First Day

My first day in Brazil was amazing. Once I got home from the airport, Mae showed me around the house and I got to put my stuff away in my room. My room is so cute btw. I have a huuuge closet and mirror, it's crazy. The first food I tried was pao de queijo (cheese bread) and oh my good lord that was so good. (this ain't no ordinary bread). I also tried guarana which is a soda drink. I don't usually drink pop but guarana is muito bom! I also had suco de abacaxi (pineapple juice) and holy that was amazing. For lunch we had arroz e frango com feijao e salada (rice and chicken with beans and salad). Foi muito bom! (it was so good). In Brazil, lunch is the biggest meal of the day and family come over to eat with you. Clarice (my host sister) finally got home from school so I got to meet her. We sat down and had a light dinner that consisted of soo many types of bread! My goodness the bread is amazing here. I also tried Brazilian coffee which so very yummy as well. While we were eating, Clarice asked me if I wanted to go to the club with her and Nina tonight. Obviously I said yes so we all got dressed up and went out. One thing I have to point out about the clothes for going out.. if you're wearing a "see-through" shirt it is not even necessary to wear a shirt under it apparently. So if your bra is showing under your shirt it's all good.

Belo Horizonte at night is amazing to look at; I honestly could've drove around all night. When we got to the club we waited in line then finally got in. There were so many lights it was so cool. After a little while we started dancing. That was my favourite part.

I must say... whatever you hear about the guys in Brazil being really straight forward and persistent is completely true. I literally had to jerk my hand away from some guy who kept pulling it. He even got his friend to ask me to kiss him because I rejected him to his face. Clarice and I were dancing just the two of us when next thing you know, some guy grabs my hair and starts stroking it. We quickly departed from that area as well. This happened a few times actually. But overall it was a great night!
My feet are hurting soo bad though! I wore high heels like the Brazilians do and now I'm laying in bed with incredibly sore feet from just one night. I really don't know how they do it!

Anyways I would say my first day was quite the experience :)

Traffic in Brazil

Driving home from the airport today made me laugh quite a bit. It was about a half hour drive from the airport to minha casa em Belo Horizonte and along the way I noticed the traffic was... different from what it is like in Canada. Why? Let me make a short list.

1. I personally didn't notice any speed limit signs but even if there were I think they are more of a suggested speed instead of a maximum speed. Motorbikes especially drove super fast.

2.Stop signs. Also more of a suggestion. If you're making a turn onto a road and you think it's clear, heck why not go as fast as you can to make it?

3.Traffic lights. These are used by most people but to others I think they are more of a suggestion sometimes as well.

4. Switching lanes was actually quite interesting. There is no "waiting for an open/clear spot, signaling, shoulder check then moving over". No. If you need to be in the other lane, switch lanes fast so you don't hit a car. Signals? HA naaahh.

5. Motorbikes honestly just do what they want. It's not like in Canada where a motorbike is generally like a car and has to wait behind cars. If you're driving a motorbike, feel free to squeeze your way in and out of the line up of cars. Don't slow down or anything either, go as fast as you can.

Funny how I noticed these things all within a half hour of driving.

My Arrival

My flight from Miami to Belo Horizonte actually went by pretty fast. I took gravol to make to fall asleep and it totally worked! On that flight, there was no one booked to sit next to me so I had the 2 seats to myself which was awesome for sleeping. When I woke up, it was 3:30am and I could see that the sun was about to start coming up. I kind of fell back to sleep again only to wake up to the sun rising over Brazil. It was so beautiful, I couldn’t keep my face away from the window.

When I got off the plane I had to go into customs. A man came up to me to explain where to put my bags but he started rambling off to me in Portuguese then walked away. I stood there with probably the most confused look on my face and just copied what others were doing. Once my bags were put through the detector, I put one of them back on my cart but then a different man came up and took my other bag away thinking it belonged to the guy in front of me. I walked quickly behind him trying to get his attention but he brought the bag to that man and finally I said “e meu, e meu!” He thankfully returned it back to me and started speaking fast Portuguese. He then searched both of my huge suitcases top to bottom. (messed up my organization I must add). Finally I got to go out and meet my family. There were so many people lined up waiting for others that I couldn’t process who was who. All of a sudden Sofia jumped out and hugged me and I started crying! Behind her was my host mom, dad, sister’s friend (Nina), and Sofia’s dad. I was so overwhelmed because they all started talking in Portuguese to me. They knew I was confused because they all started laughing.

