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Yesterday was amazing. Yesterday was probably my best day here because I learned so much from others, and also learned certain things about myself. I woke up, went to school and went to lunch with a guy named Oliver from Bosnia. He lives in Bosnia but was born in Switzerland. We had a long, two hour talk about so many things, but especially language. He knows 5 languages: Bosnian, German, French, Portuguese and English. The only language he isn't perfectly fluent in is Portuguese, which is why he is here studying! This is his last week, as he's been here for four already including this week. He told me that english was by far the easiest and that french was the hardest. I asked him how he learned them all so well and he said by using a program that has chats in every different language so whichever language he wants to improve on, he goes into that chat room and types and can also talk on a microphone with others speaking the language. He said he's never learned from a program. Only books, classes and school. Also, he is about to begin learning spanish! Ay yai yai! He asked me if I was going to a university and I told him that I graduated early, worked for a semester and that I'm going to Belmont University next month to study graphic design. I then asked him the same. He told me that in Bosnia and especially Switzerland, it is extremely rare for a student to go to a university. You have to go through primary school, then you have the choice to go to an okay school or an advanced school; after those four years you have the choice to have an internship and work at a restaurant or somewhere doing hard work, or you can go to something that he called (Gimnasium). I'm not sure if that is correct or not but it was a little bit hard to understand :). Also, to even have the chance to attend Gimnasium you have to pass a really hard test and more than 60% don't pass it and right there they can't go to college. Oliver is very smart and passed the test and will go to Gimnasium from age 18-21 and then if he passes all of his classes and passes another hard exam, THEN he gets to go to a university when he's 21. He told me that the only exception is if you are extremely smart and a university asks you if you would like to go straight to a university before you finish your normal school years. That blew my mind, maybe other people knew how hard it was but it made me even more grateful for the almost endless options of getting a higher education even if it's ACC in America. I am so grateful. He told me the hardest things to learn in english was the difference between "some" and "any", and using the word "haven't" because of double negatives and I told him of easier ways to say phrases that mean the same thing. He also said that at first of course it was very hard to understand because we use so much slang. We also talked about how on instant messaging everyone uses the little acronyms like brb, lol, and wtf. It was funny to hear that even in different languages they have things similar that make no sense to me of course. All in all, we had a great and interesting talk and I'm sad he is leaving on Saturday because he is one of the most real and interesting people I've talked to hear. Later in the afternoon, Raymond and his wife that live 20 minutes away from Faro in Loule, picked me up and took me to their BEAUTIFUL home on the top of a hill that overlooks all of the algarve. We talked about how negative a lot of people are compared to the United States. I told him that I was shocked when I walked down the street and said ola or como vai voce and they just stared at me and walked by. For the first few days, I kept saying it and finally one woman said hello back but she was really awkward about it, haha. He told me that here if you say hello or how are you to someone in the streets they automatically think that you want something from them. Of course, once you get to know them they are very nice, but it isn't normal to wave or smile or even say hello as passing. People drive crazy here, but Raymond told me that at least in Portugal they will stop if you are crossing the street... where as in France, they will speed up so that you don't walk. Raymond told me that you can always tell when someone is from France because they will always try to be better or cut in front of a line and will NEVER let you in a traffic line. He lived in France for 3 years with his wife and met lots of nice people like there are everywhere, but as a generalization, most of them always have to have themselves come first before others. We walked around in the town of Loule which is absolutely beautiful and a little more renovated than Faro. One thing that is really neat is that in Loule, because they don't want it to be too touristy, you can only build a house that has a ruin of an old home on it. Or in other words, you an only build a house if one was there before. So all of the homes by Raymond which is a 5 minute drive away from the town center of Loule, have beautiful ruins of small old homes which adds so much character. I thought that it was a great idea in order to not be over built and still have the touch of old Loule in the town. I found out that Portugal and Spain are rivals because hundreds of years ago, they were fighting over the peninsula and many immigrated to other countries while the countries were both still poor and now that the portuguese and spaniards have moved back to their homes, they still don't like each other because years ago it was all about who was wealthier and they don't like giving up a fight in europe. I tried squid yesterday, not fried :), and it was alright but not my favorite. I also had some carrots soaked in olive oil and garlic that was a couvert (or served before the meal with bread and butter) which was amazing. For dinner I had grilled golden bream which is a very good, white and popular fish in portugal. It's called dourada in portuguese. It was the first time I have had fish served with all of the skin and the head attached with the eyes and everything. Raymond showed me how to skin it and go around the bones, it was a good learning experience haha, now i know! We had a great bottle of red wine and talked about how in Europe it's so much better to teach children young how to drink alcohol because when they think it's forbidden they over use and abuse it. Even their little granddaughter that I met who was PRECIOUS and 2 or 3 years old pretends to drink wine at dinner and loves pretending, but she knows that it isn't a bad or forbidden thing. It's just acceptable. They pretend to pour wine in a glass for her and then she pretends to drink it so she knows that it's okay when she's older. After dinner, on the house, the waiter brought us a dessert liqueur which was a thick white almond liqueur. It was my favorite dessert wine I've ever tried. Absolutely amazing and extremely smooth. We also talked about business men in the U.K. and how normally englishmen from London always feel that other countries need to speak THEIR language, and never try to speak the other language of the client. Raymond said that this was a huge thing that when he was working with the company with my dad a lot of people didn't understand. Raymond told me that in Europe everyone is very skeptical about english people from the UK because they always want something with not giving anything in return. When raymond left the company and they hired another englishmen instead, it took them less than 6 months to loose 95% of their business and clients because the european clients no longer trusted in the company because no one was even trying to speak their language and it was always about the englishmen. The company is now nothing. Next week Raymond and Francois (Fran-swa) are going to pick me up and take me to an underground tour of how salt is extracted from underground and then refined and sold. I'm so excited!! We get to go over 150 feet down or more!! I learned A LOT today. im probably even forgetting things. yikes. im tired of typing :)
boa tarde!
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