I guess I haven't written in a long time. Every time that I've wanted to write about something, I either find something that I would rather do (watch TV, or read some portuguese book about crooks who don't use guns) or I go to rowing. I'm rowing 6 times a week. It's great fun.

I'm not feeling any great inspiration that has to do with Portugal at the moment, so I'll go ahead and talk about those pictures. The first two are from rowing. The top image was taken on the dock at about 8h30. I was lounging about, waiting for a ride from my mom, and I decided to take a seat on the dock, to see the water. The water is incredible. It has emotions. Sometimes it gets pissed off, and starts to snarl and growl like an equally angry. One should be about as careful with the water in such conditions, because it can easily break you in half. Other times, it beckons, chearful, calm, mirrorlike. That evening, when I took that picture, I was laying down, watching the clouds churn above me. They were about to erupt. But everything was so calm. The water wasn't moving. There was no current. The vertible calm before the storm. And what a storm. My dad likes to say that when it rains really heavily it's like a cow pissing on a rock. Well, that night, it was as if the entire herd decided to piss on the same rock.

The second photo was taken by one of my friends from rowing. The oars in the backround are sweep oars.

The third photo was taken last night, at the Benfica party. For those who don't know, Benfica is a soccer club in Portugal, being by far the most popular. While I'm not a fan of Benfica (POOOORTO), I figure that a party's a party, so what the hell? In the central roundabout in Aveiro, there were a ton of people, singing, yelling, getting drunk. On a Sunday night. Fantastic. There were guys running around with out shirts on, and pick up trucks with 20 people in the back, jumping up in the down. Those unlucky enough to be passing through the city at that time last night also got rocked. I mean, rocked, literally, by about 10 drunk benfiquistas. Excellent party. I won't go into too many details, but the picture is of one of my friends, a true benfiquista, joyful, arms spread wide open.

I've got about a month and a half left before they drag me, kicking and screaming, onto that jet airplane in Lisbon. I don't want to go back to Minnesota right now. I want to spend the summer here, just hanging out with friends, camping, visiting Spain and the rest of Portugal. The rest of Portugal, no, but I would have the oppurtunity to explore a little bit. This country is so big, it's ridiculous. It's a little dot on the world map compared to the US, but there is so much to live here.

Não sei se vou escrever mais um post antes que termine a minha estadia aqui, portanto, espero que tenham gostado de ler um pouco acerca da minha aventura inesquecível em Portugal!

Talvez faça um blogue do próximo ano na América para os meus amigos de Portugal. Se o fizer, vou escrevê-lo em português!

I'm going to London in 2 days. I have to get up at 2 in the morning on Friday (madrugada) to catch a flight at the Porto airport. It's gonna be a wild trip. I'm pretty excited, but I'm also really tired. It's been 5 weeks nonstop since the end of winter break, and my head is about to explode, spraying 6 months of portuguese all over the place.

My dad always said (among a lot of stuff) that there are two things that you don't want to see being made: Sausages and Laws. Can't say that I've seen the latter, but the sausage-making process is not very pretty. In portuguese, they're called morcelas which translates as "blood filled pig intestines." There are some little chunks of other stuff too, presumably some unidentifiable pig-insides. I'd hate to gack out my 5 readers, so I won't go into details. However, the end result is incredible. I've never eaten anything like it. Once you get past that feeling of eating what you just saw getting made, you feel really good, and start to enjoy the really strong, pork taste. Food made on the farm is the best.

The other day I saw a fado concert at the theatre. Fado is traditional portuguese music, played in two distinct forms in Coimbra and Lisbon. Fado is usually sad. No wait. It's not sad: It goes beyond sad. It becomes it's own emotion, encompassing saudade, sadness, and passion into one musical form. I'm not going to pretend that I know what good music is, nor how to make my description of it like those guys at Rolling Stone magazine, but I really did enjoy the show. The singer, while not in the best form, was good, and into the performance. (I must admit, it's be hard not to be into it when you're singing fado). The portguese have this guitar that is really cool. It's got 12 strings, and is smaller than a normal guitar. The band is called Carminho. I'm pretty sure they have a website. (Another band that plays fado-like music is called Deolinda. It's one of my favourites)

Maybe y'all are interested in how my portuguese is coming along. To be frank, it depends on the day, and how I'm feeling. Some days, I feel great, and talk all the time, about whatever comes to my mind, making magic with words. Let me tell you, it feels really good when the words come out in the right order, decently well pronounced. The ultimate high. Other days, it sucks. It's hard to speak, and I feel like I can't communicate with anyone without screwing up. But instead of despairing, I have to move on from that phrase, learn from it, and speak another one. One has to push through the crappy days to get better.

