Meet the team!

From L-R Team Members for GSE Brazil 2013 pictured with District Governor Robin Mason:

 Liz Tweedy, Kat Elliott, Andrea Brocklebank, Lianne Taylor-Redman and Julie Wass.

Last night we attended the Rotary District Council meeting at the Holiday Inn, Doncaster. We had our first photo as a team and met Robin Mason the district governor from Rotary Club of Humberside. The team found this easier than the previous evening as we didn't need to do our presentation which they all did the previous evening. Unfortunately I was unable to make the presentation however from the feedback they received they did brilliantly!

It's three weeks and two days until we fly out to Brazil we are all so excited and have already got so much out of this experience so far for example we are trying our very best to learn Portuguese or Enguese as I like to call it. We had another lesson today and I was surprised how much I have learnt and am able to understand- I'll never be fluent but I will try!

Tchau

The Countdown Has Begun!

Last night we delivered our presentation to the Cleethorpes Rotary Club and guests from other Rotary Clubs. It was great to see some of  the Rotarian's I have already met again and also to meet new inspiring people. Everyone was very supportive of our team and gave kind words of advice and support.

Delivering the presentation served as a reminder that we have a lot of work to do on the study exchange and that we will be up in front of lots of people many times, I am looking forward to the day when that is not nerve wracking any more!

I brought along my manager Liam, Liz brought her partner and manager, Kat brought her headteacher and mother and Andrea brought her partner. It was good to spend the evening with the people who have supported us in the preparations to the Study Exchange and for them to learn more about Rotary and the important work they do.

Lianne was unable to make the meeting and it just goes to show we have become a good team as we certainly missed her presence.

For me our journey has begun with the starting point delivering our presentation last night. From here we have a mix of meetings and Portuguese lessons before we head off. Speaking of heading off it is only 24 days away and I am getting more excited by the day.

The next meeting we are attending in our preperation for our visit is at the Rotary District Council Meeting tonight over in Doncaster. Thursday we are over in Sheffield for a Portuguese lesson. This is all good practise for managing our busy schedules in Brazil!

If the lesson goes well maybe we will give you a taster of our Portugese language skills!

Bought the sun cream and ordered the Brazilian Real.

The plane tickets are booked, so its really getting closer to going now!

The Brazilian Portuguese lessons are helping - a little - lets hope that the Brazilians we meet are better at English than I am at portuguese...!

Portuguese Lessons

So I thought I would update you on the team’s progress with our Portuguese. It was our second lesson on Wednesday and the lessons are going well. We have a lovely teacher called Andrea (pronounced with a Portuguese accent which we are all still trying to master!).
Our team are very dedicated and travel quite a distance for the lesson after a long day at work.

We are so lucky that we are able to have the lessons to help us prepare and make an extra effort with the language whilst we are in Brazil so muito obrigada to Rotary for allowing this to happen!

The first lesson we learnt basic greetings such as how to introduce ourselves how to say please and thank you even how to say sorry should you spill coffee on someone! (lets hope that doesn't happen!) The pronunciation is one of the hardest things I'm finding I think I will be speaking Enguese......English with a (dodgy) Portuguese accent!!

Last nights lesson was a lot harder we looked at the alphabet and how to count from 1-99 as well as how to ask how something is spelt and how to read a phone number. I can predict my homework will not be an A* this week!

Andrea our teacher has lived in Lavras where we are visiting and has told us how lovely, friendly and welcoming Brazilian people are. We are very much looking forward to the trip especially after we had confirmation of our flight booking and the all important baggage allowance- it makes the whole experience so real! We have been in touch with Juliana who came over to England on a GSE trip from Brazil last year and she was so helpful with all our questions from which plug adaptors to bring to translating some phrases we could use. Juliana also emailed Vander who was also on the trip with her some of our questions so I think we will be well looked after during our trip.

As of Saturday we have 5 weeks until our trip, it will be here before we know it!

Tchau!

 

We have our itinerary for the trip!!!
I am tryingto change the airport we fly from in Brazil, however this is the present format:

Leave Humberside on 27th April at just after 6am - getting to Belo Horizonte via Rio just after 10pm.

coming back we leave Belo Horizonte on 1st June just after 5pm - getting into Humberside on Sunday 2nd June at 4.45pm

Its going to be here before we know it!

Starting To Get Excited!

Good Morning or should I be typing Bom Dia?

As Andrea said we had a very productive meeting this weekend and a lovely buffet. I do love a good buffet, for those of you interested we had pizza, quiche, pork pie, samosas, a selection of salads and sandwiches, flapjacks, brownies, and Brazil nut cookies! I can guarantee you will be constantly updated with the food situation along our journey, although a few blogs in you will begin to see this yourselves!

Aside from the food, our preparations have really started coming together which is great as we are only 7 weeks away from setting off on our journey to Brazil! WOW 7 weeks, saying it aloud, or rather typing it makes the fact that it is really happening and in the not too distant future sink in!

Malcolm the President of Lincoln Rotary Club kindly visited us and discussed with us how the Rotary works on an international level and it was really good to get a better understanding of how the invaluable work Rotary does is structured across the world. It gives me a warm feeling to know that there are organisations like this in the world and very excited that I am to be a part of it!

I am very pleased that as we have been organised as all our preparations are to schedule and we are  ready to get going with our Portuguese lessons so we can greet our hosts politely and respectfully in their own language, even if that is as far as our language skills take us it will provide a great impression!

Unfortunately I am unable to join the rest of the group at this weeks Portuguese lesson as I am having a few days in Holland before the big trip but I will be playing catch up at in homework time so that I am not behind for the following week.

Things I am looking forward to at the moment are;

Brazilian food, the eating culture is a highly social activity and I am very into food, if you havent already noticed, and ready to join in this practice.
Warmer weather, we are having snow at the moment and a bit of heat would be nice, we are told that at the moment its around 30 degrees in the day time.
Speaking some Portuguese, there is no practice like actually using a new language skill in "real" situations.
Most importantly, all of the things that we are going to learn about the country and the culture!

That is all for now, I will be back with an update after my first Portuguese lesson hopefully impressing you with a few phrases!

Julie

Team preparation

The team all got together today to sort out our presentation and get our photos organised to put onto the leaflets and business cards.  We all looked really smart in our new jackets and polo shirts!

The pick and mix lunch went down well and I now have dinner and tomorrow lunch sorted with all that we didnt eat today!  It feels that we are a proper team and we are all getting excited at the prospect of seeing the sights and sounds of Brazil and also the warmer weather..

looking forward to the portuguese lessons next week - although fluent we wont be, it will be good to be able to speak and hopefully understand a little bit of the language.