First days in Portugal!

I am officially in Portugal! I live in a town called Viseu, south-east of OPorto in the heart of Portugal . Viseu is very metropolitan and quite intricate. I really like it here and, after only two days, feel right at home. Today I went for a bike ride by myself around town and got a sense of the place. I´m glad to say that I found my way home safely and didn´t get lost at all.
As far as traveling goes my journey here to Portugal was oneiric. From Ashland I drove with my Dad to San-Francisco where we stayed a night with some friends. The next morning we flew to New York where a departure orientation was held. In New York my father and I met David Soo (my uncle) for some pizza at the famous and original ``Ray´s Pizzeria.´´ After a very filling meal of three quarters-inch thick pizza David gave me and my father a tour of New York. Now, normally to see all New York has to offer (I.E. Times-Square, Statue of Liberty, etc.,) you need a professional tour guide or all day; my Dad and I had neither and we still were able to see everything worthwhile with the guidance of David. The next day I said goodbye to my Dad and headed to the orientation. There I met around 120 exchange students to-be, over half of which were going to Italy, and made twice as many friends as I could afford (saying good-bye took almost all day!) After the orientation all of the kids bound to Portugal from the states (There are 11 of us in total of which I am the only boy) were herded onto a bus and shuttled to Newark International Airport. We boarded our direct flight to Lisbon no problem and were off. At least we thought; it so happened all the runways were so busy that we had to taxi for over an hour. The flight itself was fine, we had dinner, snacks and talked about our experiences so far and what is to come. We arrived in Lisbon at 6-ish in the morning (it wasn´t a twelve hour flight but the time change makes it seem so), spent a couple hours in a customs line and finally saw the light of day for the first time in Portugal at 8 o´clock. Some AFS staff were there to meet us and put us on yet another bus. We had the opportunity to drive through much of Lisboa on the way to the hostel where we stayed for the arrival orientation. Lisboa is a very picturesque city, very much like San-Francisco; bridge and all. This orientation was designed to give in-bound students to Portugal from all around the world a chance to meet each other and to learn about Portugal and AFS. Our hostel was located on a hill opposite Lisboa and provided postcard views of the entire bay from every room. The arrival orientation was really cool, I shared a small room with three other boys my age, two from Argentina and one from Switzerland. I became good friends with everyone at the orientation and will hopefully see them while I am here. On the last day of the orientation my Mae Sofia and my Pai Louis came to pick me up. It took about two hours to drive back to Viseu and I got a chance to see more of Lisboa and of the country.