On my mind - Part I

I feel like I've had 1,727,526 things on my mind the past couple of days! I think it's a sign that I should keep up with my blog posts more often so that I can gets things out :)

What we've been up to...
I've been in Brazil about 7 weeks now, and I only have a month left. It's so hard to believe! I know it will be sad when we are leaving Brazil and saying goodbye to friends & family here, but I'm also very excited for Franchesco and I to begin our "new" life in the USA :) We'll be heading back to Pennsylvania on 7/27 and will be spending a couple of days there before we fly back to Minneapolis on 8/2. I'm so excited for my friends and family to meet and get to know Franchesco! I've also been feeling a lot of nostalgia for Hersheypark, so I hope that we're able to spend a day there too!

We will both need to find new jobs once we get back to Minneapolis, but we've got our living arrangements figured out already so that's great. We'll be going back to the same apartment I was living in before I left, and when the lease ends in September we'll be moving into a newer, remodeled apartment unit on the 29th floor of the same building. I'm so excited! We'll have an even better view of downtown Minneapolis than we do from my old apartment :)



The Churchill - Minneapolis, MN

 I've been occupying my time by trying to do the things that I will have less time for once we get back to Minneapolis and start working. I've been working out, studying Portuguese, and studying to take the GMAT exam (needed to apply for an MBA program) at some point in the near future. I've also been teaching more English classes over the past week or so. Last week I taught 6 classes and I have 6 more this week. Franchesco is still taking jiu jitsu classes on Monday/Wednesday/Friday and Saturday, and he hopes that he can continue taking classes in the US or maybe even teach some classes. Outside of all that, this weekend we celebrated a holiday in Brazil called "Festa Junina." Among all the other decorations and festivities, we also performed a short play involving a wedding where Franchesco and I played the bride and groom. I had to recite some lines in Portuguese and I think everyone was very entertained :)

Festa Junina

This blog post is beginning to get very long...I told you there's been a lot on my mind. I'll finish writing a "Part II" later to tell give you updates on wedding plans.

Tchau!