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!
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