It's Wednesday night...

Hola! It is 10:43 pm on Wednesday night. That means that I have been here for 3 weeks. I don't know exactly how I feel about that. Part of me feels like the time has flown by, and the other part of me feels like the time is creeping by and I have a whole 3 months left.




Another part of me is shocked that in only 3 weeks I have learned enough espanol to get an A on my midterm... Yes, I got an A. So there is hope that I will pass the entire semester. The test wasn't as hard as it could have been - but it covered a lot of material. I got a few things wrong that I shouldn't have. I forgot to change 2 words to their plural form and I had a hard time writing a paragraph that was gramatically correct about myself. The sentence structure in espanol is hard for me. Anyway congratulations to me.

Yesterday, after our test, my classmates and I, took a metro - to a bus - to the really big mall in Los Condes. This mall is very americanized. It has 4 levels and a million stores and restaurants including, a Ruby Tuesday, a TGI Fridays, a Bennihanna, and a Starbucks. We went to Taco Bell in the food court. Oh, and James you will love this, there are two (!) Dunken Doughnuts. I bought a fan (finally) for my room. Today the weather cooled down. Now that I have a fan - I don't need it... but I'm really glad I got it. It is really nice. I'm definitely going back to the mall whenever I need a taste of home.

This weekend, I am going with the family to a baptisim in Vina Del Mar. It is Cecilia's grandchild - I think. Sometimes I lose information in the translation. A couple other students have gone with their host families to other baptisims and they said it was a huge crazy party and a big deal. So I will bring my camera and let you know what happens.

I have to tell you about the Borquez family pet. This is their fish. It doesn't have a name, but it is the craziest fish I have ever met. In the 3 weeks I have been here, it has laid eggs twice (those white dots in the corner of the tank). Yes, twice - what a crazy fertile fish. The problem is that it is the only fish in the tank - it killed the male fish a couple months ago. The first batch of eggs disintigrated a couple days after I got here. So now it just swims up and down the corner of the tank where the unfertilized eggs are and moves really quickly (because it is mad) anytime anyone walks by the tank. It is not very entertaining otherwise.

Alright, I will write more later! Miss you and love you all! Emily

My 3rd Saturday in Chile

Hola! It is my third sabado in Chile. Well - I never got totally sick. I slept a lot and I think I fought it off... I had a cough for a day, but that went away. I love having enough time in my day to rest.

Well, the week went by really quick. On Wednesday some classmates had heard about a Mexican restaurant that was supposed to be close to campus. We were all craving some sort of flavors from home, so we embarked on a long journey to find the Mexican food. It took us over 45 minutes to figure out that it was about a 10 min walk from campus - but we had been given bad directions. Once we found it though - oh the food was so good, it was all worth it.

Thursday and Friday were fine. I studied some each day, because I have my first midterm on Tuesday. I think I will be ok, but tomorrow and Monday, I am going to lock myself in my room until I have all the vocabulary memorized. How exciting...

Today, Kate invited me to her ex-boyfriend's mom's cousin's house in Chile. Anne Rachel is a woman who studied abroad here when she was in college and fell in love with a Chilean man who she then married and now they have 3 kids. So then we went to their friend's house which was super super nice. I had a blast. They have a pool and 5 kids of their own. A lot of the wealthier families in Chile have maids, and they did - so we had this amazing food and service all day. It is so different than in the states. It was great. We ended up staying for 7 hours, and could have stayed longer. Anyway, I took a lot of pictures and I will put them all up with captions on Facebook (for those of you who can see those).

Anyway, So this is Kate and I at the house. Can you tell Kate is from California? I think it is quite obvious. The little girl in the picture is Natalia, the youngest daughter of our hosts. She is 4 and totally fell in love with me. She kept coming up to me, climbing in my lap, clinging on to me, singing songs to us, "selling" us cheezy poofs, and calling me Mia! Mia! which means mine! Adorable!

I love you and miss you all so much!

update

hi!

So it is Tuesday night, 10:11 pm and I think I am coming down with a virus - like the nasty cold that makes your nose all drippy while it is dry and red? I can feel it starting in the back of my throat right now, and I am dreading it coming on. I just put an Airborne tablet into some water and I am going to try to fight this thing off. Time will tell if I can avoid days of sickness.

I know how I got sick... in Santiago, you are in close proximity to everyone - everywhere you go. I live with 4 people in a small apartment with one bathroom, though Cecilia is extremely clean. I know it is not from them. However, when I go to school - I ride a bus to the metro station and then the metro to school. I have never ever had to be that close to so many people at one time. It is so incredibly crowded! Yesterday, one of the metros was so jam packed full, that I couldn't get on! So I had to wait for the next one. As the doors on the train closed, I looked at everyone's faces. They looked so miserable to be in there. Oddly, I had flashbacks of photos of the Holocaust in my history books - you know when the Germans made all the Jewish people get on those trains to the concentration camps?

