Gabriel de Castro Lima

2008-09 Inbound from Brazil

Hometown: Patos de Minas, Minas Gerais, Brazil

Sponsor: Patos de Minas Rotary Club, District 4760, Brazil

Host: Miami-Dadeland-Pinecrest Rotary Club, District 6990, Florida, USA

School: Western High School, Davie, FL

Bio

Gabriel's Bio

Hello, my name is Gabriel Lima, I'm 17 years old and I'm from Brazil in Patos de Minas. Patos de Minas is a small city in the south east part of Brazil in the middle of Minas Gerais state, 5 hours away from the capital city Brasilia. My city in Brazil is a pretty normal city, everybody knows everybody. I've lived there for all my life with my father Marcos, my mother Luciene, and my Sister Virginia; it's a big change come to a city this big but I really like here.

I'm outgoing, I love sports and to go out with my friends. I'm with a really good family so I can go out with my friends and do the sports that I like so my adaptation here is very good. I really like my city, Weston, and my school is very good too The city is very beautiful, clean and safe, and the school is huge - a lot of people from everywhere in the world - it's really a culture mix but it's very interesting...

I've made some friends so it's being very good to me. I thought that the people here weren't friendly but they are, so I always hang out with them. I'm participating in some groups in the school like the Interact and I'm liking very much... I'm learning a lot from the American culture!

This year is being very good and I really hope that it gets even better. I'm having great experiences!

October 22 Journal

Hello!

Florida is great. This last month was very good, and my life changed a lot from the moment that I arrived here to now.

In the first days it was hard, my English wasn’t good, so I didn’t understand the people and got to the school without knowing anybody. It was hard, but now I got a lot of friends and I got a routine here, now I’m in two clubs in the school and I'm loving them… Every weekend now I go out with my friends, we love go to the beach or do parties in their houses or go to Sawgrass Mall…

The days here go soo fast! It's hard, I wake up at 5:20 and when I see it's already 11pm and I just finished my homework so I can sleep.

We had a very good weekend with the 6990 district exchange students - it was great! I’m looking forward to meet them again! I’m loving USA, this program is great!

April 18 Journal

Ohh, it’s already April. I cant believe that this year is going so fast...

After this 8 months I could say that I’m much more “American” now, everything was so different when I got here and now I got used to it. At school people know me and I have lots of friends. I have P.E., English 3, World History and Biology, pretty easy classes! My classmates don’t believe when I answer all the questions that the teacher asks correctly. They always say: how could someone that got here 7 months ago know more than us?

Now I love my classes even more. In the first semester they were good but now people is more friendly, maybe it’s because now I talk English better and this is one of the things that make me really happy. I know that I’ll never have an opportunity like this to learn the language. Now I think and even dream in English (people say that when you really know the language, you dream in that language), my teachers and friends always help me and last week I was talking with one of my first semester teachers and he said that I really improved my English a lot.

After school I like to go to the gym. In the gym I meet so many people, it’s always a good time. I’m exercising at least 5 times a week either in the gym or in the park teaching my host brother soccer; for him and his team, I’m one of the best of the world even though I’m really bad compared to the rest of the Brazilians.

Now I’m looking forward to the Bahamas trip, we’re going to have so much fun! The Rotary trips are one of the better things in the program for sure, it's sad that we are not going see the students of the northern part of Florida anymore. I'll never forget Disney and Seacamp with them!

Finally I want to say to everybody that exchange is the best thing ever, you learn so much, this is really a lifetime opportunity. Thank you Rotary for giving me this opportunity!

Gabriel

May 25 Journal

It’s almost July already, I can’t believe! The time is going so fast in the rainy Florida. It rained every single day this last week! Hopefully it’s going to stop... I want to go to the beach in my summer break after all. Wednesday will be my last day in school, all the people I meet this year, I will miss them so much.

One thing that I could say is that this part is one of the hardest parts of our exchange, it’s hard to think that you’re not going to see the people that you like anymore.

We had our last district meeting in Bahamas, I already miss everybody, so much fun there. But it’s really sad to think that I’m not going to see the girls from Bahamas anymore.

Now I’m looking forward to my last trip, I’m going to west coast in 3 weeks, and after this I have just 2 weeks before going back to Brazil.

I’m having a wonderful time! Love this place! Thank you Rotary.