Over one week and I am FINALLY able to write. Yes it’s been that busy. From the first moment I arrived in Brazil at 3:30 in the morning, all I have done is go from one place to another. The American group studying at the Fundac�o Getulio Vargas consists of six people including three Penn Staters. The other three are from Suffolk, George Washington and Harvard University. We all met later on that day after me and Rachel (a fellow Penn Stater who I met this past semester) took a four hour nap. For two nights we stayed at a hotel until we met our host families on Saturday.

   In regards to my host mom, let me start off by saying that I think that I have the best one. She is a 58 year old divorcee named Girlane who lived in the Philadelphia area for eight years while married. So yes she speaks English, but we talk almost 100% in Portuguese which makes me so happy because I have learned so much of the language in just a week. Plus I can ask her what words mean because she knows English and of course Portuguese so well. On top of that she is so full of life and energetic that it’s sometimes hard to keep up. We set rules from the beginning so we have full communication everything and the area in which I live in is quiet, secure and the building also has a pool. I have already had friends over (with her permission of course) and she’s always the life of the party.

   In the time I have been here, I have had hours of the mandatory Portuguese class, been to numerous restaurants, went to karaoke, visited the largest Japanese community outside Japan, been to food markets that mostly contain foods I have never even heard of, visited an AWESOME interactive football museum, seen movies, navigated through the metro system as well as the bus system and spoken to many Brazilians. Just being here is hard to process on some days.

   Right now I am currently planning my Carnival vacation plans. Our group is planning on going to the island of Florianopolis and I cannot wait. I promise to write more often and in detail as all of this info is a summary instead of a detailed description. For now, all I know is that I cannot wait for the next five months to arrive if I already feel like I’ve seen so much in just one week.

   Below is a picture of me, Girlane, and another fellow Penn Stater who had to stay with us for five days because of issues involving his original host family. There is also a picture of my entire group on Avenida Paulista (the largest avenue in S�o Paulo) as well.

Location: Home, Sao Paulo, Brasil