Ashley’s Journals

October 7, 2025

Smiles, Laughs, and a lot of Love ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

Hi again! I can't believe it's already October, I've been in Brazil for over two months now. I'm really happy that the weather is finally warming up, yesterday it was 90 degrees Fahrenheit! During August and September, it was surprisingly colder than I was expecting but definitely not as cold as winter in Georgia.

The first thing that happened was the orientation for all the inbound students. It was really nice to be able to finally be able to meet and talk to the other exchange students. During the orientation they discussed rules, what to expect, and some upcoming trips. The orientation took place in Santos, so it was nice to see the beach even though we couldn't leave the hotel. Our district has almost 40 students, after the orientation my blazer is almost full on the front. I think I need to start putting pins on the back!

In September we had our first Rotex trip, it was a Downtown São Paulo trip, we went to some places around the city as a group and it was very fun! I will attach some photos, but we went to Ibirapuera park, the shopping, and Beco do Batman. During our time in the park, we wrote a nice card to give to a stranger for September, mental health awareness month. I thought this idea was very sweet and touching. At the end of the day I was exhausted from walking so much, very tired but happy.

The week prior, I helped my exchange student friends to make food for a party for Mexican Independence Day. Even though I didn't really know how to make the food, I tried my best to help, and I think the party was a success and everyone had fun. After the party we walked together around the neighborhood, played tennis, and sat down on the grass to just talk. A lot of exchange students from the other district in São Paulo came to the party and it was really cool meeting them all! What was really funny was after the party when everyone left, me and my two friends just sat in the dark and started eating all the leftover food in silence. It was so funny because all of us were so tired that we didn't even have energy to laugh.

Last week my friend, who's an exchange student, and her family invited me to come to the beach with them over the weekend. I've already gone to the beach once with my host family, but it was really fun to go with my friend and her host family. It was perfect weather for the beach too, very hot and sunny. I had a lot of fun, and when we returned back from the beach on Sunday, I walked with my friend to the park nearby to her house and we just sat on the bench and talked.

My week days consists of going to school, and spending my afternoons relaxing or going out with friends. The weekends are my favorite because sometimes my host mom takes me to our aunt's house and I can spend time with her daughter who is around my age and very lovely to hang out with. I have noticed that family is very big in Brazil, family is always here for each other and so tight-knit. My host family has given me the same warmth like I've always been a part of their family, and I couldn't be more grateful.

I also forgot to mention but I rode a two person bike for the first time and I was riding it with my cousin who is eight years old, so I was basically doing all the power to pedal the bike while he was talking to me about Roblox and brainrots, it was really funny to listen to him. He speaks almost perfect English because he plays so much Roblox, I was so surprised because he learned how to speak English just from gaming. He's really funny to talk to and when we were riding the bike he asked to switch spaces with me to control it and I was really scared but luckily we didn't crash. Phew.

My Portuguese has definitely improved a lot, I can have a conversation using simple vocabulary and I can understand a lot. Speaking is still hard, most times I can understand what the other person is saying but l'm not sure how to formulate a response.

I very rarely have to use a translator, only for complicated or unusual words. Even though I am definitely not fluent yet, I'm proud to be able to understand a good chunk of what other people are saying.

As I've spent more time in Brazil, I feel like l'm definitely more adjusted and used to day to day life here. However there are definitely a lot of culture shocks of experienced like late mealtime, usually around 8-9pm which is late for me because I usually eat dinner at 5pm. It took me some time to adjust to this because I would already feel sleepy when my host family called me for dinner. Another thing is the different units, kilometers, kilograms, and celsius, all that l'm still getting used to. Along with the common use of military time.

One more culture shock I want to share is the festivals and parties, there's always something to celebrate no matter the holiday or event there's always some kind of party or social gathering. Brazilians love to celebrate!

I think that's everything I want to document for the month of September and the beginning of October. Every day spent here teaches me something new, I can't wait to write again soon!

Até logo!