Let's Go to the Beach, Beach

During the Week BI (Before Internship)!

Play Time

During the week, the students of session 1 went to their shifts at the hospital and I just kind of hung around around all morning. They would normally get back around noon because after their seventh week here, the glamour and excitement of spending the entire day at the hospital faded. Honestly, a lot of the students even ended up skipping on some days. I think that's kind of wrong since you came here for the hospital experience, but I'll save my judgements for when I get further into the program and am in their shoes. Sleeping in late was nice after having to get up at 7 am every morning when I was in Italy. By the time noon rolled around, I would be all set to hang out with the students who got back from the hospital.

The American Food Section: SnackPack Pudding, Poptarts,
Cinderella Fruit Snacks, and Ramen Noodles

During the day, I did different things. We went grocery shopping together sometimes. The store here is called SolMar and the generic brand of the food is actually awesome! Because we want to save money on this trip, we do a lot of the cooking ourselves. I was really excited because I felt like this would be the perfect opportunity to learn how to cook! There were five of us who would plan meals out together and then buy the groceries. One girl Edith would cook the meals for us. It was a sweet deal. (So much for learning how to cook though.) We had teriyaki chicken, lemon chicken, quesadillas, veggies, etc. It was healthy and cheaper!

Claire and I heading back from the pool! She's in Session 2.

Some days we'd go out into the town together. They were nearing the end of their trip, so they often went souvenir shopping. From all the exploring, I really got to know the streets of the town well which was super nice. Eventually, two more girls from Session 2 flew in early and I got to spend a good amount of time with them. We all felt so wise and ahead of the game for having come to the program early. Together, we saw the main church which was breathtaking. We also went to the pool in town which had a low entrance fee and was next to Portas dos Mar (the marina area in town with restaurants and bars). The pool is super beautiful with a high diving board that I jumped from. The water is sea water, so also very cold! Next to the pool, you can swim in the bay area but we didn't get over to that part. Even after laying out for a bit, I don't think I'll ever be able to rid of this shorts tan line! UGH.

Me and my fellow Dukie Maria!!! The program
is filled with UNC students, so we stuck together ;)
She's also Puerto Rican so she's always speaking
spanish. But, her accent is too strong for me!

Kash and I overlooking Portas dos Mar

The days started to get really beautiful and sunny here. (Apparently, it rained the whole time during Session 1 which was a serious bummer for them.) One day, we walked to the beach which was about a 25 minute walk. Though, Sao Miguel doesn't seem to be too fond of sidewalks so I spent a lot of time hugging houses and praying I wouldn't be run over. The beach has black sand due to the fact that the rocks here are volcanic rocks. It was the first beach I've been to with black sand! The water was frigid but bearable. For some reason, my hands were what was especially cold. They say the ocean here compares to the Northeastern waters in the States, which I would have to argue is true. It reminds me a lot of the ocean at my home in the Jersey Shore. Except the waves are bigger and there are no shells on the beach. The water is also super clear. The lifeguards here walk around rather than staying at their post. Their post is this really weird contraption without any back rests or anything. (Maybe that's why they walk around.) I'll have to take a picture sometime. Also, typical me wore a sports bra in the water because I wasn't about to pass up body surfing in these awesome waves! Though, the waves were best near the surfing lesson and even a good distance away from the students, I almost got hit by them. There was one paddleboarder and a couple of sailboats out, and it made me hope that one of my doctors will invite me to go boating while I'm here (one girl in session 1 was invited.) Keep your fingers crossed!

Here are some ridiculous pictures of Trent:

MOM

Delicious

Trent buys his elephant man
 thong for 2 euros

Getting (Relatively) Serious




The students had been telling me to come to the hospital for quite some time now, but when I spoke to Joao about it, he said not to go because of administrative reasons. (Though I totally could have went.) Instead, I went to Base5 where the students teach the locals English. Base5 was about a 25 minute walk away in this cute, little library. I went with Trent and Maria who taught English to beginner level students. I'm not sure what I expected, but I didn't think all of the students would be around my age. During my limited time here, I felt like a lot of the locals knew a good amount of English and figured that was from school. However, if it were from school, the students my age would have been able to speak decently. I definitely expected an older crowd of people who didn't get the "new curriculum", but apparently I was wrong about there being a curriculum at all. It turns out the locals who know English are those who have family in the States or Canada (there is a high population of Azoreans in Massachusetts and Canada.) Portugal has the fourth worst English speaking ability in Europe.

The students were fabulous and so were the teachers. They end up having to be super animated in order to convey what they are trying to explain. They also create programs entirely on their own without any sort of textbooks or administrators to guide them. There are no whiteboards or chalkboards or anything. They end up writing makeshift textbook assignments in their own notebooks. This is all because the Atlantis Project was really not planned too greatly. Thank, Joao.

Having not remembered how I learned English, it was really interesting to see how it was taught. They were teaching the present perfect tense and past perfect tense, etc. I don't even know what that is. When we speak, we just know how. We don't know what the different tenses are called. It made me realize why I find Spanish so difficult. At the end of the lesson, we played Charades so that they practiced the vocabulary they just learned. The students had such a blast, and I was kind of proud because charades was my idea. We laughed so hard. At the end of the class, the students invited me to come to their last class the next day and a dinner that followed. It made me so happy to be included even though they had only met me for a day! I ended up coming of course. Trent gave his students an exam on the last day, and Maria played games the whole time. She also had a cute make-shift graduation ceremony that followed. We ate sweet bread and quejadas to celebrate, and then headed off to dinner at the restaurant!