So... I finally arrived at the Hotel/ Competition Venue. I arrived a couple days before the rest of my teammates because: 1) I had to leave sooner than they did; 2) this timeframe was cheaper for flights; 3) I like to give myself a couple of days to acclimate to the new environment/atmosphere/recover from traveling before I have to compete.
The various "consequences" of being there earlier than everyone else didn't occur to me until I was actually at the hotel. Only one person in the entire hotel "kind of" spoke & understood English. I don't know why I didn't anticipate this, but... I didn't. So for two days (before everyone else started arriving), I heard no English and spoke no English. As soon as I got settled into my room, I got started on learning Portuguese (which I'm actually keeping up with-- as I improve my Spanish, I'm working on learning Portuguese as well).
They say there's no better way to learn a language than immersion/ having no choice... this was the perfect learning opportunity (what I told myself so as not to stress out).
