We are loving it here so far!
When our house was empty my dad asked our family friend David half-jokingly if he would help us move in and he came! We had a great week getting the main furniture and housewares. We had to go to IKEA like a million times, and they have a great restaurant in the middle of it. My mom bought our mattresses entirely in Portuguese at another store! We have all of our furniture now. We are thinking about bringing our other house pictures to hang up next to our new pictures from here.
We have gone on a lot of trips around Europe already. We have done Switzerland (Zurich and Lucerne), Liechtenstein (Vaduz), Germany (Cologne), and Spain (Badajoz). We also went back to Chicago for Halloween and Memphis for Christmas. In Memphis, we went to a candy store named Dinstuhl’s and Target a lot. I got a big giant squishmallow for Christmas — her name is Erica and she’s Italian. When we came back, we brought back a lot of things from Target and Costco.
In my school for PE, we had swimming and roller skating. There are different types of roller skates. I used the more traditional ones. Now we’re doing basketball and fencing. Our double-block PE is when we do fencing, and I also do fencing for aftercare! My other aftercare activities are home economics, tennis, more tennis, and nothing on Fridays.
Math is my favorite subject. In my old school in Chicago, we were only doing addition. Here we have also done subtraction, multiplication, and division already and it’s only been like half way through the year! I’m the only American in my class, and the rest are a lot of different nationalities including English, Ukrainian, French, Brazilian, Chinese, Russian, and Korean. English is my second favorite subject. One time my teacher said I could use my math and English skills to help my classmates!
Lisbon has two futbol (soccer) teams, Sporting and Benfica. We have been to games for both teams, and I want to go to a Porto game next. My family and I decided together and think that we like Sporting better. We like their uniforms, ease of transportation, and there was more action on our side. Benfica is still a great game because of the vibe and we were there for a championship game.
Some of our Chicago friends have visited us and we’ve made new friends in Portugal too. Today we were with Maddie and yesterday my sister was with Amnah. It’s so safe here that my sister is able to walk to the store by herself, grabbing us breakfast and lunch regularly.
I’m looking forward to my Aunt Cici visiting next month! I hope she has time to pick up my other squishmallow from Chicago and bring it with her.