With the heart on the other side of the world.

If you could choose anywhere to live, where would it be? Most people I know would probably say “Somewhere else than here. Maybe the States or Germany. Australia is a nice place too!”. Well, if I could choose, I have to be honest: I would never choose anywhere but my city, my country, my home. 

                         

 I am from a medium sized city in Brazil called Londrina. It has around 500 000 inhabitants and the closest city you would probably know is São Paulo, that is something like 5 hours by car. We have loads of bad things there: we have a high crime rate, there is lots of traffic sometimes and you can find some streets in really bad conditions. But the nice things really outweigh the bad ones. It is an extremely beautiful city, one of the most beautiful I have ever been to, and you know that when you live in a place since your birth, you don’t really notice this kind of things. We have nice and good-looking people, an awesome lake and, ok, we have traffic, but I think that for a city with over 500 000 people (way more if you count the ones that come from other cities everyday to work) the traffic is not that bad. It is only problematic in rush hours.



The Cathedral.





The "Traveller Monument"



The "Calcadão" - Market place-



Bus Station designed by Oscar Niemayer.



The Apucaraninha Falls



It is a university city, with 14 universities, so there are lots of young people. This culminates in lots and lots of pubs, discos and parties. If you want a place to party, go to Londrina. We have museums and theatres. Actually, Londrina hosts FILO (Festival Internacional de Londrina – free translation: Londrina’s International Festival) that brings theatre groups from all over the world. Until some years ago we also hosted the biggest costume party in the world, Metamorfose. 

 


Yes, that's me in my favourite of the many clubs we have.

 



It is like a open-air theater.





This is the Theater before it was destroyed by a fire. Now the prefecture is building a new one.

I absolutely adore my city. I would never leave if I had the option, but unfortunately, the course I want to do in University only opens in my city two years after I finish High School so I am probably moving to my state’s capital in two years. But I want to be back to my city as soon as possible. 



The Historical Museum. It was a train station before.





We have a huge University, one of the most important in the region.



I know that when I leave Finland from my exchange I’ll be happy to come back to a place where I feel so well, but I’ll be leaving a part of me here. I already love it here, and after one year, Kaarina will be my home just like Londrina. I’ll be leaving part of my heart on the other side of the world.

Finnish friends.

The worst thing about Finland is making friends. Finns are the craziest people ever once you know them but  if you don't, you would imagine they are completely boring people. And it is really hard to make them trust you. You need to be the exchange student sterotype, running and screaming and talking to them without ever stopping and maybe they will start talking to you as friend. Otherwise they will answer your questions and that's all. This last two days I have been acting like a maniac and, surprisingly, this is how I am making firends! 

Finns really like to talk to you. They want to know things about you and your life, what do you think of Finland and if you like here. And they really listen to what you are saying. I am pretty sure that if I talk to someone that I have spoken before, she will remember what I said in the other conversation and then it seems like I am talking with a old friend that know my secrets and all because they have good memory. In Brazil I would never expect people to remeber as much as they remember here because nobody really focus their whole attention on ehat you are saying. For us that is not really offensive because it is a cultural thing.

I was told before that once you make a finnish friend, it is a friend for life. Now I see why.

A finnish friend I made here. He is a ginger!

English must be fun!

I do not remember much about kindergarden other than some disastrous birthday parties I had, like jumping on a trampolin and hitting my head or making my best friend cry because I didn't give her the first piece of the cake. But it was in kindergarden that I was first introduced to English.   

I was about three years old when I had my first lesson, but I can imagine I kept repeating words like "cat", "dog", "house", "bird" thinking it was funny and probably feeling special because I knew things my mom didn't know. Since then, it hasn't changed much, to be honest. Maybe now my techers are mainly the Internet and, God bless them, Hollywood actors, but I still think the words are funny and I still make fun of my mom with her poor English.   

For me, English is extremely important. I think it is a way of becoming a citizen of the world, communicating with everybody and being able to do anything anywhere. By knowing a language that is almost a lingua franca, it opens up a lot of opportunities. Maybe that is why I don't take it too seriously. I know I should make more effort to learn, but I noticed that I end up learning more when I'm not too worried about it. I also noticed that in Spanish and I think that it works for everybody: taking what you have to learn as something fun!   

Almost all the specialists agree that one of the best ways to learn is enjoying what you are studying. Many schools are using this method and making the classes more interesting. I was lucky that my mom had enough money and payed for english classes for me in a place where my classes were nice and there were good teachers, but I still think that, if you have a boring teacher, you can try to make classes interesting, and not give up on learning!

And this is how my year in Finland start!

This blog is a project for my English class. But as my mom wants me to keep her up to date while this exchange, I'll try to make this blog both for the school project and for my family. By now I am not really sure of how I am going to do this, but I'll do my best.