Mae, Pai, Nina and I took the car home. It was about a half hour drive from the airport to their house and I loved it! BH is beautiful! I loved looking at all the PALM TREES! And other really neat things that were different.

I’m honestly just going to write a separate blog post about the driving and food because oh man, that’s different.

Airport Life

 

I have one thing to say: HOLY CRAP these airports are HUGE! I’ve been in big airports before like Toronto, Calgary, Tokyo, etc.. but holy none of those compares to Dallas or Miami. I’m very thankful I had a 3 hour layer because I needed to take a sky train to get to my terminal. I was in Terminal D and had to get to Terminal C… it took about 5 minutes going super fast. It takes about 5 minutes to WALK across the whole Kelowna Airport so you can just imagine the size of these airports. At this exact moment I am sitting in the Miami airport. (oh ya, did I mention how I almost missed my flight to Miami?) Funny story, they changed the gate that I was supposed to depart from and of course I did not realize that until the exact time the plane was supposed to go! LUCKILY I ran fast to the right gate and they were still boarding people so I made it.
Anyhow.. I board my final flight in about 30 minutes. This is it… last flight! No going back now! Miami at night is absolutely incredible. It was one of the coolest things to see on an airplane because there were sooo many lights! Surprisingly I actually slept on that flight, only a little though. This next flight is about 8.5 hours and it’s overnight so hopefully I’ll be able to sleep (I bought gravol to put me out).

Miami is the only “culture-shock” experience I have had so far. Every single person I am near speaks Spanish or Portuguese. I can’t even understand the announcements when they are in English because of the very strong accents! Luckily I found the right gate right away and my plane is on time.

Anyways I am about to get on my last flight! This will probably be posted when I get to Brazil so tchau!

Goodbyes and Such

(this blog post is being written as I am on my first flight to Dallas)

I had a day and a half of notice. Let me say that one more time… a day and a half. I figured that would be a good time to start saying some goodbyes. My best friend Halie and I went out to our old high school to pick up her sister and while we were there I said some goodbyes to my past teachers and fellow graduating students. That night I went to my last rotary meeting. I got to say one last thank you and goodbye to all the wonderful Rotarians in my club. I also had to say bye to our new Turkish exchange student in Armstrong, Zeynep. Zeynep if you are reading this, have an amazing year in Armstrong, it truly is a wonderful community and I know with your personality you will make lots of friends. I wish you good luck with my family, they are a little strange but you’ll get used to it I promise! Next I had to say bye to John. That was actually really weird for me because he has helped me with everything along this process so I was kind of like “what am I going to do without John, ahh!?!”

My last night in Armstrong I had a bunch of friends come over to hang out one last time and say bye. It was honestly so much fun and I am so thankful to have such amazing friends. At about 11:30 night that we all decided to go for one last Denny’s date. So 9 of us hopped in our vehicles and headed to Denny’s only to find out the kitchen was closed so we couldn’t order food. We decided to just go to Mcdonalds instead because nothing else was open at midnight haha. After we ate our food, we went to the parking lot where Austin and I had a “twerk-off” on his car. Yes, a “twerk-off”. And yes, I won.

We got back to my house around 1am and I had to say bye to Austin. Halie and Nathan came inside for a while just to hang out a little longer. Halie left around 3:00 but I said bye to her the next day. Nathan stayed til about 4:15am! We were both so tired but I’m really glad he stayed.

The next day I woke up, brought my uniform to work, picked up my check and figured out my last minute paperwork that I needed to bring. I got to talk on the phone with my Grandparents that live in Ontario which was really nice J. Then it came the time to head up the road to my other Grandparents house where I had to drop off my two dogs and say goodbye. I can’t even explain how hard that was for me. As I sat down to hold and kiss my puppies one last time for a year, I instantly started crying. I hugged them at least 60 times before I could actually get myself out the door. I continued to cry as I said bye to Grandma and Grandpa. We went back home after that, packed the rest of my stuff, locked my suitcases and loaded the truck. Halie came over right before we left to say bye and we had one last sushi date. My god I love her. Then we were off. Family road trip time. We drove for 5 hours until finally reaching our destination: Richmond! We got to the hotel, which was only a 5 minute drive from the airport, and then headed out for a nice family dinner. It was wonderful. Back at the hotel we just hung out in the room as a family, laughing, talking. I was so exhausted so we ended up going to bed at only 10.