So anyway, I probably got sick, through holding onto part of the train while I am riding them. Or because I was breathing. I know they ventilate the place, but the metro is underground. I keep sanitizer with me and use it all the time, but even still, I feel like I am going to get a nasty cold.

So there are some interesting fashion trends in Santiago. It is normal for men to have greasy mullets. It is normal for men to wear fanny packs. It is normal for girls to wear tapered pants. Big earrings and gaudy jewelry are in - no one wears real jewels. Even wedding/engagement rings look like fashion jewelry... if they are real, they are really small. Most people, even though it is 90+ degrees outside wears pants or a jacket. I find it strange. It is interesting to be in such a different culture.

Ok, time to watch some tv and then sleep some. I slept for 5 hours this afternoon, but I have class at 9:35 am tomorrow. I should try to rest. Miss you all! Love you!

Emily

Check out the view!

Hi everyone!

I made it through my first week of school successfully and so far everything has gone pretty well. I have figured out the metro system to the best of my ability and know how to get to school, the mall, and back. I can pretty much buy whatever I want with no problems. I still kind of rely on the cashiers to either write down how much things cost or show me with how many fingers they hold up, but that is fine. When I am in a restaurant, now can tell people what to put on my sandwich or salad and it comes out pretty close to what I ordered. I am amazed with my progress.

Well, yesterday my classmates and I made plans to go rafting in the Andes mountains... however too many people bailed on the plans, so we had to cancel that. Cecilia woke me up this morning and told me to get ready quickly to leave for San Cristobal. It is this really famous statue on the top of a mountain in Santiago. So we left. It was hot out, but not too bad, about 85 degrees Fahrenheit. Here is a picture of the Virgen del San Cristobal.

So this is the statue. It is very very big. You can go inside the base and it is a small chapel. To get there, we took a ride up a lift to the top and walked down to get back. The view is the reason to go. It is absolutely beautiful from the top although the smog is thick. Carlos tells me that because Santiago is surrounded completely by mountains, the pollution just sits on top of the city because the wind can't reach to carry it away. It is like we are in a big bowl. So here are some of the views: (I took like a million pictures, but I only have a little bit of space for pictures on this blog, so I wanted to save some room).

See the smog? It is pretty bad - you can't see the skyline... or the huge mountains that are right there. But, it is really cool to see this much of the city.

I will write more some other time... For now, things are wonderful and I have few complaints. Miss you all. emily

Hola, Como Estas?

It is eleven o'clock at night here and I am excited to go back to sleep tonight. I have started to take a nap in the afternoons, because it is so hot (it was in the upper 90's today) and the days are very long. I mean the sun doesn't even go down til nearly 10pm.

This morning, Cecilia and I continued on the quest for my Chilean ID. We arrived at the place for ID's at 8:00 this morning and the line was very long. It was worse than the lines at the bars in the ped mall in Iowa City on a Friday night of a home football game. Chilean people do not need as much personal space as Americans do, so the line (even though it was on a street) was pushed up towards the door and about 2-3 people side by side, just trying to get in faster. Seriously, don't come to Chile if you get mad if people try to budge in line. Especially at cash registers, grocery stores, etc. What I couldn't believe is that people were crazy about pushing ahead in line and the place didn't even open until 8:30! So when the doors opened, it was a mad dash for the room with the numbers. Does anyone remember those red round things that dispense the triangular shaped pieces of paper that numbers you? Yeah, they use them every where here. I think its okay, or people like me would never get in to do administrative things. Anyway, we registered my passport and I went to school.

Yesterday and today were my first classes. There are only 4 students (including me) in Track 1 which is awesome. Track 1 is like Spanish 101. We have a young woman named Catalina for our instructor. She speaks mainly in Spanish, however allows us to clarify all our questions in English if we need to. I feel really privileged to have this kind of education. I mean in Iowa, I was in a Spanish class with 35 people trying to learn the language. Here I am learning a lot more and in a shorter time span. I get credit for 4 semesters of Spanish at a college level in just one semester which means that I have 4 midterms and 4 final exams. My first midterm is on the 29th already. Cecilia and Carlos have helped me with my homework each night. Well - I have completed my homework and they look it over. I haven't gotten one wrong yet. It is also nice, because they give me more to think about in Spanish.

Yesterday, when I came home from class, Cecilia had made my bed like normal, washed my clothes, and cleaned my room. It is so different to me that the women in this culture do all this work. She is a cleaning-aholic. Anyway, she also found my TV remote and left it on my desk. I have no idea where it could have been, but I am not going to say anything in case it was in a wierd place.

Hey everyone, James and I were able to talk on Skype. It worked! Even the webcam! I can talk to you all, on there.

Alright, well I'm going to head to sleep. I will try to write more tomorrow or later.

Emily

My first weekend in Chile

Hi Everyone! It is 10:35 on Sunday in Chile. I haven't written in a couple of days so I have a lot to talk about. First of all, it has been hot. I mean really hot. The sun is crazy strong. I was in sunlight for 10 minutes (with 30 SPF on) and I have a tan line on my shoulders. There were a bunch of my classmates who went to Vina Del Mar (sp?) which is a popular beach area in northern Chile this weekend and they are all fried apparently. Even the nights here are really warm. I hope that it cools down just a little bit soon.

Well Friday started off with a trip to the police station to register our student visas to get a Chilean ID card. Then we took a bus tour of Santiago to all of the important landmarks. I forgot my camera to take pictures... but it was a short tour so I plan on going back anyway. Then Friday night I met up with Kate, a classmate, at her host family's house to go check out some of the bars in her area. She is about 15 minutes from my house by bus or car in an area called Nunoa. We sat down at one bar and had one drink which was good. The food in Chile is cheap, but the drinks are more expensive than they are in Iowa. For one drink it was 6 American dollars. Then Kate wanted to make a phone call to her parents so we had to find a pay phone which was an adventure because the phone wasn't working. Finally, a nice Australian named George came over and helped us and then bought us one more drink. Then we took a cab back to her place and I took a cab home. I didn't get home until 4:30 am because... well - I had dinner with the fam until 10:30, then it took a long time to get to Kate's, so we didn't get down to Nunoa until after midnight. Then we left around 3:30 and it took an hour for everything else. Chile is just more relaxed and everything is so late. It is so weird.

Yesterday, I woke up and was supposed to go to museums all day with classmates, but there was some confusion about where we were meeting and no one was where I was - and I don't know enough Spanish to ask a local directions - so I just ended up going home. The whole thing was a bust. Then on the way home, I stopped at the super market to get some food. I just wanted some chips and salsa, but I couldn't find any salsa. So I asked "Donde esta la salsa, por favor?" The chick working there brought me to the marinara sauce. Apparently, they don't have salsa. Then some jerk American dude showed me where it was, but it isn't normal salsa, it is very runny. I finally left with my food only to get lost inside the gates of our neighborhood. See the apartment building we live in is next to all these other similar looking apartment buildings that has a maze of sidewalks connecting them. I finally made it home and I was pretty bummed, but I guess everything is just a learning process. Things can only get better, right?

So after that catastrophe, I had dinner with the family, and Kate came over to see my place and to go out again, but this time it was with Francisca who is like my host sister. We walked to a place that was about 10-12 blocks from the apartment (its pretty close in comparison to the city) and had a really great time with each other. She took Kate and I to some places that had good drink specials and fun atmospheres. We took a cab home, and again didn't get home until like 5am. Kate stayed the night and we woke up at 1 pm. I can't be doing this every weekend, its too tiring!

Well today, Kate and I had some lunch at this place that is 2 blocks away called the Hemingway, named after Ernest. I think he ate there a lot when he was in Chile, but I can't be sure. It took forever, but the food was fine. I didn't know what a lot of the menu items were, so I ordered the Hamburguesa Hemingway which was a hamburger with cheese, tomato, a small pickle, and an olive - no bun. The mustard here is not like French's at all. It is bright yellow but has black flecks in it and has no flavor. Oh well, just something else to get used to.

Cecilia picked me up from lunch and took me to another one of her daughter's house in Las Condes. Her daughter's name is also Cecilia and she has two daughters, Emilia and Antonia, 4 and 5 years old. The house they have is gorgeous. It is on the side of a mountain and the neighborhood has all the houses like on the hillside. They have a pool and it was really fun to be there. I will take pictures next time I am there. The girls were really funny. They kept trying to talk to me in Spanish because they don't know hardly any English. They knew two poems that they kept making me repeat back to them - but they wouldn't ask me to do it directly. They would whisper in Cecilia's (my host mom's) ear. The cutest poem was this: (said rhythmically) One, Two, I love you. One, Two, Three, Do you love me? One, Two, Yes I do. One, Two, Three, I love you and you love me. That was it. They were cute.

