2 Weeks

Well I've been in Chile now for two weeks - it seems so surreal that I arrived here only 14 days ago.
It still hasn't hit me yet that I am actually in Chile, living here until next July/August! I guess I'll have that epiphany some other day!

Today I had the whole day off of school due to testing for another grade and I was able to sleep in, which was much needed! I had made plans to meet up with, bare with me now, my mom's-friends from church's-son and fiance who have been living here in Chile for over a year. I took the metro and we went for lunch. It was quite nice to be able to talk with fellow Canadians, one even from my small town back home... small world! After lunch I had no other plans so I went with Ali to downtown Santiago and she went to work, teaching English, while I just wandered around downtown. I was trying to find a coffee shop because I have been craving coffee so bad (working at a cafe back home really made me miss it!), but I had the worst luck trying to find one that wasn't sit down, sketchy or had girls in skimpy outfits... yeah, it's kinda weird. Anyways I did a lot of window shopping but didn't end up buying anything because things aren't that cheap here as I had expected them to be, so I'll save my money for important things like Alpaca wool sweaters! Although I did find a dollar store but everything was 350 pesos, so less than a dollar! I passed some really nice government buildings and saw a lot of interesting people. I met up with Ali again and we went to Starbucks, a much needed treat with caffeine! It was so nice to just hangout and chat with someone who a year ago was going through the exact same thing as I am now. Unfortunately the rain finally came down so it looked pretty gloomy today, but I felt like I had accomplish quite a bit and saw a lot as well!

Things that I notice:

• Bread is super important and you pretty much eat it a lot - it's also made fresh all the time and its soooooo delicious when you get it nice and warm!
• Lots of guys have mullets... and rat-tails... I was told its a soccer player thing... but c'mon a kentucky waterfall, business in the front and party in the back?
• Lots of people wear dark colours like black, gray, navy blue and it makes me really stand out, but once the warm weather arrives I've heard that the neon comes out!
• Manjar is Chile's version of Canada's peanut butter (which I miss so much and is ridiculously expensive here), and Europe's Nutella
• PDA (personal display of affection) is pretty popular here for all ages

There's always so many things that I notice and want to share but I always forget! I'll have to start writing them down!

Saturday I ended up back at my school, on the weekend. Not really knowing what my host-parents were telling me I jumped in the car and was dropped off at my school/church... I guess. My host-family and school is Adventist, I don't really know much about the religion but I guess they go to church on Saturday. I ended up sitting in my school cafeteria listening to a lady talking about soy beans and how to make milk, fake meat and other things out of it... in Spanish. It was different to say the least. Then we changed rooms and I listened to some more talking about soy beans, then once that ended I helped to set-up a baby shower. To say my day was random is an understatement. I went back home then returned with my host-mom for the baby shower. They had a few games and one of them you had to give advice, so I gave mine in English. "Interview all of her boyfriends - for fun!" - I'm thinking of you Uncle Paul and dad!

Once the games and prayers were done we were able to talk and eat. I swear everyone ran to the food, you could barely get in to get anything, too funny! At the shower I had been introduced to a man who's an English teacher here, so obviously he was able to translate for me. Then my host-mom made a plan for me to go over to his friends house the next day for lunch.

Before I headed to the lunch I finally went on my first solo walk not to/from school or to the supermarket. I had no idea of where I was going other than I saw the mountains, and headed for them! I walked a good hour out and found this cool looking park but I couldn't find a way to get there without attempting to scale a large barrier or walk near the old men whistling at me. After walking a little bit more I had the feeling to turn around, 2 hours is enough to worry my host-family and I was quite far from my home by then. I have a fairly good sense of direction, I don't need to know street names, just landmarks.

