post-sickness

Hola! hahaha. I looked back at my last entry and I sound like a total sickey.. 2nd hospital visit and all. No, I've actually not been sick at all really except the two really bad times. Food poisoning and that flu-whatever. It's over though!
Since then... I got my first BIG paper back... I got a 6.3/7 which is REALLY good by chilean standards. I was so happy. 7 is only if u are a genius. They say that if you get a 7, your not just really smart.. you are a genius. I'm sure they vary it from class to class and sometimes consider whether you're an extranjero (foreign exchange student) or not too. But I was super pumped!
Also, I took my first big test in poesia... BEGHHH. That on the other hand may be bad news... we'll see. I blame getting sick on Sunday tho ; ).

Allie and I had margarita night the other night... just the two of us at the mexican restaurant in plaza nunoa. SO good. Also noted is that Santiago margaritas do NOT equal U.S. margaritas strength-wise. I had two and was really feelin' it afterwards... omg. So anyways, just to warn you! Tia Sara told me a story about a girl who was in her house a few years back made the same mistake only with 3 margaritas... it was bad news. Apparently, she ended up yelling their names outside their apartment of that time and Alberto found her the next day all rolled up outside hahaha.

Then Friday... went shopping with Monica and also got my haircut... BANGS for the first time since junior high! Ahhhh. At first the stylist gave me a seventies rocker chic hairstyle (kinda the shag that's popular here right now) but I asked her to fix it in a nice way hahaha. I like the cut... just'll be diff. Then later that night... out with Katie Hill's group of friends... super nice all of them. Ended up speaking a lotta spanish that night with this guy named frena. Inside joke: I looked like a deaf person. The guy's bday it was has an interesting story too and he can dance the samba like no other.

Today... went to Eduardo's bday (relative de mis padres chilenos) and that was fun... food=delish as always. I talked to the men about Obama some hahaha and then talked to Daniela for a lot of the time. Her bf is supernice too. He's an administration engineer.

Anyways... I had caffeine early... now it's finally wearing off. I'm pooped. Daylight Savings happened and we lost an hourr too! AHhhhh. And we spent a good long time figuring all that all again. lol

Buenos noches

Chilean hospitals

Sooo today I had my second Chilean hospital experience. The first time was in San Pedro de Atacama (north Chile)... when I got food poisoning. This time, earlier today I had a fever of 39 degrees Celsius.. which is 102degrees Fahrenheit and a swollen throat. So it was a party!

I'm feeling way better tho... I got a shot in the "poto" (butt) haha... I was really afraid before the shot because the doctor said he suggested doing it cuz it's a one-time thing unlike the oral medication BUUUT it will hurt "ALTO" (which means it will hurt a lot). And he emphasized how painful it would be. I was a little scared haha. It wasn't too bad though. The doctors were all really nice and I have to say, my Chilean hospital experiences have been good. They've all been super nice and they've given me meds that help me out every time so far. I already feel way better than I did like 5 hours ago. I'm hoping I feel even better tomorrow cuz I have my first test for my poetry class Tuesday. Unfortunately, I had planned on doing a lot of studying for it today... so we'll see how that goes :/.

Long time, no see...

Hey all!
Sorry it's been SUPER long since I've written!!! AHHHHH. Let's see, it'll be hard to sum everything up in a nutshell but let's see.. what's happened since I talked on here last?
--I went to Valparaiso one Sunday... saw Pablo Neruda's house. Very pretty. It's a port town... reminds me of San Francisco.
-- CIEE took it's trip to San Pedro de Atacama... the desert in northern Chile. Really neat! Only problem: I got food poisoning the first night from some the porkchop I ate. Monica and I just so happened to be sharing the "matrimonial bed" and she got food poisoning from something in Santiago so we were sick together. It was a party. Hahaha. But we did get to see an open copper mine the first day and the last day there I took pix of everyone sandboarding. I tried it out once on the bunny hill and it was fun : ).
-- Went to Mendoza for the second time.. with Allie and Monica. The first day was funny.. me and Allie worked on our poetry project and the hostel ppl tried to help us. "My soul is filled with a giant marine conch." (literal translation... long story.. hahaha) We also went out to a discoteca one night. Guys only age 25 and older could get in... girls 18 and older hahaha. Our grp knew the owners so everyone got in. There were a couple characters in the grp-- "18-yr-old" and "old man" and "white shirt".. then Matias and Tino. It was fun. I think Monica had the best time ; ). And lastly we went to an amazing hot springs there. Got to try out the whole mud bath ordeal. It was great. It was chilly outside, so after we put mud on us we ran outside and had to lay down really quickly on the warm wood... the breeze was freezing if u stood up. Good time though.
OHHH in the airport.. Alexis Sanchez was standing right behind me. One of the lead soccer players in Chile. I held him up a lil cuz I kept leaving change and crap in my pockets and had to walk thru the security thing 50 times. HAHAHA.
--Fiestas Patrias. Chilean Independence Day.. was Sept 18th. The week leading up to it sucked cuz I had so much homework and had to write my first important sociology essay. But on Thursday our group went to a Chilean rodeo which was cool. They don't kill the bulls, so I was happy. Lots of dance and eating good meat and drinking chicha. On Friday/Saturday I went to Rancagua and Cachagua (or something like that) to celebrate with Chilean family. It was fun. Lot o good food, a dog fight, lotsa kids, really nice relatives, blooming peach trees. Saturday night we went to a discoteca called Club Miel... turns out its a gay club hahaha. We got VIP somehow and had a great time. I convinced the one straight guy that started dancing with me that Allie and I were lesbian lovers that were travelling together from the U.S. He scooted away within minutes haha. Sunday, I went to a "fonda" which is like a big artisan craft sale.. lots of tents and then huge areas for dancing the cueca and the chilote (traditional dances of Chile) and food. Saw the CUTEST kids perform. It was fun.