Today. Today is September 12 and it is the day that I said my tearful goodbye to my family. We got up, drove to the airport, got my bags checked, then had a very quick breakfast. Then it was time to say goodbye because I had to line up to get through customs. We all started crying (except dad) pretty much immediately. I cried the whole way through the lineup. I breezed through customs fairly quickly actually so I was pretty happy! I found my gate right away, sat down, turned on my laptop. The background was a picture of my parents and me at prom. I started crying again.. ughh.

Finally I am sitting on the plane typing this all out even though it won’t be posted until I have wifi. I gotta say though, the view from the plane as we were flying over Vancouver and then over the mountains was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. I am so proud to live in such an amazing country.

I do believe that is all I have to say for the time being so until next time, tchau.

 

The Scramble

Monday, September 9^th, I had my last day of work (for those of you who don’t know, I worked subway). Since my visa had arrived the previous Thursday, I knew that I would be leaving really soon. My travel agent told me on Friday that I would be given my ticket information on that Monday. So I went to work that day knowing I could get an email at any moment saying when I leave. As you could probably imagine, I could not concentrate all that well on work (sorry Lori). FINALLY I received an email saying the info was available on the website. When I checked the website it said I would be leaving Vancouver airport at 8:10am Thursday, September 12^th. I was ecstatic. Unfortunately, there was no flights available that would take me to Kelowna to Vancouver early enough to make my next flight so my family and I had to pack up and drive to Vancouver WEDNESDAY. That was literally a day and a half notice basically. I am so thankful that I had already been pretty much all packed so I didn’t have to scramble with the gifts and clothes part of the packing. Essentially I had one day to get my stuff together and make sure I got all the little last-minute things.

Luckily I am an excellent packer though! Who knew!? Everything is perfectly in place and all the breakables are secured nicely (mind you it did take a few times to get it perfect but that’s because I may be a little OCD).

I’m going to tell you about my flight schedule… because I was a little freaked out. I go from Vancouver to Dallas to Miami then finally to Belo Horizonte where I will meet my host family. My longest layover is 3 hours which I find just perfect because that gives me lots of time to find where I need to be. These airports are very large and this is the first time I’m flying alone so let’s hope all goes well.

 

I was so worried I would forget something that I think I over-packed… just a tad. But you know what? John Irving… if you are reading this, I thank you so dearly for those printed maps of the Dallas and Miami airports; you are a lifesaver. The funny but not-so-funny part is that those maps are the one thing I forgot to bring with me… my bad. I give you permission to laugh at me.

 

Packing

The day I have been waiting for FINALLY came... my visa arrived! WOOO!
I'm still not sure which day I will be leaving but it will be THIS WEEK! Holy I can't control my excitement right now.

Since I have only a few more days I decided to start packing. I did not realize how much stuff I had until now... holy bananas. A couple months ago I went through my clothes and separated the clothes that I will be taking and the clothes I will not be. I have a huge garbage bag FULL of clothes that I'm not taking-which is great- buut I still have waay too many clothes to take haha. No amount of clothes can compare to the amount of presents I'm bringing though. My mom and I may or may not have gone a little over-board with the gift-purchasing... but it's good because I am definitely prepared.

I also had to go through and pick out which pairs of shoes I will be bringing. For anyone who doesn't know me.... THAT'S A LOT OF SHOES. I think I narrowed it down to 9 pairs which for me is pretty good I'd say.

So far in the last month of waiting I have been invited to: 1 vacation, 1 event with my school, 3 parties, 2 soccer games, 1 welcome party for myself and 2 other exchange students, and 1
BBQ. I'm not even there yet and I already feel special. Nossa! haha

I find out tomorrow which day I will depart and I honestly couldn't be more excited. I am so happy it's finally all coming together! I'm not exactly sure when the nerves are supposed to kick in but that will come eventually I'm sure. Right now it's all excitement and anticipation.

Anyways this was just a short post to update you all on my life before exchange.

Bjos

-Hailey

Macie apparently doesn't want me to leave.

Thank You

Recently I found out that I am able to check my visa online to see which stage it is at in this process. At the moment it is being processed. From there it will go to be authorized and then sent to me. Once it arrives in my mailbox I can finally send it to my travel agent who can then book my flight.
Hopefully this will only take a couple weeks more and I will be off to my paradise!

It's basically just the waiting game from here on in.

With that said, I thought now would be a good time to put out some thank you's.

