Well we’ve been in Portugal for about two and a half months, and I’ve fallen a bit behind on these blog posts. If you did not get our June newsletter, here is a link to it http://www.maf.org/document.doc?id=3939 and it explains our move and landlords.
(Standing on top of the university's clocktower in Coimbra)
Seriously though we were both very impressed with the
course. My Spanish background allowed me
to test into the second level, so Holly and I were in different classes, but we
both really liked our teachers and were very impressed with how the program is
set up. Holly’s class only had 6
students, and mine had 15, so student teacher ratios were really good. The students are from everywhere; my class
had students from every continent except Africa and Antarctica. Most of the other students were just there
for the summer, but there is a Venezuelan couple in my class who will be with
me the whole year.
Portuguese is in some ways very similar to Spanish, but
different enough that it can really mess you up. It has much more complicated sounds, and, like
English, two words spelled identically can sound different and mean different
things, and two words written differently might sound the same. . .
Next week Lucas will start daycare and Diego will start
Kindergarten (both in Portuguese), but for the summer course that was not
available, so my oldest sister Jenna flew out and watched the boys while we
were in school. I’m still not sure what
we would have done without her, and she did a great job getting Diego to eat
new things (this is hard), and helping them adjust to life over here a little
more gradually than just throwing them straight into a Portuguese school. While she was here (but luckily for us on a
weekend) Lucas started crawling, and he has quickly learned to climb steps and
open things. Unfortunately his motor
skills are way ahead of his risk assessment, so he’s keeping all of us on our
toes.
(Lucas - 9mo)
In August the University shuts down, so we had some time to
see more of Portugal. Jenna’s husband
Carl flew over and the six of us spent a few weeks travelling. We mainly stayed in people’s houses (with Airbnb),
so we were able to keep practicing Portuguese, and even learn some new
vocabulary. New places meant we had to
keep interacting in Portuguese in different situations: getting directions,
finding restaurants, looking for diary free food, etc. I also got a few chances to try and explain
MAF in Portuguese. Portugal is a
beautiful country with some of everything, and we have not even been to all the
regions yet. Everyone is very friendly,
and it is the cheapest European country I have been to, so you should come
visit us!
Next week classes start again with another accelerated
course, and then in October the regular semester long course begins, so the
pace will be a little more sustainable.
Diego is excited to start school, but please pray for him as starting
kindergarten in a different language is quite the adjustment!
Thank you again for all of your support, and we will leave
you with a video of Diego giving a tour of our house here:
