I've made it?

I have had two very rewarding linguistic experiences in the last week or so. Last Wednesday, while I was walking down my mountain towards class, I got lucky enough to hitch a ride with one of my neighbors. I had never met this one before, so we spent the first 90 seconds saying how are you, where are you headed, etc. When we got towards the bottom of the hill, I told him I was an exchange student from the United States. "What?!" he said, "you aren't Brazilian? I didn't perceive that you were foreign. Are your parents Brazilian?" I said no, thanked him, and laughed as I got out of the car.

The next day, I took a cab home from Baixo Gavea, my University's most lively bar hang-out. I asked him what his thoughts were on the World Cup. He said that he thinks foreigners will be greeted with open arms and have a lot of parties to go to. The problem, he explained, is that the Brazilian Government will embarrass itself by not having completed what it promised (I will write a post in a week or so that attempts to explain the strikes, anti-FIFA movements, etc. It is fascinating and terrifying at the same time). While I was directing the cab driver how exactly to get to my house, I told him that I was an exchange student at PUC. "Ah hah!" he said, "I thought you had a Portuguese accent!" When I told him that I was from the United States, not Portugal, he was quite surprised.

Obviously, these two shining moments do not mean that I speak perfectly in Portuguese. I still run into some people that I cannot understand at all, and others that cannot understand me. Still, documenting these moments is important to me; I am slightly stressed about the idea that the day I leave here might be the most trilingual I will ever be. Chatting online with Brazilian and French friends may be my best way of practicing in the future. Sadly, it will have to be a conscious and forced effort on my part to keep it up.

My blog has become text heavy again. Soon I will post pictures from one of the planet's most amazing places, Foz de Iguaçu.