Those are the big events. Other than that, just getting along in classes. I think I'm finally basically over my culture shock... took me long enough!!! I think part of it is adjusting to not living with Keith and Ian... or being an RA... where we were around eachother literally ALL the time. But the other part I think was culture shock. Not that I havent had fun but I'm more close to my normal wanting-to-get-active self. It's good.

Oh the other big thing that's begun is me teaching English in an after school program of a high school in Quilicura. It's really cool... the kids are fun. It is definitely difficult to plan. Miriam is helping me out though : ). More on that later. Gotta go shopping with Allie now! Chao chao!

Lessons Learned in Mendoza

We went to Mendoza, Argentina this last weekend and got stranded there for a little longer than we had been planning... the border between Argentina and Chile was closed to bus travel because of some snow storms AHHH. It was a little crazy... but we got ourselves out of it! We flew back last night and were totally exhausted. It was an amazing weekend despite our troubles with identification at the border and then our failed attempts at returning by bus haha!

My friend, Andrea, from the Santiago program here too posted a list we made when we had too much time on our hands : ).. it's about the lessons we learned on this trip. I highly recommend reading it. The link is attached to this blog entry : ).

To sum up the weekend, we ate EXCELLENT chorizo (beef) because Mendoza is known for it.. went on a bus wine tour that was very interesting.. experienced an Argentinan super market with the meat hanging up everywhere (eghh to that smell!), went horseback riding in the mountains with a guy named Rodrigo and some Swiss people (SOOOOO beautiful), and hung out with the hostel ppl.

Good thing me, Monica, Allie, and Andrea are "juntos para siempre" (together forever/always : D) because after all of our little struggles from border control to bus tickets to airplane tickets to paying for everything... we still had an amazing time and love eachother hehe.

(Read Andrea's blog! it's hilarious. And you'll understand the events of this weekend, hahhahaha.) Time to catch up on hw!!! And eat once (pronounced own-say) with my homestay parents (7:00 snack : D).

our chilean friends UPDATE

Hola todos!

I have to correct my earlier blog. Tuto=Toti. And Toti is actually not a creeper. Ok, let me rephrase that... even though Toti is a creeper, we still like to hang out with him. ; ). Chiste chiste! Lol. And yes, I didn't know that any of our Chilean amigos were going to read my blog... but I'm not correcting myself because of that. All of them are a lot of fun hehe.

We went out to eat tonight for Allie's 20th bday!! woot woot! We went to eat at this AMAZING Peruvian restaurant... and if my parents knew how much I spent on the food there they'd prolly faint on the spot. But it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It is a very famous restaurant and for this, we decided to go there to celebrate Allie's bday. I had tortellini which was undoubtedly the best I've ever had. And we rotated plates to try all eachother's dishes and they were ALL amazing. I'm very picky when it comes to salmon and I almost died of pure ecstasy when I tried Allie's. DELISHHHH.

Afterwards, we hung out at Monica's place and then went to a discoteca (place to dance) where we met up with some of our Chilean friends. Yay for Mona getting that all together!! : ) I have yet to hear "Beautiful liar" by Beyonce and Shakira though... if it ever plays, me and Monica will go crazy because Beyonce is Monica's alterego and mine is Shakira.

I'm a little sad that Monday I'm going to have to miss out on skiing with the girls... I have to test out some more classes then. But this coming weekend I'm going to Mendoza in Argentina with them and a couple guys from the program... apparently it's about a 7 hr bus ride from here through the mountains... not bad! Scenic!