First, I would like to say thank you to the 7 exchange students we have hosted in my house; if it weren't for each one of you, I wouldn't know anything about Rotary and I wouldn't have developed quite the amount of curiosity and passion for travelling. Thanks to all of you, I now have a greater understanding of the world and different cultures and I really believe that you made me grow more as a person.
I've grown up having a new stranger stay in my house every year, who very quickly became a permanent part of my family.
Thanks for inspiring me.

Next I would like to thank the Rotary Club in Armstrong. I have known many of you since I was very young and it has been an absolute pleasure getting to know each of you over the years. Thank you for supporting me and being so warm and welcoming at every event I have been part of.
It is an honour for me to represent all of you in Brazil. I promise I will be the best ambassador I can be.

I would also like to thank the inbound/outbound/rebound exchange students from 5060 during 2012-2013. Though I have only met most of you at a couple rotary weekends, you all made a huge impact on me. In such a short time, you became like a family to me. It gave me great hopes for what was to come during my exchange year. You all taught me so much about being an exchange student, and so much about myself. I always looked forward to getting together with all of you because we always had such a great time. Thank you for welcoming us outbounds into your circle as easily as you did.
You will forever be in my heart.

Thank you to my Rotary Club and families in Brazil as well! Although I have not met you yet, I am just as grateful to have been accepted into your way of life. Estou muito animada para encontrar voces e aprender sobre sua cultura. Espero que voces vao gostar de mim porque eu sei eu vou adorar Brasil! I am going to strive to be the best representative from Canada that you have ever seen! ;) Muito Obrigada!

Now. I would like to say a special thank you to all of my dear friends in Canada. The last few months with all of you have been incredible. I will always cherish the moments we have all spent. These last couple weeks have been tough because of my visa and paperwork and without all of you, I honestly don't know what I would have done.
Thank you for always being there for me, making me laugh, getting me out of the house, making me a little less white ;)
And thank you for your support. Thank you for understanding that this is my dream and that one year is not very long.
I will miss you all very much but I know that if we can have a kickass goodbye party then we sure as heck can have one hell of a welcome back party ;) am I right!?
Love you all.

Last but certainly not least, I would like to thank my family. Your amazing emotional and financial support is what is putting me on that plane. Thank you for supporting my decision to be an exchange student even from an early age. Thank you for giving me the advise and motivation I needed to make this dream come true. This trip means the world to me and it gives me great pleasure knowing my family is right by my side.
A year is a long time when it comes to being away from your loved ones but I know you will be with me every step of the way.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
Thank you.
Thank you/Muito obrigada to all who helped make my dream come true.

Bjos xox


(Brenna, go grab a tissue)

Still Waiting

It is August 22nd and I still have no clue when I will depart from Canada...
I was supposed to be gone the second week of august at the latest but like I said in my last post: my papers got messed up.
I check my email and the mail everyday in hopes that my visa would be sent to me. everyday there is nothing.
Everyone is telling me to be patient (believe me, I am trying!) but it's incredibly hard when I have my host families and friends in Brazil contacting me everyday asking if I know anything.

Since my visa application didn't get sent to the consulate until later last week, my visa probably won't be on its way to me for another couple weeks at least. That means that I will most likely be arriving in Brazil a month late. That also means one month is taken away from my exchange because one person didn't do their job.
Cool.

It is a long wait but I know what is waiting for me on the other side will make everything totally worth it.

Brazil... I hope you are ready for me because I am more than ready for you.

Prepara ;)

Bjos e um abraco xoxo

-H

Ugh

So today was a fun day for me..
For the last few weeks, I have been missing this one certain document that was supposed to be sent by my host club in Brasil. We have done everything we were supposed to on time but we were just waiting on this one paper. This original copy of this form was supposed to be sent to my travel agent in June but instead was sent to me. Of course we didn't know this until today so we immediately sent off this form to my travel agent with hopes that she can book my flight.

I'm telling you.. this process is very long and confusing and it's making me crazy not knowing when I leave. Originally I was supposed to leave by this week and now we're looking at another 2 weeks maybe.
There's not a lot we can do at this point except wait.

There are not enough words to describe how excited I am to leave and start my exchange.. I have been studying Portuguese religiously and I just want to start speaking it to everyone.

On the bright side... I get to keep working to save more money for the Northeast Trip in January :)

So for anyone reading this who is planning on applying for the exchange.. do it. I haven't started my exchange but I can already tell it's the best decision I've ever made. Just a tip though.. be patient during this process and watch over your paperwork carefully ;)

Bjos xox