I can't wait for school to start tomorrow. I will finally be able to have something to do. I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I am excited for homework, because it will help me pass the time. Since I don't have a job, I have a lot of free time. It is very weird. My classes are: M, W, F 9:35 am - 12:35 pm and T, Th 11:15 - 12:35 and that is it. I don't know what I will do with myself. Maybe sleep a lot? Watch a lot of TV?

Right now I cannot find my remote for my TV in my room and I feel like an idiot because of it. I have a very small room and it's quite clean right now. Where could it have gone? Ah, wish me luck. Otherwise I'm going to buy a new one, but I don't know how to do that yet!

Alright, I miss you all and I hope that the next few months fly by so that I may see you soon! I will write more later!

Emily

My first day with the Borquez Family

Hola! So I made it through my first whole day in Santiago. After orientation today, I didn't have to take the Espanol placement test, so I took a short nap and then we waited for our host families to pick us up. We were all incredibly nervous to finally meet these people who we will live with for the next few months. I dragged my heavy bags from room 109 to the lobby and as I entered, one of my classmates mouths to me: She is here for you! I turn the corner and there is a tiny woman whose face lights up as I see her. Brenda, the USAC coordinator, introduces us and that was it. I was in the hands of Cecilia. We take my bags outside to meet her husband Carlos with the car. It wasn't a very long drive to Providencia, the area where they live. Santiago is broken down into neighborhoods with different names. Mine is quite close I'm told to the Universidad. I have to tell you about driving in Santiago. People drive very fast, the roads are very curvy, everyone tailgates, and they use their horn a lot. The Borquez car needs new brakes and it makes this horrible screeching sound when they stop. Not a squeak, but a 'oh my god, will it stop in time?' sound.

The apartment is on the 4th floor of the building and there are no elevators. The stairs are outside which is fine because it was 85 degrees today. No air conditioning but it is breezy so I am in heaven. I love the warmth. The apartment is very small but it accommodates everyone very well. Their living room has two couches that are 6 inches from the small coffee table between them. It is more of a reading room, because there is no TV. The TVs are in everyone's bedroom. Opposite the living room is the dining room and kitchen. Then down the hall are three bedrooms. Francesca and Maria Jose live in one, Cecilia and Carlos, in another, and then mine is next to the bathroom. Actually everything is next to everything, because the apartment is small. I took some pictures and as you can see my room is small but it has everything that I will need.

They have given me a pretty much anything that I could ask for. They also feed me like crazy. Big meals and oh... yes we had tea time at 6pm. Cecilia gave me juice (which she calls ooss) and three(!) pieces of bread with tons of fresh avocado mash on top. It was delicioso, but filling. Three hours after that we had dinner. I will have to work on my ability to only ask for a little. Cecilia and Carlos know a lot of English, however their accents are so thick that I am having trouble understanding them no matter what language they are speaking. Also, Chileans have their own way of speaking. They typically do not say the ends of words and they combine a lot of them. So for instance instead of saying "Como estas?" which is how are you? They say something like "Comtoy?" I have a lot of work ahead of me.

So after I arrived and before tea time we went shopping for me. I exchanged my American dollars to Chilean pesos. Then I needed to get a cell phone which I did. It took a while to get it. People in Chile take their time with customer service. I picked out the phone, paid for it, and then we waited for them to bring and activate the phone for like 20 minutes. My number is 85859328. I don't know the codes you dial from America. And here you have to dial different numbers before land lines, cellphones, and depending on which way you are calling. Eh, you don't have to call me on that number, just email me. Then I bought a watch because I didn't have one. Again, with the waiting to receive the actual purchase. The last thing we did was to buy a Bip! card so that I can ride the metro and buses. It is called the bip card, because when you scan it, the scanner goes beep! and in espanol - its spelled bip.

Mom - the family loved the gifts. Cecilia was crazy about the candles and the girls loved the necklaces. Carlos was bragging about his Vikings sweatshirt. It was great. They were surprised.

Anyway I leave you all with the best part of my room. The view.

I'm settling down for the night

Ok everyone, I am back from orientation and so I have some time to write. It is after 9 right now and we just got done with dinner. Chileans have breakfast at 8:30am, lunch at 12, tea time (like with bread, slices of avadaco, and tea) at 5 or 6 and then the actual dinner at 9 or later. No one goes out to the bars until after 1 or 2 am and they live this lifestyle on very little sleep. Other odd things I learned in orientation: Chileans consider themselves to be European rather than Latin American (from their Spanish roots, naturally). If I were called a grina, gringet, or other names it is not necesarily bad. No one in Chile wears glasses. Never wear gold jewelry, you'll be a target for theft, however silver jewelry is totally fine to wear. There were other things too, but I can't remember.