Awhile back I wrote a post in portuguese, and looking back at it, I realize that I have come to improve a lot since I got here. A lot. I've given up on a lot of things in my life, but I want portuguese to be one the few things that I can say that I actually got really good at. And I want to get really good at it.

I guess I haven't written about Portuguese Christmas. For a lot of portuguese people, it's the only time of the year when they go to church. I'm afraid to say that it's just as commercialized as the american Christmas. Pai Natal, or Father Christmas is the predominant image during the christmas season. Seeing a jolly, fat, northeren european dude speak portuguese is just weird. It doesn't fit, at least for me.

My family and I went to Lisbon to spend Christmas with my host mom's parents. Also present were my host aunt and uncle, as well as their two kids. They hail from Madeira, one of the tropical sets of islands off the coast of Portugal. Christmas eve dinner was comprised of bacalhau, carrots, potatoes, and this whitish root that I can say in Portuguese but am too lazy to go look up. The desserts were really good. Among them were various cakes, rabanadas (like french toast) and formigas ("ants"- a sweet paste with nuts and dried fruit). The next day, after opening presents (I got a sleeping bag and a camp stove) we had turkey and cabrito assado, or roast baby goat. It's effin' awesome. A host of desserts following the dinner. About two hours afterwords, we ate some cheese and drank wine and coffee (espresso). I dunno what else to say. I feel like it was really similar to the American Christmas, except in Portuguese, and with my host grandma telling ridiculous stories about when she was a kid. All that ridiculous commercialism that envelops the Christmas season is present, along with those stupid American Christmas songs. (Aquilo mete-me nojo, meu...foda-se) American sensabilities and the lack of portuguese self-esteem has made the holiday digustingly "globalized." Call me what you want to, my american culture has ruined all but the most deeply rooted Portuguese traditions.

We went to Lisbon and walked around on the 26th. Big city. It was really spread out, and so different from Porto. The two cities are really not comparable. Porto is tall, dark, and dirty, full of people who swear all the time. You love it though. You walk down the ribeira, cross the bridges, eat a francesinha, and you find yourself falling in love. Lisbon is the same in it's romantic draw. Except different. It's really big, and tall, but not tall in that New York City sense. There's a downtown, with a huge praça, and colorful buildings with scrupulously made sculpture. And then you get lost. Lost in a maze of incomprehensible streets that only make sense to those who live in that part of town. But who cares? It's the day after Christmas, and you have to whole day to find your way out. Don't forget the pastéis de Belém.

Portugal is cold. Many people, back in Minnesota seem to have the idea in their heads that if you can handle Minnesota cold, then you can handle any cold. This is not the truth. Ocean cold is worse. It's humid today, and about 10ºC. And my house has no central heating system. My bed has several comforters on it. I'm slowly getting used to the cold, along with a host of other things.

School is not incredibly difficult, but there are challenges. Filosophy is probably my hardest class. If I took it in the US, it would probably be hard to wrap my head around the subject matter, but the language barrier makes for quite a bit of confusion.

The portuguese language, while very beautiful when spoken is much harder than any of the other languages I've tried to learn. (Spanish and French) The European portuguese grammar and pronunciation is challenging for an American to articulate. Despite this, I feel that I am learning at a decently fast rate. I find myself becoming mentally immersed in the verbal music being created around me. It's becoming easier to think in Portuguese. While people have told me this several times in the past, I'm only now understanding the significance: that one has to think like the natives to learn a language. I'm trying to get myself in the portuguese mindset.

The country itself is beautiful, especially this time of year: autumn is in full swing, and when it's not raining, Aveiro is spectacular. The leaves on the trees are becoming incendiary, and the city park is becoming more and more romantic.

Escola, Praia, e Remo

Há uma semana, comecei com remo. É uma desporto duro, mas também, acho que vou gostar. É bom para aliviar o estrés. A escola ainda é difícil, especialmente porque estou a tirar aulas de filosofia e Português. (A aula de Português tem mais gramática que uma aula equivalente de inglês nos estados unidos, então é difícil para mim, porque só tive uma educação de conversação em português.) As aulas de física química e biologia são mais faciles, porque usam-se palavras que são parecidos às de inglês.

