Oxford Trial Day 2 + Counselor Meeting!

Today was important for two reasons (hence the title):

Oxford trial day two!

It went well. Today covered:

• Daily routines (brushing teeth, going to school, etc)
• Life events + documents
• Feelings
• Things in the home/apartment
• Buying an apartment/house

From now on, I'm going to post one word that was my favorite of the list. That way, I'll learn one word a day for sure, and you guys get to learn something new. Everybody wins! Yay!

The word of the day today is...

Utilities (noun): a facility composed of one or more pieces of equipment connected to or part of a structure and designed to provide a service such as heat or electricity or water or sewage disposal.

No Português, esta palavra traduzido é: (this is the funny part): os serviços de utilidade pública.

When you're in the habit of writing one or two word definitions for these things, something like that comes as a sucker punch.

I'm not really sure why, but the thought of busting out "os serviços de utilidade pública" in everyday speech made me feel a little ridculous.

...I don't know if that's actually funny or not, but it was at the time.

Anyway, I met with my rotary counselor for the first time today! Her name is Silvia and I met with her for lunch afterschool today and went to an English class with her to meet her professor. He's an American that's married and been living in Londrina for 10 years, so it was interesting to see an American fully integrated into the culture.

After the lesson, we drank caldo de cana. This is literally sugar cane juice. It's served on the street similarly to the "Nuts 4 Nuts" carts in New York City.

The place has 3 key components: the grinder, the sugar canes/flavoring and the hippy van. Almost every time I've seen this served, It's been literally made and served out of a Volkswagen Type II (a hippy van). For me at least, this was a key component to the awesomeness of my first taste. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vw_bus_t1_v_sst.jpg

Anyhoo, The man shoves the sugar cane into this grinding device, which presses the sugar cane to a fine pulp. The juice is collected in a cup below the machine as the cane goes through it. The server then adds slight flavoring (usually limão or coco), and we drink! It's insanely delicious. If you ever go to Brazil this is a must.

My host mom also left for São Paolo today for business. She'll come back in a couple days, but it'll be interesting to see what the house is like without her around for a little bit. Whenever my host father is gone the kids act more or less the same, because my host mom is the one that imposes true order. Now that she's gone though, will the floodgates of anarchy break free? Just in case, I'm hiding my wallet from Christian and changing my computer password.

That's it for now blog buddies. Até logo.