I hate how I never want to sleep... but I should prolly try now. Buenas noches!

top things to NOT do in Santiago (tbc)

This blog will have to be added to later... but to start it off...

Top Things NOT to do in Santiago
1) Forget to bring toiletpaper into the stall with you at the public bathrooms. (Yep, it's NEVER in the stalls... sucks if you forget that. "Por favor (Please)... alguien (someone)... Confort (toilet paper)?"

2) Play piramides or any drinking game with vino tinto (red wine)

3) Say "Vamos a juntear en nosotros" (We're going to creep on you guys later...) to Monica's homestay sister. Or for that matter, any joke.

to be continued...

chilean friends

We made our first Chilean friends the other day and they are SO much fun. Annya is the best. Her pololo (boyfriend) is Walter but everyone calls him Balter. Don't know why lol. Everyone here has a nickname too. Nikolas is Niko, Natalia is Natu, Magdalena is Mona... Not gonna lie, at first I thought one of the guys in the crew was a creeper, or jote (pronounced ho-tay). But he's cool now. I took a pic with him and his "I need a girlfriend shirt" and I made a "omg he's a creeper face" haha. On the other hand, we met a new one of their friends today named Tuto and he IS a creeper. At least when he's drunk. He asked uncomfortable questions too. On the carride back home he asked me what the name of my last bf was, if I still love him, and asked why to anything I said. Plus the fact that he kept switching cars (we had a whole crew going from their house to a discoteca that we ended up not going in and then rides home) to be in the one I was in. Or maybe just the one with the most girls. Beghh. But the dinner was a lot of fun... we had a BBQ with all of them and the food was AMAZING. I seriously ate so much-- two hotdogs, two mini brats, potato salad (buenisimo!!), chicken... and then soda along with that. I was a lil hungry lol. It was Kris' bday and he pounded too much alcohol ehhh... got sick. Alex and Allie from our program were at the house too (they all came with Kris' host bro Miguel) and so that was fun. Juan Paolo was SO nice and brought Monica, Allie, and me all directly home and it's a lil bit of a drive. He's a lil older than us... Monica and Allie think he's 28 but I think they were joking and he said he's 23. We'll have to ask him. AGES are sooooo hard to tell here... it's weird.

There is one name that if I understand it without any context of a sentence by the end of the semester, I will know I've mastered Santiago Spanish. "Pedro Valdivia". This is the name of a metro stop and also a street. It's impossible to understand when they say it. It's amazing-- I've heard prolly 30 times since I've been here and if I don't see a sign or they don't slow down when they say the name... impossible.

All the Chileans trying to say "Suzanne" is SO amazing. I love it. It's usually something like "Suze-ay-und." I say, oh just say Susana.. and they're like no, what's you're name in the US? lol. It's fun.

Today I was in such a better mood. I talked to Mom and Dad about the recent family drama that I guess had been weighing on me and it all came out. So I think stress level is significantly down. WOOT WOOT!

I miss people back home. I guess I'll just have to call them and swap stories for awhile. Then we'll be back together soon : ). Classes start Monday... we'll see how that goes!

depressing but eye-opening day

SOOOOOoooo today was the most depressing day ever. I started off w/ not letting myself go to sleep early (like always lol). But the depressing part... we spent all day after our lecture in the morning at Parque de la Paz (Park of Peace) and then after that at the Cementario General (General Cemetery of Santiago). Parque de la Paz is a memorial now but used to be a place where they took people and tortured them. A professor led us through it and was actually one of the people who had been tortured there. Apparently from 1974-1978, during the dictator Pinochet's regime, there was an obsession with stopping resistance against Pinochet. So they captured people to find out information about resistance forces. Usually these people were college students... HMMMM just like us. And this was just 30 years ago... when my parents were in high school. We were at Parque de la Paz for like 2.5 hours and our guide described all the torture methods in detail... I couldn't listen to all of it. It was too horrible. And he got choked up at one point... obviously was something very emotional for him. Then we took a half hour bus ride to the cemetery. He also led us through that and we got to see the graves of a bunch of famous people.. was also very interesting. AND there are apparently 5 MILLION people buried in that graveyard. They put family's graves by eachother and when there's not enough room, they take out the oldest one and but the remnants inside the coffin into a shoebox size coffin and buried again. Also some of the plots the people have to pay a certain amount a month and if they can't, the coffin is removed from the plot. Flowers everywhere.. it was nice.

So after all this heavy stuff... Monica and I decided we had to have a girls night with Andrea and Allie and watch a fun movie. We went to Blockbuster and I now have a Chilean account WOOTTT! haha. I rented Bride Wars, or Guerra de Novias lol. But we ended watching Mamamia! It was much needed. : )

Gotta figure out classes... it's kind of a pain. Not just one, but two universities. One of which doesn't really have a campus... there are buildings in diff parts of Santiago. I'll get it though. Buenos noches! Besitos (little kisses!)!

