Orla’s July report

Okay, so it’s been a while since I wrote in my diary…

Birthday!

I got home the night before before my birthday and my host mum and sister waited up until midnight so they could sing happy birthday and give me a cupcake! This was the first time my birthday’s ever fallen in the middle of the July holidays so it definitely was different. All of my friends from school had organised a surprise party for me at one of their houses so we had a fun afternoon and then I found out my host mum had invited everyone over to our apartment for another party she’d organised with all of the family! There was lots of celebration, many hugs and so many people! Definitely not a birthday I’m going to forget anytime soon

Host sister

My older host sister, Taynara, who was on exchange to the US arrived home. It’s been really different living with one more person in the house but it’s really fun because we get along quite well and have a lot in common. Definitely strange not being the oldest anymore though!

Cabo Frio, family holiday!

It’s the middle of winter, but we went on a beach holiday. Gotta love Brazil. We spent a week in the costal city of Cabo Frio, 11 of us in a two bedroom apartment was quite a laugh. I got to know the extended family a lot better and we had an absolute blast everyday Trying new foods, walking to places I’m sure no one has ever actually set foot on they were so hard to get to and just forgetting everything that needed to be done back in Teresopolis made for one of the best weeks of my exchange so far.

Hatchi

The thing we think is a dog is finally learning to stop eating everything and everyone… Thank goodness

The oficial end to my being a ‘newbie’

The other three exchangers in my city all went home. It was sad to see them go, I’ve had so much fun with all of them, they’ve been a huge part of my year.

And then they arrived

Finland came first, followed by Canada then Sweden and Denmark. I’m so excited to get to know all of them better and I’m sure many adventures await the five of us. Still can’t get over how many of us there are in one city, all four of us girls go to the same school too!

Visits

Sheridan, the other Aussie in my district here finally made her way up for a weekend. We explored almost the entire of Teresopolis, made some Australian deserts and had an awesome weekend without a second of silence. We’re planning to travel further down south to Sao Paulo and Parana state in the next few months to visit everyone else and see more of Brazil!

Other things that don’t fit under any particular headings

– Brazilians love fairy bread

– My Portuguese is getting better everyday

– It went from 4 degrees celcius (top) one day to 26 the next

– I’m going to do the 40 hour famine next month

– I’m thinking about getting dreadlocks…

– Included in my birthday package were 4 tubes of Vegemite and a giant caramelo koala… The koala remains untouched, but as for the Vegemite..

In conclusion, this has indeed been a very busy month, time’s running out, I still don’t really miss Australia and I’m going to jam as much into the next five months as possible!