face together during these incredible 10 months aboard.

Looking ahead to 2017:

Right now, I am looking forward to my Northeast trip that will start at the top of Brazil and continue down the coast to Rio in a bus with all the exchange students from my district.

I want to learn how to Zumba dance and cook my favorite Brazilian meal before I leave.

For school, I want to get these online classes out of the way so I can enjoy my exchange!

On a personal level, I want to be spiritually grounded.

My motto to be a good person, but don’t waste time proving it!

Hot vs White Christmas Day!

Brazil, Cool People, Exchange year, Holidays, host families, Places, Stories

Feliz Natal…Merry Christmas

Christmas is finally come to end! As my weekend was full of visiting all my host families places or checking up with my family that’s finally all back together in the US over facetime. As a result, this was my first Christmas without snow. In fact, I got to wear a summer dress and flip flops to all the Christmas gatherings.

It started out with going to see the famous orphanage choir sing to Brazilian Christmas songs in the center of Curitiba. It is a 45-minute show the audience stood outside and the orphans sang out windows of a bank that was decorated everything from lights to a stage and projections on the sides to follow the theme of each song. And ended the night with opening presents. I am so grateful for my 2nd host family, I was not expecting to get any gifts but they surprised me with new sandals, jewelry, beach towel, a tank top and makeup!

It was new to me to learn all the different ways people celebrate Christmas around the world. At first, I thought it was strange when my Hungarian sister and I fought about which day was ACTUALLY Christmas. But in reality it makes sense in Slovakia, Holland, Denmark, and Hungary Christmas is on the December 24th otherwise Santa Claus wouldn’t be able to visit every house in one night! Fun fact I learned this weekend was Santa Claus was actually created in Finland and wore all green originally. But the Coca-Cola company invested in paying for extra advertising so that Santa wore red instead.

The clique saying going around this weekend was in America the kids are only a morning people on December 25th because its only a tradition in the US to open presents in the morning. I noticed Brazilians like to decorate for Christmas as far out as the middle of November. It was new and different for me because its normal for me to at least wait until after Thanksgiving but they don’t have such thing here. Here in Brazil normally they open presents at 10 pm on the 24th. Some Catholic traditions are taken seriously others are not even touched depending on the family. As far as my first host family everyone lives close to each other, but on the December 24th, they spend it on their dad’s side and 25th with their mom’s. As far as the family I live with now my host mom’s family came to us for the holidays but every other year they try and get away to spend at least one of the holidays at the beach.

Not only did I get to experience Xmas in Brazil this year but also Hungary. Zsofi (my sister) explained to me that her Christmas is actually spent on both December 6th and December 24th. On December 6th Saint Nicolas comes and puts chocolate in your shoes after they simply clean them. But on December 24th little Jesus comes to town to drop off their presents under the Christmas tree. They also decorate the tree on the 24th, walk around their tree caroling and light sparklers. Specifically, her family always buys a new board game to play with after all the gifts have been opened. Then December 25th is simply just spent relaxing, visiting other friends and family and having a feast.

Here in Brazil, it is the start of summer so everyone’s goal is to have a nice body to look good in a bikini but officially starting the break off with holidays full of huge feasts its hard to keep working on that nice summer body. I guess that’s the only nice thing I miss about having Christmas and New Years in the winter. Because you don’t have to worry so much about how you eat but more about how to stay warm and still look stylish!

~Halloween~

Brazil, Cool People, Exchange Students, Exchange year, Holidays, Rotary, Travel

Halloween will never be the same as it was while I was growing up, but will always be my favorite holiday! Halloween is actually only a big deal in America. It usually revolves around a lot of candy and costumes, but this year I spent Halloween with people that have never set foot in a costume store. Really? I thought to myself, where do they get their Halloween costumes?

In Brasil, you never see kids trick or treating or houses decorated with orange lights, pumpkins, and scary stuff from the outside. As Halloween approached, I found myself getting a little homesick for friends and traditions, but as it turns out it was a great time here!

The Rotex actually organized a costume party for us and surprised us with a costume contest. Unfortunately, my costume didn’t win but my friends and I had a blast getting ready! For those of you who don’t recognize our costumes, we dressed up as Aliens. No one really knows what real aliens look like so there was no wrong way to LOOK. The party was awesome with plenty of dancing and meeting new people. There were students there that will be leaving Brasil on an exchange next year, rebounder, Rotarians and the INBOUNDS! Getting to share my favorite holiday with most of my newest and closest friends was a dream come true. I know now that Halloween is not worldwide, but I hope they enjoyed celebrating it as much as I did.