4: Frustration and (Initial) Failure

02/7/2011

Today was the official beginning of our enrollment at the Universidade de Coimbra.  We met with our adviser Ana Paula Arnaut, who was surprisingly cool.  She told us happily that, “Portuguese people are very politically incorrect.  We laugh at all people: black people, yellow people, brown people, Jewish people, Catholic people.  Everyone.  So don’t be shocked when you hear someone say something.  That’s just how Portugal is.”  Now I know why Brown does not have a program to Portugal. 

After all the paperwork, we again took up residence at McDonalds and stayed there for four hours.  I took a break during that time and walked around the Praça da República, taking pictures and people watching.  Today, a lot of students were wearing their traditional uniforms (I guess in preparation for the beginning of classes), and a few of them were walking around the plaza with their capes.  We saw the uniforms all over the city and found a store that sells them but… unfortunately they are 200 Euros.  I guess we’ll just have to come back for our post-grad so it’s worth the money.

Later, as we were getting some other permits and red tape necessities done, we stopped in a little hole-in-the-wall camera shop because I needed more passport photos. The man reminded me very much of my grandfather in the way he spoke, and I was nervous that I wouldn’t understand him.  I was also confused because there was no place in the store to take passport photos, yet the service was clearly advertised.  But I understood him very well, and he lead me, Amy, and Tatiana to his “studio,” which was located up a back staircase and into what I figured was his actual home.  We took the pictures in this tiny room, where a little Polaroid mirror hung on the wall and a well-used hairbrush was available just in case.  I bought 12, as the second set of 6 only bumped the price from 6 Euros to 8 Euros, and every department in Coimbra seems to need my photo.  The pictures are ridiculous.  I was wearing a white scarf and a leather jacket, and I look like an old-time aviator.  I just need the googles.

Tonight we attempted to make dinner.  We bought a pan from this tiny little home goods store, then made a list and bought groceries at Pingo Doce, our local supermercado.  It took quite a long time to get the pan, the utensils, the food, and so by the time we finally got back to our dorm it was about 8:30 PM and we just could not figure out the gas stove.  We had almost given up and settled for just our salad and bread rolls with cheese when Amy’s roommate, who is an young Iranian woman studying for her masters in Mathematics, helped us get the stove going.  Our buddy Nasif also stopped by, but didn’t stay long.  Honestly, we probably didn’t need the distraction.  In the end, we had delicious chicken, rice and beans, and spinach salad.  It was a pretty late dinner, but definitely worth it.  We had a lot left over, so we definitely have at least lunch for tomorrow all set.  Saving money is nice.

02/9/2011

The last two days have been really rough.  Yesterday, Tuesday, I basically spent the entire day in a state of language frustration.  Almost immediately after I woke up, my cousin Joana texted me concerning her arriving in Coimbra to visit friends.  The previous times we had spoken, I had understood her pretty well.  That morning, however, she must have been using some sort of text speak or using colloquial phrases because I had to look up most of the messages in my dictionary.  I found out that she would be arriving around 3:30 PM.  I spent the day running errands around the city, and ended up having to pay quite a lot for my dormitory.  My bank account is seriously hurting right now.  So, broke and frustrated, I sat once again in McDonalds to check my email and wait for my cousin.  She showed up around 4 PM, and we ended up speaking to one another for an hour in broken Portuguese.  I felt so completely inadequate speaking to her.  I certainly wouldn’t blame it on her: I was frustrated and I cannot listen to the Portuguese language at all, and my limited ability plus the noise of McDonalds and the natural speed of Portuguese speakers made me feel like a completely idiot. She was so helpful and patient with me and was so friendly and nice, but when we finally left McDonalds, I was so upset and frustrated with myself that I was glad to be going back to the dorms.  I hope that, should I see her again at the end of the semester, I will be able to have a proper conversation in proper Portuguese.

Afterward the frustration continued as we started to study for our placement exam.  I felt like I knew nothing and kept beating myself up.  When we finally decided to go to bed that night, sleep was impossible: the room next door must have had five people in it laughing and screaming in Chinese all night.  I tried knocking on the wall a few times, but they would only be quiet for a minute or so and then the volume would escalate.  I finally fell asleep around 2 AM and woke up around 8 AM for our 9:30 language placement exam.  Apparently the Chinese students had been up really early that morning too, banging around in the kitchen and speaking right outside our dorm room.  When did they go to bed and how early did they get up?  Another day of frustration had begun.

A escada monumental.  Good.

We ended up taking the bus that morning, climbed up the escada monumental and getting to the Faculdade de Letras about half an hour early, studied outside, and then took the written portion of the exam.  After the exam, we went in search of the a bar inside the building to get breakfast and… lo!  There we other American undergraduate students there!   Three students from West Point were sitting a table away, and finally one of them came over to ask if we were American as well.  There is one guy, Dan, and two girls, Barbara and Ashley, who were very friendly and fun.  We exchanged numbers and hung around the bar until it was 11 AM and we had to go back for our spoken portion.  I was getting more and more nervous, and when Tatiana and I went in to speak to the instructors, we had already been waiting for half an hour.  Tatiana did fine, but my speaking and comprehension was horrible.  I was so nervous and they were so aggressive that I could actually feel my skill dipping back into freshman year POBS0100.  At the end, they were very straight-forward and told me that Tatiana was better than I was and that I should be in the Elementary Level.