Words I have learned from Harry Potter

Good movie! Watched the most recent one in the theater... with Spanish subtitles. And I kind of took notes on some of the words... lol. So check em out... learn some Harry Potter espanol : D.

varita= wand
Tenebroso= Dark Lord
mitad= alley
mortifago= Death Eater
era grosero= was rude
veritaserum= Vera Serum
demonio= bloody hell
escoba= broomstick
maldicion= curse
meros mortales= mere mortals
puntadas= stitches
vagando= lurking
ocultarlo= hide it
agujeta= shoelace
tarata= daft bimbo
atolorando= boggled
hechizar= to hex
me espantan= they freak me out
Por las barbas de Merlin!= Merlin's beard!
Hasta la vista, Aragog= Farewell, Aragog LOL
el Elegido= the Chosen One

first blog... 2 weeks in

Hola everyone!
I finally made this thing... I've been lazy. Let's see.. I'll try to bring you up to speed. I'm in Santiago, Chile for the semester. I've been here since July 15th and am travelling through CIEE which has been really great so far. The people in charge seem very understanding and are trying their best to prepare us for our school year coming up. The first few days we stayed in an orientation hotel.. Rent-a-Home in la Providencia, a section of the city of Santiago. It was a lot warmer than I expected it to be actually... it's winter here and it was in the 50s when I arrived. It's about that during the days but gets cold at night. I've seen my breath at night for sure. The centre of the city of Santiago is a total mix btwn Rome and Chicago. It's god the streets of Rome... brick, oldschool stuff. And then Chicago city life... lots of stores and vendors and historic buildings. Reallllllly cool.

I live in la Providencia and it's not to far from the metro, which is nice. My homestay family is AWESOME... they are a cute older couple in about their 60s. They talk a lot and made me feel welcome from the get go. I call them Tia Sara and Tio Alberto (Aunt and Uncle). They said it was weird for me to call them Mom and Dad b/c my parents live in the US. I agree. I like it this way. When talking to friends in the program it's out homestay parents tho.. less confusing.
The people in the program have been really cool.. Monica, Allie, Andrea, and Becky all live pretty close to me. Kris is in la Providencia too but I think on the other side.
We've been taking a CIEE class the last week or so which has been basically a bunch of lectures from different professors. We divide off into three smaller classes for discussion most days too, which is cool. We have a project due Thursday which I'm not too stressed about but I want to present well. Our group of 6 is doing it over the Indigenous population in Chile and Chilean Spanish. We're going to do a skit we think and show off our knowledge of Chilean slang haha.
For going out, I've gone to a soccer game (U Chile vs. Palestino) which ended 0-0 haha. And a couple discotecas and a few bars. Last night we went to a restaurant/bar called Teclados that was fun.. met some Chileans that were friends of Kris' hostbrother Miguel. They were a lot of fun and they brought us to one of their houses to do a little Karaoke. Friends on facebook with a couple, yay!

We got to see a historical museum, their "whitehouse" type building... and my fav-- the Andes mtns in the distance. Also saw an Indigenous museum-type thing which I want to go back to. Not gonna lie.. they have really cool earrings there : ).

I think it's only natural to get some waves of homesickness... I have but not too bad. They're keeping us busy. I was so glad I went out Saturday night cuz for the first time I had just chilled all day and then I had a moment where I was like "Whoa, ok. Now what do I do?" I had texted ppl earlier w/out response but then right before I was gonna send one to someone else, Monica called. That was great. It was a bit o' drama night for some reason, haha. But it ended up being a lot of fun.

My Spanish was really awkward at first.. could hardly speak the first night I came home lol. That was my body's way of saying "Whoa k, you're in a diff country." But the next day Sara and Alverto said my Spanish already sounded a lot better lol. Maybe it was a lie but I think they were right. Adam's mom is right tho... when you have a glass of wine or something, it's strange but your Spanish gets better. Or just seems better lol.

The wine here is good. Although.. the first time I tried it I thought it tasted to woody. There's a drink called the Pisco sour too which is a verrrry popular Chilean alcoholic drink. It's a bit much the first time you try it, but pretty good. There's something called the Terremoto (means "earthquake") that I need to try. It's supposed to be really good... I think it's some sort of ice cream with Pisco sour and something else.

The food here is absolutely amazing... LOVE the idea of bread all the time. And fruit. BUENO. muy bueno. And just cool dishes in general. I'm sure I'll be talking more about that later.
For now, I need to go to bed. I've been really bad about staying up late. It's past 2 and I have to get up at 8 or so, haha. But I got LOTS of sleep this weekend... so don't worry : ). Buenos noches!