Welcome Dinner/International Dinner

The first Friday here, the school organized a welcome dinner for all of the international students that are studying at my University here. There are actually quite a few international students, I would guess about 400, and I am one of only two Americans. The other American is named Derek Allen, and he is a student from BYU as well (he will be seen in many of my pictures, as we spend a lot of time together). The remaining students are mostly from all over Europe, many from Germany, but others from Italy, Holland, Poland, and every other country you could think of (including the country Georgia if you have ever heard of it). The dinner was delicious, it was actually at a Brazilian Rodizio style restaurant, so a food that I am very familiar with and obviously love with a passion. It was good to get some Brazilian food. I sat next to two other Brazilians that are also here studying for the semester and live in the same student residence as I do (a residence just for international students). It was really fun to eat Brazilian food and be next to some other Brazilians and talk about the place we love. Surprisingly, I am one of the only international students that actually speaks Portuguese here. The rest of them all speak English (some better than others) so I try to help everyone I can with both their English and their Portuguese if they are trying to learn it (some don't really care about learning Portuguese here interestingly enough). So I am enjoying the opportunity to meet people my age from all over the world, including one from Korea. It is interesting to see how different everyone is and acts, but at the same time how similar we all are. Everyone that I live with is very nice and I have made a lot of good friends already. The other night we had an international dinner that I helped make with my Brazilian friends for a lot of the other people that live here in the dorms. We have decided to take turns every week making a traditional dinner from our home country for everybody to try, that way we will get some traditional and good food from all over the world by the end of the semester. It truly is an experience unlike any other, and I am enjoying it a lot. It is fun to hear all the different languages being spoken in the kitchen at night. The first picture is me with my two Brazilian friends Laura and Fernando, and my Italian friend Fabricio, at the welcome dinner at the Brazilian restaurant, and the rest of the pictures are the preparing and partaking of the international dinner here at the residence.