- Young people text each other everyday. It's impressive how they can easily stay hours sending messages to each other instead of calling. Ben, for example, texts his friends everyday. Once I told him: "I'm going to hide your phone for one day, and I bet you will freak out." Actually I wouldn't do this, but it would be funny to see what would his reaction be. Just for you to know how often I text my friends: Last time I did was on January 1. But that was a special occasion: I wanted to wish everybody a happy new year.
- Cities are different. I don't know how to explain this very well, but the structure and architecture are different from what I'm used to. I mean, here there are factories in the middle of the cities. In Brazil, they are usually located far from the cities, because then we won't see the polution daily. Here the suburbs are safe; there, they aren't as safe as the cities.
- Traffic is different too. Here, the roads are all made with concrete, while we have a lot of streets in Brazil which are made with paving-stone. And everything here is like a road or a highway. I mean, they don't actually have streets here. Everything is bigger...And there are a lot of side roads here, which connect the main roads to each other and to highways (which sometimes are interstates.)
- Life at home can be strange for who is not used to it. Here, we don't have maids everyday. We have to clean our own rooms (which can be tiring, but it's learning to take care of ourselves, be a little bit independent). Here, we have to cook our food and wash the dishes and clothes. We don't have a maid which does everything for us. I think that's one of the reasons why young americans do not have a lot of problems when they go to college and live in a dorm. They are already prepared to do that, and they know how to take care of themselves sooner than brazilians. That's why I'm not surprised that here people get their driving license when they are 16. I've been trying to help the most I can here with the domestic tasks - I help unloading the dishes, I use the washing machine to wash my clothes, I help with the thrash and other things. It's easy to live here, because my american mom and brother are organized and they help each other. So when somebody is too tired, another person will fulfill the task. That's how we are doing things here, it has been pretty easy.
- There are no motoboys here. Actually, I haven't seen a single motocycle here. Pizza and other delivery guys use cars.
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Well, today we had fun. When I came back from school, we visited the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art. It was a big event, the inauguration of a new exhibition: "Pistols - Dazzling firearms". The guns were all decorated; we could see the meticulous work of engravers and craftsmen, who were able to give life to those pistols. Some of them had historical scenes engraved on them. They were so beautiful. They mainly used gold, silver, pearl and ivory, so they were almost all shiny. The exhibition featured guns who were made in the 1800s and the 1900s. We also met a guy named Sean McVicker, a master engraver from Northern Ireland, who taught us a little bit of the history of this fascinating art. I'm sorry about not having pictures...That's because I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside the museum.Things are great at school. Yesterday, I gave my first speech. It was about Truman's show philosophy, and it was a very deep subject. It was actually a good way of introducing myself to new people, because I said I was brazilian before the speech, and some of the students who were listening to me hadn't known that before. I feel my english getting better each day, and my fluency too.
See ya, folks!
