First Few Days

This will probably get long since I have been to busy the past few days to blog. I guess the best place to start is the pickup. I had to drive to Newark to go pick G up. His local coordinator also went, but we took separate cars because her daughter and friends wanted to meet G. If I ever needed a reminder on why I don't miss NJ, it was this trip. Everything was going as planned until I hit construction 15 minutes from where G was located. That 15 minutes to over an hour to complete. K, his LC, was behind me and it took her even longer to get to the hotel. We opted to pick him up at the hotel. His organization offered to send him to one of the airports that were a little closer to us, but the flight plan was crazy. I couldn't see sending him half way around the country just to save us 40 minutes of driving. I got to the hotel and found G in the lobby playing his guitar for some of the kids that were waiting for their turn to be taken over to the airport, so that they can take flights to their host cities and towns. One poor girl was so nervous she couldn't speak. We waited until K got there. T was with me. He saw the indoor pool and wanted to go swimming. We spent a long time listening to him saying pool. Finally K made it and we off to get something to eat. We ate at the Olive Garden for lunch and then went the rest of the way home.

G was amazed by the size of our property. He lives in a condo in Brazil, so the idea of having land and a large yard was foreign to him. Mind you we have a nice sized property, but it isn't huge by some American standards. He loved being able to run around after T outside. We waited for L to get home from work. He couldn't take the day off to go pick up G. I made grilled chicken and zucchini for dinner, and we just took the time to get to know one another.

Friday, we went to see my parents. My brother was in town, and since he doesn't get up this way often we went to see him. My family likes to play cards. G taught us Truco. It is a trick playing game. We had a lot of fun playing that. Friday night we just relaxed around the house and enjoyed each other's company. G also played his guitar for us. I can already tell that is something that I am going to miss when he heads home. He is very good and it is nice listening to him play.

Saturday we went to the county fair. We had a nice time showing it to G. He didn't expect it to be as big as it was. We also watched the lawnmower races that they had in the afternoon there. That was interesting for him to watch. He then went with his LC to ride the fair rides. She brought him home after they were done. T was getting tired so we left early so he wasn't cranky later on that night.

Sunday was a big washout. It rained all day. G played his guitar in his room for a bit and then we played pool for a couple of hours and had a great time. We have also spent a lot of time discussing differences between the countries. G is amazed with our commercials here. In Brazil, it is against the law to use your competitors name in commercials. He was surprised to see Pepsi commercials making fun of Coke. He also has enjoyed being able to watch all the preseason football games. He watches American football in Brazil. He is a Patriots fan which is something we have to break him of since this household is made up of Steeler fans. It is nice that he watches all the same sports we do. He knew the basics of baseball, so we are teaching him the finer points and aspects of it.

I forgot to mention that we had the discussion of rules on Friday. Turns out he has the same exact rules at home that we do in our household. We gave him his list of chores and he added one that he does at home that we didn't give him. He also didn't bring a computer with him. We have two in the house, so he is using ours. He asked to use it, but, by his own admission, he really isn't a computer kid. He goes on occasionally, but he doesn't live on FB or those type of sites. That is the complete opposite of our last exchange student. I don't think that we will run into the problems that the internet can cause, especially since he doesn't have a computer in his room.

Yesterday was G's appointment to pick classes. That went great. He has certain classes that he has to take here in the states so he can graduate once he goes home. He will be in the junior class here. It didn't matter to his home school what grade he was in as long as he took their required courses. Because of that, it freed him to take more fun electives since he didn't have to try and jam in all the PA state requirements to graduate. I think he will enjoy everything he has picked to take.

He also has joined the football team. We did have to get his father to run to his doctor's office to pick up a letter stating that he was just in for an exam and is in good health. That way, he doesn't need to get a physical here to play sports. His father e-mailed me the letter and he can start practicing in this afternoon's practice. This morning he is just watching the team run plays. It will be interesting to see what he thinks of football practice once he gets home. This also gets us into a routine before school starts. Practice is the same hours school is, so he will get used to that. He also is making some friends already from the team. That will be helpful to him once he starts school. I think we are well on our way to a great exchange year.