13 Jun 2013

About my host family, my host city and the thing that happend until now

Bom dia, 

In this entry I want to tell you something about the things that happend until now and the most important thing for my year: my host family.


Last year at the beginning of the summer vacation I sent my first application to AFS (my organisation) and in october I got a invitation to one of the choosing weekends. Before this weekend was really nervous, but it was or something, rather quite the contrary: I had lots of fun with the other applicants and the adviser were really nice. But after the weekend the time of waiting started.

The day I got the mail that I was choosen was really crazy. In the morning I couldn’t find my mobile phone in back and so I thought I had forgotten it at home. I had 11h of school on this day and after school finished I looked into my back to take something out. I saw my phone there and the first thing I did was checking my mails. I saw a mail by AFS and I just read the first sentence and started to cry really loud. Some other students at the bus stop laughed at me, but I was so happy and I ignored them. Today I think it was really awkward, but on this day in november I couldn’t belive that my biggest dream would come true.

The first step after that was to choose a country. The have enough host families in Brazil so I got a confirmation that I can go there really fast (about 2 days after I sent my sheet of country preferences. The next thing to do was the online application, where I had to fill in lots of forms. The best thing was to write a letter to my future host family and choose some photo so that they can get a picture of me, their future host daugther.

In February I had my first of three preparation weekend. It was much fun and I meet some of the applicants, which were choosen too, again. Some games were really crazy, but I think they all make sence. Also our adviser (they aren’t much older than me) told us about their exchange years and this was really intresting.
My second preparation weekend was about 4 weeks ago. It was more relaxed than the first one and we had lots of fun again. We talked about bad things taht could happend and also about the great things. After the weekend I had to think really long about some things and I was a bit afraid, because one of the adviser told us, that after her year, she and her best friend aren’t friend anymore. But after all this thinking I’m still excited and just want to have a great year, no matter what will happen.
Next week on Friday my third and last preparation weekend starts. It's the country-specific one and will talk a lot about Brazil there. I'll also will meet lots of Hoopes who are flying to Brazil with me. But it's far away from my home town, so I won't have school on this Friday to go there by train.

Between this too weekends I already got my host family. I was really excited where I would live for one year. Now it’s Varginha, a bigger city in Minas Gerais, about 4 hours away from Rio de Janeiro and 3,5 from São Paulo. And again 3,5 hours away from Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais, where one of the stadiums for the World Cup 2014 is.

So now about my family: I have a host father, a host mother, a host sister (one year younger than me) and a little host brother (6 years old). They look very friendly. My host parents have a company for school buses, so I know how to get to school ;) By the way my school is the Colegio Batista de Varginha (website here). What I also know about my them: they have a big house with a large backyard, they like sport but also indoors-oriented things and they like football (they are fans of the Cruzeiro EC and Boa EC) just like me. That are the most important things about them I think.
Since about 4 weeks I’m staying in touch with my host family and they said they are really excited for my arriving. I really like it to write with my host sister via Facebook because she likes the same things(for example music and movies) like me. I think we will get along very well, just like my host family and me.
I’ll ask my host parents for a permission to publish a photo of them here, but until then you have to belive me that they’re look very nice and friendly.

About to weeks ago I got my departure date. My flight from Frankfurt to São Paulo is going on the 1st of august at 10.05pm(German time). My arriving is at the 2nd of august at 4.55am (local time in SP). So I'll fly about 12 hours to go to SP and then I'll journey on to Varginha by plane (about 1 hour I think) or by bus (abou 5 hours), I don't really know that.

If you have questions, you know how to ask ;)

Até breve!

 Sandra

No comments: