AFS Orientation Otherwise Known as Free Time Part 2

So where did I leave off... Oh yeah, we'd just arrived at the Orientation site. The AFS email we received said that we would be staying at a hotel in the city of Americana. AFS is a big fat liar. What they meant by "hotel" was cabin and by "city of Americana" they meant farm behind the city of Americana. Thanks for that heads up, AFS. Even though it wasn't what I was expecting, I was thrilled it be there. It was gorgeous

These pictures don't truly do it justice. It was a gorgeous property with a lake, several soccer fields, and basketball courts. Our leader informed us that lunch wasn't for an hour so to take our minds off of it we played soccer. Most of the girls sat on the side lines but Germany and I jumped in much to the chagrin of our teammates. We were really no help at all. I'm pretty sure I ran away from the ball a couple of times. Oops. Clearly I'm not going to be the next Hope Solo. Next we had lunch and moved on to orientation activities. These activities pretty much consisted of talking about the differences between Brazil and our home countries and debating who had the best beer. America gracefully bowed out by saying,"We just import ours," and Denmark won by declaring, "We have the best milk." So go to Denmark for the milk and Belgium and Germany for the beer. Which do you think is better Belgium beer or German beer?

Remember how I said we had six Italians? Only two of them spoke any english so they formed their own little gang and interacted as little as possible with the rest of us.The leader actually talked to the rest of us in english and then went to the Italian group to talk to them in Portuguese. So in return we might have made a lot of Italian jokes. For example, why do Italian men grow mustaches? They want to look like their mothers. It was all in good fun. There was holocaust jokes for the Germans and dumb jokes for the Americans. Somehow the Belgium and Denmark kids escaped being made fun of. Most of the weekend was free time, hence the title. The leader was like, "Free time for the next three hours!" To which we'd reply," Well duh, we've already had free time for the last three hours."

The night before we left, we were told we couldn't leave the camp site. We were all disappointed because former AFSer's had told us they'd been allowed to go dancing. To make up for it our leader gave us woods and a lighter and told us to have a bond fire. I was slightly concerned about giving a bunch of teenagers matches but I guess he figured we were next to the lake and hopefully smart enough to jump in if something happened. There were a few close calls but nobody actually caught fire. We just hung out and talked and sang around the bonfire. The next day we had ,you guessed it, more free time! We played some soccer and then were taken to the bus station. It was an amazing weekend and I can't wait to see everyone again in June. Tchau!