pensamientos

cada vez que veo un bebe chileno o niños chilenos, estoy celosa. yo sé que sus mentes han absortos o absorberán castellano más completamente y rapidamente que podré en mi vida.

It trips me out when I think about the fact that there are things that I will never be able to fully comprehend.

awkwaaaard

I am very sad to report that I had a bunch of photos and then i let constanza play with my camera and she took a million videos of her and her friend fernanda jesus and of me, her gringa, and then she somehow erased a bunch of pictures i had.

so i have no new photos.

but here is something interesting. no existe una palabra en español para "awkward." there is no word. i guess that would make sense because i don't think chileans have much awkwardness. you kiss everyone you come into contact with practically. that would probably de-awkward any situation. although i mean there has to be a way to describe someone who is somewhat socially awkward... not just situations. anyways, i taught everyone the awkward turtle. it was interesting explaining why the tortuga is nadando in una forma muy incomoda.... but we had an awkward situation and one of our chileans friends did it. it was great.

the weather is cold today. we have had random hot days and a few cold ones. it's making me sad. ¡Necesito el sol!

And last night i got sort of ripped off by the colectivo driver. (colectivos are sort of like taxis that have specific routes) some gringos have said yeah man the colectivo prices go way up after 11. and i had said, well i´ve never had that problem it´s still like 500 pesos mas o menos. which is about a dollar. some people have said they paid 700 pesos. So last night I just had to go like for a three minute ride up a hill, so i said in my lovely gringo accent... Avenida Alemania y Cerro San Juan de Dios. And of course since I am thinkign it's always a flat rate, I just say ok and get in instead of asking how much. I said se paga, handed him 1 mil, and i get back 300 pesos. I didn't say anything because one... my spanish just sucks. and two... i thought maybe it's true, maybe the prices do go up at night. when i got to marlayna and jennifers their host brother told me i was for sure ripped off. oh well. the end.

echo de menos a mi familia.

i climbed this

ok so yes now i can say i've climbed a volcano. so maaaybe i was one of the people at the end but still people, i climbed it. this is volcan villarrica en pucón, chile -- a 12-hour bus ride from viña/valpo. pucón was lovely... i went to the beach, went rafting on a river, saw birds and trees and so many other things i had never seen before. i went canopying over el campo de pucón. oh and also! las ternas! hot springs. that was fun. i ate several moras (blackberries) and this wonderful apricot like fruit that i don't know the name of. but it was fabulous. alsooo in pucón, i went to a fruit juice shop. very lovely. we ordered jugo de frambuesa (raspberries), which i think i´ll make all the time from now on. i also ordered chocolates right before i left for home. they´re gone now.

(¡lo hicimos!)

so the only thing i didn´t like was that i spoke english like the whole weekend. definitely need to improve on that one. i feel like i´m getting better at understanding what people say. i still hear conversations with my host family that don´t even let one word register in my head, and then there others where, although there is a light fog over the conversation, i still get it. some days you eat the bear; some days the bear eats you. don't think that would make much sense en español. oh and i might cook for marlayna and jennifer´s host family this fin de semana. if i don´t disappear for semana santa like everyone else is. que bueno!

sweet. tomorrow is my traditional dances of chile class. what should i take? spanish lit 3 or history of chilean theatre?? i need to decide by miercoles.

also i miss people a lot. couldn't help listening to "my father's gun" and thinking of two very lovely people. i wish everybody could be here.

uhh no entendí

I am unsure what class to take here. A somewhat interesting class about modern Chilean theatre with only extranjeros, possibly making it more facil.... or a Spanish Lit class with Chilean students. It seems kind of silly to study Spanish lit in Latin America, but I don't know... I think I'd improve more HAVING to understand that professor.

Tonight we go to Pucon!

I want to travel for Semana Santa but I don't know where.

Also... I have my Chilean art history class this evening. Sweet.

Sometimes I get tired of not being able to understand ANYTHING when I talk to strangers. Like today.... it took me like half an hour to figure out where the stupid calling cards were in Jumbo. All I understood everytime I asked someone was subir and which ever way they were pointing. Oh welllll. Asi es la vida.

aqui estoy

Well I do apologize for not writing the past week and a half or so. Almost every day has been packed with tours or with lying out at the beach since I know this weather is going quickly.

The first four days of the trip were spent in Santiago. We woke up early every day and went around the city seeing things like La Moneda, Pablo Neruda’s house, art museums, etc.

I think I was just overwhelmed that I actually was in South America after months of waiting, and not believing that it would really come. After four completely packed days of tours, and seeing Santiago, we headed over to Valparaíso to meet our host families.

A forest fire nearby darkened the sky on our way in, doing some crazy things with the sun and covering our clothes with ceniza (ash). It has finally just cleared up a couple of days ago, so now I can finally see the beautiful vistas of the oceans from the hills.

The first couple days living in Viña del Mar and learning my way through Valparaíso and Viña were a bit overwhelming. When I got to my host family´s house last Sunday, they had a large once and aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters came over. The rapid Chilean Spanish knocked the wind out of me. It was shocking to see how little I understood. But my Chilean family, which consists of Marcela, 32, Sergio, 14, Laura, 12, and Constanza, 6, along with Marcela’s pololo, and her mom and brothers, speak Spanish slowly to me. I can understand the majority of what they say. The hard part, I guess now, is actually speaking it.

Despite a little bit of a culture shock the first few days, I really love Chilean culture so far. In Chile the meals run differently… breakfast is light, tea, coffee, bread, and cereal (which I can’t tell if they are giving it to me because I’m estadounidonse or if they usually have it), lunch is huge (everyone comes home for lunch and is usually served at around 2 or 3), and once is served around 9. Once is a light dinner. Usually it consists of pan, palta (avocado), jamón, tea, jugo, etc. With all these changes, I think my appetite has yet to kick in the way it usually is, haha, so the once has been just fine with me. My favorite thing so far has been the palta in everything they serve. I have to try a completo, which looks amazing every time I walk by them. My other favorite thing has got to be the juice that is made every day. Peaches, melon, and what I think is a prickly pear? I can’t recall the name of it at this point in time, but it’s super sweet.

There have been a couple things I´ve had to get used to. I have to be really conscious of how much energy I use. I always need to turn off the lights when I leave a room, not leave things plugged in too long, don’t take long showers, etc. It will be good to have to get used to that. Another thing, they think it’s weird when I walk around the house barefoot. Although my host family hasn’t said much, Marlayna and Jennifer’s host mom told me I’ll catch the flu. So I walk around with flip flops. They don’t really put their napkins on their lap. Marcela told me that if it’s cloth then they do. I was eating dinner once and set it on my lap and they passed me the napkins because they thought I didn’t have one.

Chileans greet each other with a kisses on the cheek. Unless you both are men, then it’s a handshake. People drive here a bit more intense. Everyone honks at everyone all the time.

My first day of class is today. All I have is an advanced writing class for extranjeros at clave 11-12 which means at 17:20 to 18:50 which means 5:20 to 6:50. So fun. If I wasn’t feeling sick and lunch wasn’t in like an hour, I would probably have gone to the beach to enjoy the last few weeks of summer.

I realize that everything I wrote seems so scattered but I shall write more in a more put together manner. Chao.