First Week Experiences

There has been so much going on I haven't updated in a few days.

Work has been going really well- I have gotten to do a lot of neat things, including meeting some very important people in the Portuguese Ministry of External Affairs, translated some Portuguese docs into English, attended some meetings with one of the political officers in the embassy, started my Portuguese lessons, gotten a new roommate, and tomorrow I will be meeting with the Ambassador.

It's all very exciting. After the fiasco on the first day with almost being late and showing up a mess, I think I have made up for it somewhat... Everyone is extremely nice (as I have been saying) and have began to give me a real inside perspective into embassy life. I started my portuguese classes today, which are one on one with this guy José who is amazing, and it was great. José told me my Portuguese really isn't thaaaaat bad (haaa understatement!!) but I just need to start talking and practicing. It was great though because I know I will be feeling more confident by the end of my time here. Otherwise, I haven't been speaking too much portuguese all in all, but I do a lot of listening. Baby steps....

Having another intern in the house is also great- especially after the crazy women who kept calling the apartment the other night repeatedly, insisting that I was sleeping with her boyfriend, it's always great to have someone to hang out with and such. She arrived on Wednesday morning, and I got to go get her at the airport, showed her to the apartment, then we walked around some, went to dinner, and have been having a good time.

They have horrible horrible horrible drivers here. Yesterday I saw this bus nut turn sharply enough onto this little street, so he decided to back up, right into this car with a woman who was honking her horn continuously throughout the entire time. While she was honking and cursing out the window she definitely could have backed up some and avoided the whole thing all together, but instead she watched as the bus came bumping into her. You will also see people hanging halfway out of the window yelling at someone for driving like shit while they are just blocking the way and creating more disasters.

I also figured out how to use our euro washing machine; instead of different names for the cycles- you know, delicate, normal, hot, cold, etc- it just has these very odd pictures. These vary from a swirl, a big swirl, a swirl with a showerhead, a hand with a cup, a feather, some weird triangle arrow thing, some blob?? and what not. So I ran it on the swirl shower thinking that would do the trick- it rinsed my clothes but didn't add in the soap. I tried another, which did the same, and then finally just threw in some soap (its like a cabinet style washing machine so I cant just dump in the soap!) and tried some triangle thing and it seemed to work. The dryer luckily had better graphics. So whatever, I am an idiot who can't work a washing machine! haha

There have been lots of other things of course but I am drawing a blank on any other funny things that have happened so I guess I will end this worthless post here and continue when I can actually think of some interesting things to stay. Pelo menos I want you all to know I am good and things are getting better and better.

OH and as I was writing this I heard loud noises from outside the apt, which is typical since we live next to lots of bars and clubs, but it sounded like gunfire or backfire from a car. But when I look out, down the street seriously like 3 blocks they are having a fireworks show over the river! I have no idea why but who doesn't like fireworks?? Ah, lovely evening.