Estou a fazer amigos na escola, mas ainda é difícil encontrar com gente nova. A sistema de educação é diferente aquí em Portugal, em que ficas com as mesmas pessoas para todo o dia. Embora que é bom as vezes, faz que é difícil encontrar com pessoas novas.

Há dois dias, a minha familia e eu fomos para a praia. Foi muito fixe. Havia ondas grandes. (Mas, o Miguel disse que foram muitas pequenas. Disse que um metro é relativamente pequena.)

A minha mãe diz que talvez vamos para Coimbra em algum fim de semana que vem. Estou excitado. Nunca fui para uma cidade que está dentro do pais, (sem não Arouca) ou uma cidade tão velha.

Em vez de ter uma aula de inglês, terei uma aula de português, na biblioteca. Acho que vai ser fixe. Já me sinto como estou a melhorar o meu português: sempre tenho tido problemas com a palavra "bacalhau," e a professora ajudou-me dizer-o. Cumpri dizer-o!

Agora, despois de 4 dias de viagem, estou com minha familia

After 4 days of travel, I am now with my host family, in a city called Aveiro. It is a pretty city, with canals, various narrow streets and «palmeiras», or palm trees. My family has an apartment on the main street of the city. Today, we are going to the school to figure out some stuff about school. (Which classes I will take, at what level, etc.) Later, my family and I might go to the beach.

About me and my AFS experience.

My name is Dean Shaff. Currently, I live in St. Paul, go to high school, and when I have the time, hang out with my friends. However, in the 2009-2010 school year, I am going abroad with AFS. I plan to stay in Portugal. As of right now, I don't know where in Portugal. AFS, in the last couple of months has become very important to me, both as an exciting lookout for the upcoming year, and also as a way to challenge myself in ways I never have before. I will be getting on a plane, sometime in early September, and after two orientations about Portugal and the local culture, will be staying with a completely new set of people, who live in a different culture, and who live in a society with different values than my own. On top of that, I will be immersed in a culture and language in which I am not very well-versed. AFS is a great opportunity for me to challenge myself in new and powerful ways, and it is both very exciting and scary to me.

A lot of people ask me why I want to go abroad. Some ask if I like to travel. I do like to travel, but I don't think that my AFS experience will be as much about travel as about integrating myself into a new part of the world. Other people ask if I think that by going abroad, I can make the world a better place. I say that I think that by going to Portugal, and learning their language, and experiencing their culture, that I might become a more "global citizen." By this, I mean that I want to become someone who knows other people's culture, and can gain new insights about my own culture by doing this. Perhaps, even, I can find out more about myself. Through talking to people currently involved with AFS, and reading huge amounts of literature supplied by AFS, I have discovered that the best way to integrate myself in a new culture is by throwing myself at it (instead of just "going with it"). Instead of saying that something is better or worse, I should just think of it as different. Plus, for the last couple of years, I have been fascinated by the Portuguese language, and Portuguese customs, as well as the geography of Portugal. It is a beautiful country, about half as small as my home state, Minnesota, and about twice as geographically diverse. The country is surrounded on three sides by the Atlantic Ocean, and as a result, I want the opportunity to live by the ocean.

Applying for AFS was an arduous and lengthy process. My mom and and I, because we don't have a scanner, went back and forth from Kinko's, sometimes late at night (so as to meat deadlines) to scan form after form. However, the format and layout of the AFS application is simple enough, it just has many parts. Besides this, I had to make some very difficult decisions. I remember sitting at the kitchen table, sitting with my parents, talking about my future in the next year. I was very excited to do the program (like now) but my parents were talking to me about the issues that come with the program. What will my mom (who lives without my dad, as he is getting his Ph.D in Iowa City) do when I leave? What about the hefty price tag on the program? How will I get comfortable with living in another country? How much Portuguese do I really know? My mom was incredibly worried, but after talking about it, she told me that if we could find the money, that we should do the program. 

Money is difficult to come by with two family members at the university. Fortunately for me, I got a scholarship from AFS, and I am adding (slowly) to the money in my bank account by working at the local bike shop. My parents say that they can help as much as possible. I am planning a fundraising dinner at my church, and my brother, who is in a band, is planning on doing a fundraising show for me. Plus, I am asking for donations from as many people as I know. I think that with some work, I will be able to to pay for my AFS experience.