I took the schedule of classes, walked out, and immediately began to cry in front of Amy, Tatiana, and our new friends from a MILITARY ACADEMY.  I felt so embarrassed but couldn’t stop, and they all tried to comfort me.  But the truth was: they were all in Intermediate, and I was the only American in Elementary.  I tried speaking to the women who tested me about moving up, but they not only laughed at my struggling with the language and request but also said that I would have to attend the first week as an Elementary student and then, after the first week, get my professors' approval to move up.  We went in search of Ana Paula, our advisor, and she recommended the same thing, plus attending the Intermediate classes at the same time and seeing how I did.  She then added up my hours and credits and the total was less than was necessary for both Brown and UWM and… I cried in front of my adviser as well.  I was so extremely frustrated and, again, completely embarrassed.  Nothing was going as planned, I had failed to get into Intermediate after five semesters of Portuguese, and my classes weren’t enough to transfer as an entire semester.  I just hope that I will be able to move up into Intermediate, where the classes include enough credits and hours.  This means that this weekend, I’m going to have to work really hard on my speaking and listening abilities. 

No more speaking in English.  I will do all I can to be in Intermediate classes by this time next week.  Wish me luck!  I’m going to really need it.

1: Preparing to prepare

1/12/2011

Technically it is January 13, it being exactly 3:34 am, but my days don't tend to end until I'm asleep, and I don't do much of that during the early morning hours.  And since the trip of my life is quickly approaching, and Portugal can't seem to stay away from thought or conversation for more than about half a day at most, I figure its probably okay to begin this Portugal blog.

Unlike my other attempts at keeping a blog (which have all miserably failed), I vow to keep this one up as often as possible.  I want to  remember every minute of this trip because I hope it will be, at least, extraordinary and, at most, life-changing.  I can't wait to go to another country, have the inevitable melt-down a few days in, and then get out there and meet new people and have a fantastic adventure.  That's the plan, anyway.  Of course, I still have to get my visa squared away, which is difficult to do when the FBI takes 12 weeks to process a request for a background check.  Of course, this warrants several questions, like WHY it take the FBI this long to print and mail a background check, WHY Portugal requires a background check from the FBI, and WHY they (meaning the staff of both Brown University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison) did not tell us to request such a background check until three months before our trip (roughly).  But what's done is done.  The timing is simply nerve-wracking.

The other two participants seem equally distressed by the visa process.  They also both seem very  nice, though I have not met either of them in person.  The first is currently in France during her first study abroad term.  From what I can tell by our Facebook interactions, she seems very fun, as does the second, who lives in Vermont.  The latter and I are flying to Lisbon and then boarding a train to Coimbra together, for which I'm extremely thankful.  I would be TERRIFIED to go alone, especially as my grasp of the Portuguese language is NOWHERE near what I wished it would be when I decided to study abroad in Portugal three years ago.  But I've been trying to review (half-heartedly, I must confess) and my mom is bringing down my godmother's copy of Rosetta Stone this weekend, so that should be somewhat helpful.  But I think we, meaning myself and the other two girls in the Coimbra program, are all in the same boat language-wise, or at least, they are both very modest about their language abilities (and will hopefully be understanding of my deficiencies in the future).  At least I can tell from their  names that we are all going to Portugal for the same reason: we're all Portuguese.

I can't tell if I'm excited to go anymore.  I feel like I've been talking about it forever: not only studying abroad there, but the country, BEING Portuguese, the language, defending Portugal against people who say its an old and forgotten country (even though it sometimes is...)  All I ever do is talk about Portugal and I'm sick of it!  Hopefully that will change once I'm there.  It really is, as I remember it, a beautiful and enchanting place.  My parents bought me two tour books, one for Portugal and one entitled "The Best of Europe," which does not mention Portugal at all (awkward).  I'll begin to read those books soon.  I need to start making plans.  I already feel like I need to start packing!

That's going to be the tough part of leaving.  I'm a bit of a hoarder, and the whole "pack what you think you'll need and then take half of that" rule is going to be rough.  My mom keeps reminding me that I can buy all that I need there, but it seems a waste of familiarity and Euros.  Plus, how does one say "hair drier" or "contact lens fluid" in Portuguese?  I guess I'll learn these things soon.  I wish they had easy books with titles like, "Vocabulary You Will Realistically Use in Portugal."  That would make life so easy!  Instead I'll just have to tell my family there, “Não obrigada.  Não posso comer alguma comida com leite" (No thanks.  I can't eat anything with milk.)

I think I've become lactose intolerant, which is goin to make studying abroad tough.  Not only is the food pretty heavily invested in dairy, but if I AM indeed lactose intolerant (which a soon-to-be-determined doctor's appointment will hopefully make clear), I'll have to learn how to eat in a whole new way in a whole new place, which seems to compliment each other in theory but probably doesn't in real life.  Plus that's just more that I have to stuff into my already bursting suitcase: lactaid pills.  I guess we'll see soon if I'm just a hypocondriac or not.

I guess I've laid down a pretty good foundation for this blog with this one post... Sorry if it seems rather boring (I mean, I DID just talk about possible lactose intolerance for an entire paragraph).  I guess I'm just extremely nervous.  Actually, scratch that, I'm terrified to get on that plane on February 2nd.  I won't know the language, the people, the country.  Plus, everyone is going to ask me if I'm Chinese (as they did the entire time I was there in 2008)!  I hope I'll make good friends not only with the people in my program but with students at Coimbra.  I hope I'll meet guys, though its hard to look forward to a hoard of unknown, Portuguese-speaking men... no matter how attractive they might be.  

But I really do think I'm ready for this.  I am so ready to get away from home, to get away from Brown, and just have an amazing experience.  I'm not asking for a movie plot or anything, but I haven't heard of one study abroad experience that hasn't included crazy events and wonderful happenings.  I hope I never want to leave.

Portugal, you better live up to these high expectations.