Hey there Andes in the background


Stop signs are always better in foreign languages

After a little time back at home I headed out to meet up with the English teacher, his wife and daughter. We walked to his friends apartment and I was welcomed by some more English speakers. Again it was such a nice break for my head to hear English, but it didn't improve my Spanish. After an amazing meal (vegetarian may I add... mmmm!) we talked for a bit and then watched an English movie with Spanish subtitles. I still read the subtitles to see how similar they were to what was actually going on in the movie. Also everyone who was at the apartment was Adventist, the religion of my host-family and the school I attend. I was able to ask questions about the religion to try and get a grasp of what it was about. Religion is and will always be a touchy subject, but I found their beliefs to be similar of what I know of Jehovah's Witnesses.

I am now in my second week of classes here and I am really liking it! Everyone is so nice, the only bad parts is when it's freezing and there's no sun, like the past two days. Today we had another church service (we have them on Tuesday's) and it was pretty good with upbeat music put on my some of the kids. Although the sermon was lost in translation my attempts at trying to sing the Spanish songs was pretty good. I also had an English test today, and the sad part is that I didn't get perfect because there was a section where you had to get the English verb from the Spanish one... that's just now fair! I've also started to get the hang of taking the micro and am going to and from school by myself now. Tomorrow I have the whole day off due to testing, hopefully the sun will come out again!

Mi colegio

I love attempting tests in Spanish!

Also, another really big part of exchange is homesickness and emotional stress. I really do not want my blog to have a negative tone so I have decided to keep those feelings and experiences out. But it is the ugly truth because exchange truly is like your childhood seesaw, you can be up one minute and then right back down to the bottom again. So things are not always fun, foreign, funny or amusing on exchange, some times life can hit you really hard and the realizations of what you used to have and don't anymore can really get under your skin. It's all in the exchange experience!

11 days until the first Rotary 4340 Inbound meeting!

My mom will appreciate this

It's only necessary to keep up the tradition of the "first day of school photo", especially when I get to wear a fancy uniform!

FYI I get out of school at 2 pm on Fridays instead of 4 pm... me gusta mucho!

Colegio

On Tuesday I went back to school and joined a grade 11 class, or also known as 3 Medio. Already having graduated high school in Canada it was a little weird to think that I will be going to school with kids a year younger than I am, and oddly I wasn't nervous at all to start at a new school where I don't know the language. But all the students in my class and the teachers were so welcoming, they even had a little party for me during Math class - although I didn't realize it was for me until the end! School is really, really different from Canada.

First of all I now wear a uniform, something I have never done throughout 13 years of public school. On the first day we started off with English, we just read over some irregular verbs and I corrected pronunciation while everyone in the class did their own thing. Then we had Math/a party and then a church service/powerpoint presentation on evolution. Sometimes I understand the topics my class should be talking about like same-sex marriage/adoption and evolution vs. creation, or even some biology and anthropology since I've already learned about it. I really wish that I could understand and speak the language because I want to give my opinion as well. Another thing I'm not used to is breaks in between classes, again in Canada we had 5 minutes to get to each class and then one hour for lunch, and here it's like having recess again multiple times and I never know when! In the afternoon we had other classes like Linguaje (Spanish), and I can't really remember the others now because..., well..., I don't really do anything in the class, I just try to understand and communicate with my classmates! Another difference which is so surprising to me is how relaxed and lax school is. Everyone is always talking, walking around, changing seats, answering cell phone calls, just doing whatever and the teacher doesn't care. It's quite funny and makes for good entertainment and fun for me because everyone tries to ask me questions and I either try to respond in broken Spanglish, say "yo no se" or "no entiendo", or look for help from the few students in my class that know some English. Some of the most popular questions that I've been asked are "do you have a pololo? (boyfriend)", "what kind of music do you like?", "what sports do you play?", the usual teenager stuff but its hard to respond when you have to explain obscure sports like cheerleading and field hockey. I've also had a lot of compliments on my eyes and hair and I'm now used to having my hair being touched randomly, it's really weird standing out so much at school but again it doesn't bother me as much as standing out on the metro.

Speaking of the metro I rode it by myself for the first time today! Ok, it may have just been to the next stop over but still... I did it! Three girls from my class thought I wasn't going to be able to do it so they walked into the metro with me and made sure I went to the ride side - so sweet! I met up with a friend and we went to the big mall again and went ice skating. Something I never thought I would do in Chile, and may not do again. I swear the ice wasn't "Zamboni-ed" in a few days and the skates made you slip all over the ice, but since I'm Canadian and all, I was one of the best skaters there, not bragging or anything.

