The experience of living in New Orleans

 

My name is Bruno Kamino Yamamoto and I am twenty years old. I have been living in New Orleans for almost six months. I arrived here on August 17 of last year. I felt very excited and scared about living in another city. Some products I used to eat in Brazil are hard to find here and I miss the food that tastes like the food from my homeland. I like to eat junk food and I know it is not healthy but there are many places that sell junk food like hamburger and fried chicken legs.
            My first impression of the city of New Orleans is the cheerfulness of the citizens who live here. The city recovered very fast after Hurricane Katrina. In fact New Orleans suffered a lot of losses but the will of people who lived here to rebuild the city was essential to New Orleans.

At this point, New Orleans has good universities and I appreciate the tradition of Dillard University. The university campus is very beautiful and students look very motivated about their classes. However it is difficult for me and some other foreign students to make friends inside the university. Usually the native speakers do not like to talk very much and when we chat, most of the time the talk does not last more than a couple of minutes.
            I liked the city of New Orleans and I really would like to see more new places in the city because I do not know many places to visit or go out on the weekends. I must talk more with native speakers because I spent a lot of time talking in Portuguese and I want to work more on my English language skills. There are some aspects that shocked me like the low taxes and the low price of electronic devices and clothing products. That is because in Brazil you must pay lots of taxes to the government: we paid 6 times more on taxes in Brazil than in the United States.
            In addition I bought a lot of stuff such as t-shirts and pants and shoes that I liked for cheap prices. During these six months living in New Orleans I developed new habits like going to the gym close to the dormitory that I live in and go out with the Brazilians I met here at Dillard University.

Here in the United States each state has it own law for their citizens, in contrast the law are for all the country in Brazil. There are many nice aspects of United States in general that I like. For example; the way of teaching in the universities, health system, salaries, cost of living and employment opportunities. I am really love American culture, I enjoy the English language and like to watch series in English.
           I watched an American football game once at Superdome, and in my opinion American football is an interesting game but very violent. I prefer basketball instead football because it is the type of sport that is not usual in Brazil and I think this sport is amazing. I am waiting for an opportunity to watch an official basketball game here in New Orleans. I am having a very good time here and I hope to have more good news to tell you in the future.