Alright, I've put off writing my blog for long enough. Believe me though, I've had good reason. Knowing where to begin writing is impossible. There is so much going on even when I'm doing absolutely nothing. In some ways, things are exactly the same here in Brazil as they are in Chicago, but at the same time they are completely, overwhelmingly different. Just like the United States, people still order pizza when they don't feel like cooking. They still have bonfires, go out for ice cream, and Billionaire still plays on the radio every single day. Only here in Brazil, the pizzas are tiny, don't have tomato sauce, and are covered in every type of meat you can imagine. Here in Brazil, the bonfires aren't for roasting marshmallows, but for jumping over, the ice cream is all flavored like tropical fruits, and Billionaire is translated into Portuguese.
I before I left, I remember talking with other soon-to-be-exchange-students saying how it didn't seem "real" yet. It felt like our exchanges were just some dreams floating in the distance and that even though our bags were nearly packed, our tickets were bought, and we were two days away from leaving, we still couldn't wrap our heads around it. The strange thing is, even while I was sitting on the plane seeing the Chicago skyline look more and more like Legos as the plane rose, I still didn't feel like I was really leaving for a year. I had expected to be bawling my eyes out driving the passengers and stewardesses insane on my plane ride out of Chicago. But that's not what happened. On my flight from Chicago to Atlanta all I could think about were the most bizarre things like how much I was going to miss CoverGirl mascara and whether or not stewardesses got frequent flier miles.
Even now, that I've actually lived here in Mineiros for a few weeks, for the most part my exchange still seems surreal. It's the little experiences and that suddenly smack you in the face and tell you that you're not in the United States anymore. In my case it's walking out of a store and seeing palm trees, hearing people say things like "Lay-gee GahGah" and "Goodge Nych-ee!", and that fact that when I come home from school the maid has ironed my jeans and band t-shirts. For some reason, it's not the big things like the language or the food that shock you into realizing that you're in a new country. Although the big things might amaze and awe you, it's the little things that you expect to be one way and turn out to be totally different that make you realize this is someplace new. For me it was having my host mom not tell me to use sunscreen, but to use bronzer to even my tan, my host dad ordering chicken hearts at a restaurant, and even just hearing people yell my name "See-moh-neee!" instead of the American "Sih-moan."
All in all, the biggest challenge as of now is trying to tell people about my exchange because, so far, it is completely indescribable.
