A Very Good Place to Start

          Hey everyone! I'm excited to be writing the first post of many in the life of a foreign exchange student! When you first meet someone, I suppose you usually start by introducing yourself, so I guess I'll start there, too. My name is Linnea, and I am a high school student in the state of Washington, USA. This summer I'm leaving my beloved home for a year abroad in BRAZIL! Haha, that's probably the first and most exciting thing I tell people about me, but here's a few other fun facts: 

          I love walking on the beach, even though the water is usually too cold to swim in where I live! Ever since I was little I've loved the water. In the summer my family goes hiking and rock climbing in the mountains, and in the winter it snows and we go skiing. The outdoors is a place where I can think. I love the sound of birds, and the wind rustling its way through the trees. I love the fresh smell of the air after it rains--and it rains a lot here!

          My favorite color is (and always has been) blue, although the hue has changed many times, from robin-egg to cobalt and almost everything in between. In the summer my favorite food is a big juicy mango, and in the winter I like anything that will warm me up when I'm out skiing in the mountains. Hmmm, what else...

          All my life I've loved to sing. I love music, theater, drawing, and painting. Anything art related. When I was little I would draw all the time, but now that I’m getting older my interests are more music related.  I've taken voice lessons since fifth grade, and I've even done a few competitions! I've learned to play a few different instruments, but the one that's really stuck with me is guitar. I started taking guitar lessons when I was seven, but I've taken some breaks from it over the years. There's just something beautiful about the harmony of a guitar and your voice. I write songs every once in a while. Maybe I'll post one for you later this year. We'll see.

          And most of all, I’m interested in having new experiences. I love to travel, and so far in my life I've visited five different countries. The first country I ever traveled to was Portugal, when I was two. This is when I first discovered my love for travel, although I don’t remember too much about it, because I was so young. You only have one life, and I hope to fill mine with as many beautiful new experiences as I possibly can!

Well, there's plenty more I could tell you, but not nearly enough space to say it all. This blog will keep all of you up to date with all of my experiences for the next year. And what a year it will be! Help support me by subscribing and commenting :) Oh yea, and every time I post I'm going to try to teach you a bit of Portuguese, so by the end of the year, maybe you'll know a little bit, too! 

* If you want to ask how's it going? you might say, tudo bem? and in response a person simply repeats it back, tudo bem.