I'll be posting pictures soon of my uniform, I still don't have my falda (skirt) yet and I've been wearing my "gangster-chic" gym uniform, baggy comfy sweatpants and all!

Beso

How many Exchange Students does it take to build a house?

Only 3, plus some Rotarians and volunteers!
That is exactly what I did on my first Saturday In Chile. I got dropped off at my counselors house and meet the other exchange student who is hosted by my club, Hannah from the US. We then drove out to Talagente to work on a Rotary project, rebuilding a house that was destroyed by the earthquake. There we met up with another exchange student, Connor also from the US, and Cristobal once again. At first we really didn't do to much, especially for the girls... to much machismo. But eventually we got into it because I don't like watching other people work, I want to be in on the action and do something! The day was full of fun, good-will, bromas (jokes), and the other exchange students trying to teach me some Spanish. I think I understand the concepts and how to use the Chileno words of "cachai" and "po" now! But all in all it was a great day and I'm starting to understand why everyone says that the best memories are when you spend time with the other exchange students.

The other day I went downtown Santiago to get my visa registered by the police so that I can get my Chilean identity card. On the way we met a nice girl who has been studying law in the US and she was trying to go to the same place. On the way she was explaining to me how there are so many Peruvians in Chile and how the Chileans don't like them. It sounded like they were calling them "Piranhas" and I had to laugh, it sounded so mean! After the police we took the metro back to our metro station then headed to another comuna "La Reina" to get my card. Ended up, we couldn't get it. The police typed my name wrong on the sheet they gave me, they left out one of my middle names. I've been having a lot of trouble with forms and such as people can't seem to understand I have two middle names, it doesn't matter if its my mom's last name. So we'll be doing the whole thing again tomorrow, and since I also don't have my uniform yet I have to wait until Tuesday now to start school.

For lunch, which is the largest meal of the day, I had my first empanada! Empanada's are bread pastry filled with meat, egg, olives, cheese and other things that make them delicious! I went with my host-dad and waited in line to get them... and they were worth it!

Today I went to a really Americanized mall, it was kinda weird because it felt like I was back in North America with all the "gringos" like Burger King, Subway, and other food places. Plus, we found a clothing store called "Canadienne" filled with heavy coats and sweaters, because that's all that we wear up in the great white north. I also found out that not only the Chileans call white foreigners gringos but it refers to anyone not from their country, so Brazilian, Colombian, whoever.

Things that I notice:
Driving is crazy - loco!
I know every exchange student to Chile says this but it's true! So what there's a speed bump or red stoplight a few hundred meters in front of you, let's still go full speed then stop right before we have to! Roundabouts are like a free-for all, if the pedestrian light is flashing either stop before someone runs you over or run for your life, lots of cars are scratched, I swear a bus was almost going to hit my car and my host-mom didn't even flinch and I was freaking out inside, just overall everything I learned in drivers training is pretty much not enforced.

The Chileans love pop. Especially coke, and it's really cheap like $1.70 for 2 L. Also they have some weird sizes, why would you want 1 L when you can have 1.5 L, or why a regular 2 L when you can have 2.5 L or even a big ol' 3 L. I guess options is a good thing to have! Children also drink quite a bit of pop, even really young ones.

"V"'s sound like "B"'s and I think I repeated "veinte" (twenty) at least 30x with my host-dad to get the pronunciation correct, but I still sound "American", I can't help it!

Stray dogs outnumber homeless people. It's really quite sad, I'm such a dog person and here there are so many stray dogs I just want to pet them all but you wouldn't dare.

The way in which you greet someone by kissing them on the cheek is so much better than the cold-handshake or awkward hello. I might have to bring this back to Canada, it seriously puts everyone on the same level because you kiss them if you know the person, have never met them, or if they are a authority figure.