Maria’s nineteen years old and lives with her parents in an apartment near the sea in Rio de Janeiro. Her father’s an artist and her mother’s an English teacher. Maria’s got one brother and two sisters; Benita’s a nurse, Sara works in a shop and Gilbert’s eight years old. Maria studies architecture at university. She speaks Portuguese and Spanish and she studies English two evenings a week. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, she gets up at seven o’clock, has a shower and makes breakfast. Then she goes to university and has classes from nine o’clock to six o’clock. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, she doesn’t go to university so she leaves the house later. She takes the bus to the office where she works as an assistant. In the evening, she has English classes and returns home at about ten o’clock.
Robert lives in Seattle. He’s twenty-four years old and he’s got one sister, Maggie. Maggie’s fourteen and lives at home with her parents and the family’s two dogs, Zip and Lola. Robert lives in an apartment in the center of the city. He’s a musician but in the future, he’d like to go to university to do Film and Media studies. Robert’s family lives about forty minutes from the center of the city in a house with a garden. Robert’s father is a journalist and his mother’s got a small business on the internet, so she works at home. Robert doesn’t work in the morning. He wakes up late, goes for a run, then goes to a café on the corner for a cup of coffee. In the evening, he plays the clarinet at a club. He works from Tuesday to Saturday and on Sundays he goes to see his family in the country. Monday is his day off.