Bjorn's Report

August 22, 2006

 Londrina, Brasil

Wow, I can not believe I have already been here a month, so much has happened and it all seems to fly by so quickly. I don’t even know where to begin or how I am going to end this. (Sorry if it really long, I have knack for writing long essays or reports.)

            I will start from the beginning, before I arrived in Brazil.

            On July 22, I woke up to a bright and sunny south Florida day; I went through my bags double and triple checking my Luggage. Every thing was there and I was ready to go….besides the fact that I till had not received my plane tickets and visa. Well I waited nervously and anxiously for my dad to pick them up from the post office, once he had them it was off to the races, well I only had 3 hours till my flight and it was way down in Miami. But everything went well. I was all checked in and ready for the good-byes, with my two sisters cry, my mom doing her best to hold it back and my dad standing there with eyes full of envy we said our goodbye and I was off out of reach and out of sight from my family I had seen everyday of my life. Once through security, everything was looking good, until I found out my plane had been delayed for 3 hours. After about 5 hours of sitting in the airport and one a plane I finally arrived in Washington D.C., there I met up with about 25 other exchange students head to different parts of Brazil. On the long 9 hour flight from D.C. to Sao Paulo we had a good time talking about our upcoming adventures. After the long over night flight we arrived in Sao Paulo around 9 am. There most of us said our goodbyes, knowing we may never see each other again, Almost all the exchange students had to change airports, but me and three other ExS(exchange students) had to stay at the international airport and kill 8 hours. Luckily for us a Rotarian was there to help us out, and he decided to give us a tour of Sao Paulo (I wont go into that, Sao Paulo was simply to big and too crazy to describe in words).Finally around 6:30 on the night of July 23 I arrived in Londrina, Parana, Brazil. As soon as I had all my bags I was greeting with kiss and huge hugs.

         I can not explain how nice my Host Family is. My host parents, Marcos and Wanda, are both Dentist, they are really laid back and truly caring people. I have a host sister Branca, she is 19 and two years ago she did exchange to Belgium. I have a Host Brother Victor Huge who just left last Friday to Melle, Germany.    Both my host parents only speak Portuguese, and my host sister speaks English but now she refuses to speak English to me, which is good for me. I also have a little dog named Juniho (little junior), this dog is probably as lazy as my dog back at home. Lucky he is very friendly and lets anybody pet him. I also have a maid who is constantly clean up after everyone. She is extremely nice though and she cooks really rally well.

         I am living in the city of Londrina, Parana; it has about half a million inhabitants. The downtown shopping street is amazing, and it is always packed with people. Everything from Brazil is really cheap, but imported stuff is extremely expensive, name brand shoes are like double the price here. The other exchange students and I have already learned the bus system and we use it nearly everyday.

          After a couple of days of settling in and getting a little accustom to life in Brazil, I started school, the name of it is Universitario. My school is only a 7 minute walk from my house. School here goes form 7:30 to 12:30. I am in the second year of high school (it is basically the junior year), there are 57 students in my class and all of them are extremely friendly. I have 12 different subjects but only six classes a day. I have not quite figured out how the schedule works because it changes a bit every week. My classes are: Chem. A, Chem. B, Arts, Biology, Physics, Math, English, grammar, philosophy, geography, history, and Comprehension writing. I enjoy talking to my friends in class, doing my best to speak Portuguese.

           Everyday after school I go home and eat a big lunch with my family. Everyday lunch consist of rice and beans, which I have already grown to love. After lunch I go off and do what ever I want. Every Tuesdays and Thursdays I play tennis at a nearby athletic club called Iate Clube. On the other days I hang out with the other exchange students or go running around the city lake. The lake is 2.2 kilometers around, about 1.5 miles. The weekends are nothing but fun. There is always something to do with the other exchange students or with friends from school.

           In the following weeks my district will have all the exchange students together (around 35 exchange students) I can not wait for that,

Well that’s about all,

Muito amo

Tchau

Bjorn Syse