Host family

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!

Oktoberfest!

Bands, Brazil, Cool People, Exchange Students, Exchange year, Host family, Oktoberfest

This past weekend Daniela an exchange student from Slovakia and her host family invited me to road trip with them to Blumenau, Santa Catalina. It was a 3 and half hour drive from Curitiba, Parana. I have never been to Santa Catalina before, my impression was they had nicer beaches than in Parana and the weather is a lot hotter. If you are not familiar with Brazil’s states, Parana and Santa Catalina are two different states.

Oktoberfest back in Summit isn’t nearly as big as it is in Blumenau. In fact, the festival in Blumenau stands 2nd behind Germany for the biggest Oktoberfest. Everyone owns the typical German costumes and the band played German music in Portuguese all night. The night started out with a parade full of many different floats.

Oktoberfest is a huge local beer fest. But it is also all age festival… Beer is not the only way you can enjoy your time with friends and family. My favorite part of this weekend was getting to experience German culture in Brazil. The music got old pretty fast but learning how to dance was a blast. I know I probably looked stupid but I will never see any of the haters ever again. I know Oktoberfest is a typical thing for locals so the feeling that Germany is a part of this town is so cool. You could tell there were some houses and buildings built to look exactly like the ones in Germany. My friend Daniela and I got the feeling we visited Germany through a Brazilians perspective and now we want to experience Oktoberfest in real Germany.

Beach Life

Beach, Brazil, Exchange year, Host family, Travel

On September 7th it was Brazil’s Independence Day so everyone got a long weekend break. My family took me to the beach for four days. I had the time of my life, the weather was beautiful, the food was delicious and can never get sick of sun tanning on the sand! It’s just starting to feel like spring here so I couldn’t get enough of wearing shorts and tank tops at least majority of the week. When I come home I am going to be so TAN!

We scored a nice place to stay in Matinhos all week. My dad works for the Caixa Bank and his work hooked us up with a place to stay where there was a pool, a buffet of food served all day long and a patio with ping pong tables and Foosball. This place was not anything fancy but only 3 blocks from the beach satisfied me!

On the second to last day we took a little road trip to another beach town. This town was called Guaratuba and there are two ways you can get there. The shorter way is to take a ferry boat that ports cars and big trucks across as well. Guaratuba is not an island but coming from Matinhos the ferry is the smarter way to go because there’s no time wasted. That day was my favorite out of the whole vacation because we walked up to a famous statue up on the hill that looks over the whole beach town. The view was gorgeous and a perfect place to take photos.

After getting some lunch we went to the beach and laid in the sun, listened to music and had a photo shoot to update our profile pictures:) There’s no better way I would have ended my first vacation away from the city!

School Spain Trip

beach soccer, Cool People, Family, Host family, Places, Spain, Stories, Travel

This year’s winter break was one to remember. All those years being apart in the dual language program since kindergarten finally paid off. On February 19th, in 2016 I arrived in Valencia to meet my host family at the train station.

My first full day in Valencia we went to the beach with a huge group of friends. It was crazy to be walking around on the beach absolutely fully clothed because it was 50-60 degrees out. Thats warm for the Summit kids but for our host siblings it was still cold so it was unusual to be at the beach in February. They were all bundled up in puffy jackets and scarfs still shivering while some of us dipped our toes in the ocean and collected seashells. As the day went on we rented a soccer ball so we could play soccer in the sand. Splitting up into teams (Valencia vs Summit), we battled to see which team would be the first to score 5 goals. We were expecting to get destroyed right way since fútbol is their main sport. But surprisingly, Summit was the first to score! Valencia unfortunately scored shortly after and continued to score 3 consist goals. We only scored once that match so we decided to have a little tournament (best out of 3). The Spaniards won the first and last match and we only won the second match. So we took the winners out for a treat, some ice cream at Burger King.

Another special day was a school trip to another town called Sagunto, Spain. My teacher that hooked us up with all these cool connections actually grew up there. If you were to have looked Sagunto up its a town famous for the castle built on the hillside. We did not have enough time to walk up to the castle but we did get to visit a theater that was built around the same time as the castle, where they still hold performances to this day. On the bus ride back to school “American Football” was mentioned because they have never officially played before. So they challenged us in a football match in the sand again. So in return we agreed after the football match we all go swimming in the ocean. so this time everyone brought their bathing suits, luckily that day was way hotter then the first time so swimming wasn’t so bad. The water was still super cold but now we can say we’ve swam in Mediterranean Sea with our Spaniards (brothers and sisters) .

Our last night together we had a dinner party then walked to a park to take pictures and enjoy the city lights and stars. We talked about possibly planning a trip for them to come out and visit us next year but its going to be difficult if they come as a school trip because some of the host siblings are older then the others and they move on to anther school next year. We were willing to start funding to help pay for them to come but we still aren’t sure if it could work. That night was not the end of our friendship or even the last time ill get to see them but I am still going to miss them!

When I have the money to afford a trip back to Spain I will make it happen. You would think spending 6 days with random locals wouldn’t be enough time to get attached. Well your wrong, 6 days is not enough days to enjoy your time with new friends in a new place. The morning we all had to get on that train back to Madrid had us all balling our eyes out. You don’t have to be related to be family or have a hard time saying goodbye. Spain has always been a dream of mine to visit and obviously Valencia is not the only city. So I clearly am going to return but that was a well spent FIRST time to Spain. Meeting all those amazing people got me hooked on the idea of finishing school (college) out in Spain. Ive heard the universities here have programs where you attend their school for 2 years then you transfer to one out in Europe. If I am forced to go to college that is something I defiently will be looking into. At this point I want to become a photographer or masseuse for a living so finding a school in Spain wouldn’t be so bad. Valencia will always be in my heart as close as a second family so I know we will reunite again some time soon!