Casa en Alvorada

I have been living in Alvorada for a week now and since I was finally allowed to wash the dishes the other night, I feel like I'm finally a part of the family. I live with my host mother Marines and her daughter Taina who is 20 and will turn 21 on the 17th of October so I'm super excited for our joint birthday party. I absolutely love having an older sister and I am now also an aunt to my niece Elena who is 3 and my nephew Thales who is 7 months. They live upstairs with their parents so they're around the house quite a lot and I even got woken up one morning by Elena who told me that it was time to wake up because "the whole world was awake but me".


Alvorada is one of the suburbs of Porto Alegre, the nearest big city. Because it's winter, the house is always freezing and I sleep with 5 blankets but I know it's going to be so nice to come inside to the cold when it gets hot in the summer. The food is so so so good, I have abandoned my gluten-free lifestyle for my new favorite breakfast - white bread with Doce de Leite. For lunch and dinner, we always have beans with either rice, pasta, or polenta and some sort of meat or vegetable to go with it.

I live close to the main road and I walk there in the morning to catch my bus to go to work. So far the bus system has been hard to master but thanks to my new favorite app, I know the bus times and I can follow along on my phone with where I am on the route so that I don't get lost.
I haven't done many touristy activities yet, I mainly hang out with the family or Taina and her friends who make cake spontaneously when they're bored which I think is the greatest thing on the planet. Today for Dia dos Pais (Fathers Day) we had a barbecue with all of her family who are all so nice but speak so fast especially when arguing over soccer teams. I cannot say enough how good the food is but I hope some of these pictures can do it justice.
Tomorrow starts my first full week at my host project and I hope to get comfortable enough to start taking pictures to share!

Se está sintiendo cada vez más en casa! (It's feeling more and more like home)