One is the loneliest number...

Wednesday and Thursday were really hard days for me. I still don’t have friends and am not going to school, so I’ve just felt so alone. There have been times back home when I’ve thought, “Oh I’m so alone!” but nothing compares with this feeling. It’s sort of like a pit at the bottom of your stomach that grows bigger and bigger every minute that ticks by inside your head. I can’t really ever be 100% completely understood here. All this loneliness and miscommunication really makes me appreciate and miss all the more what I had back home. Great family, great friends, nice house, good environment, fun times…I always complained about there being nothing to do (which there isn’t on a daily basis), but now I kind of wonder why I actually went through with all of this. I’m missing so much – Orlando, Prom, festival, the spring musicals, my friends’ graduation, the beginning of the summer musical, turning 17 at home. Everyone keeps telling me that by giving up those things to go overseas I’ll gain so much more…but right now I just don’t feel it. I have gained a new respect for home, but if things don’t get better, this will be the loneliest 5 months of my life.

Wednesday practically no one was home (except Fred who was there in the morning with his friend Sara). I ended up watching Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which got me to thinking of the time I went to go see it with the original movie group and made me even more sad that now the group has been revived, I’m gone. It seemed like everything I did reminded me of home, or reminded me of the countless ways home was different. When everyone came back to the casa things were better, since the house was a bit busier. We watched the movie Chocolate and I helped Fernanda with dinner.

Thursday was slightly better. I was alone in the morning and ended up in my room feeling sorry for myself. But I made lunch with Fernando and learned some new words. Then he left and I was alone, again, feeling sorry for myself. I watched some of the videos I took before I left, which made me miss it, but also made me feel a little better, like they were actually in the room with me.

I was finally able to get out of the house around 4 and ended up wandering the town. I walked down the beach, toward this old fort thing. I rounded the corner and started down the river. This huge sundial statue loomed ahead, with many small sculptures beneath it of mermaids and spheres. I walked across a small bridge toward the towering convent up ahead. On the way I passed a replica não, a boat that used to carry cargo for explorers. I ended up turning left at the ponte (bridge) and purchased a tarte de maçã (apple tart). It was quite good, seeing as Vila do Conde is known for its pastries (Kip, you really must visit…). After that I just sort of wandered the streets, went to this really old church (think 14th/15th century) and finally arrived back at the casa. Fernando was home, so then he and I went to go purchase some fish. We had salmon that night and boy was it delicious. After that Fernanda, Inês, and I looked at some pictures and talked.

Nights are always better than mornings…since then I at least have someone to sort of talk to, even if we can’t always understand each other.

Today I got some selos (stamps), invelopes (envelopes), and fotos (photos) so I can send letters and send the photos to the American embassy for my dang passport. I wonder if I hadn’t lost my passport if maybe I would have gotten off to a better start and wouldn’t feel so crappy. Who knows…I thought I would be the last person to want to go home after a week, but the world is full of surprises.

I’m not going to give up though! If I don’t believe it or even if I don’t want to do this anymore, maybe if I keep telling myself I can do this, I’ll actually be able too. Maybe I’ll even enjoy myself a little bit.

In about an hour, Fernanda and I are supposed to go to my school to sign papers and get a schedule and stuff. I really would like to do the humanities (humanidades) track, but AFS already talked to them about putting me in Inês’ class. It’s not that I don’t like Inês, I just don’t think it would work out well if we were ALWAYS together, because you spend all your time with the same 25 people, and if every day I was with her all day, we might end up killing each other.

I did get an invitation to lunch with some of the Porto AFSers and an AFSer Brittany from Èvora, but my family might be showing me around Porto in which case I won’t be able to meet them. I’d love to go with my family, and if they’ve planned that I’m kind of obligated because family comes first here, but right now I’d really, REALLY like to spend some time with other kids my age who aren’t family. I could also ask them about being exchange students here and…well I think it would just be good for me, but we’ll see. I told Fernando about Kip wanting to come and meet them and he said, “We’ll see”, so maybe I’ll bring it up again in about a month when they know me better and trust me.

I know when someone goes away it hurts at first for the people back home, but they forget pretty quickly what it was like to have them around. I’m so afraid of being forgotten…it will happen, I know, things will return to normal for everyone except me. I just hope that it doesn’t get to the point where when I come back, everyone will be so settled in without me that it won’t matter I’ve returned. By then, at least I’ll have a lot of practice in being alone.