Ok well I have to tell you all that the flight was really long, and my day today was really long too. It doesn't seem like I got here today. After watching an entire season of Friends in the Miami airport, I walked to my gate and found three girls from USAC right away. We waited for a bit and found more people while we were boarding the plane. The plane was huge. I was in 39C which was an aisle seat on the left side of the plane in the middle section. The seats were tiny and did not recline very much. The flight attendants served drinks 5 times throughout the 7 hour flight and two meals. It was so much that I couldn't really pull out my computer to watch anything. So I tried to sleep, but alas, it was very uncomfortable. I only got maybe an hour or two the whole night.

When we landed, we went through the extensive customs in the airport which took over an hour. I was so excited because both of my bags made it. A few other girls were not so lucky. I feel bad for one of the girls that I am rooming with tonight because they lost her bags somewhere. Supposedly she is getting them back tomorrow. So we took a 30-45 minute bus ride to our hotel where I am staying with 3 other girls. Our room has one bathroom and is small but not too small. This is a picture of my bed. It is not exactly huge but I am making do by crawling over everything.

And down below is a picture of where we eat dinner. There is a little buffet table off to the left and there are some really attentive waiters who open Coca-Cola Light or Mango Nectar or Aqua for you out of glass bottles and clear your dishes immediately.

For lunch today, we had grilled salmon, mashed potatoes, mixed greens, vegetables, bread, and fruit and sorbet. For dinner, it was either chicken or beef dish things (so good), with rice, corn, rolls, and some desserts that were like a whipped fruit mousse (we couldn't figure out the fruit, one girl thought it was a persimmon mousse), peaches and cream, and sapayyo (sp) the dessert that is fried little wafers with syrup on them.

Anyway, so the Chilean lifestyle is very relaxed. Tomorrow we are getting up, having breakfast, then a break, then going to have an hour meeting for more orientation information, a break, then tested on our Espanol, and then have another break until our host families come to pick us up. Right now, a lot of the girls went out for a couple drinks, but I am just too tired. So I am going to try to sleep before too long. I don't know if I will have wifi at my host family's place but I will try to write a lot. Everyone stay on your AIM and Skype so that we can all chat! Love and miss you all! Hasta pronto! That means see you soon!

Arrival to Santiago

Hi Everyone, I successfully made it with all my bags to Chile. Other than lack of sleep and homesickness, I cannnot complain much. The weather is gorgeous. I can see mountains. The people are very nice and the accomodations are just fine. I have only been here for 8 hours though. I hope that things are going to be fine. I have to run - but first:

I have 4 minutes before I have to run to an orientation session, so I am just going to post what I wrote yesterday morning on the plane from Minneapolis to Miami.

January 8, 2008 8:14 am

I have been up since 4:25 this morning when I was supposed to have woken up an hour earlier. I quickly brushed my teeth and rushed my last bags out to the car. Mom and I left at 4:40 am and had to run to the bank before leaving for the airport. It was so foggy this morning that I honestly thought we would be late, but as it turns out we were right on schedule. It took me fifteen minutes to check in and go through security so I had over an hour to wait to board the plane. So here I am, sitting in 18C which is an aisle seat, next to an elderly looking woman and who I assume is her daughter. I am not sure that they speak any English because I said hi to them when I sat down and they just stared at me. Granted, I took the other seat in their row thereby diminishing any chances of them being able to spread out. But I can’t spread out either! This flight is really full. I can’t see any open seats. The last time I flew, I was able to have an entire row to myself. I wish I could again, but alas, no.
It is 8:20 and now we are over Rockford, Illinois. I know this because the pilot told everyone. We are having a lot of turbulence and so he keeps reassuring us that he is trying to find a smoother airspace. Apparently the storms in Missouri that produced all those tornadoes are giving us some headwind. It also is delaying our landing – which is fine by me, because I have to wait until 11:25 tonight to fly to Santiago. I wouldn’t mind being in the airplane just a little longer to put off my endless layover.
They are playing The Nanny Diaries on the screens, but the volume control on the armrest only lets you listen either super loud or super quiet. I am going to try to ignore this turbulence and get some sleep.

Pictures of my hotel and room and more stories to come!

Lots of love,

Emily

Welcome to my blog

Hi everyone - I am creating a blog so that all of you can keep up with my trip to Santiago. I am studying abroad in Chile learning Spanish from January 8 - May 1 and returning to the states on the second. I will be living with the Borquez family who live in downtown Santiago. I have exchanged a couple emails with them and they seem incredibly nice, warm, and welcoming. Please use this blog as you would like, you can leave me comments in response to postings. You can also email me, chat on AIM, and I will have a cell phone while I am down there. All that information will not be posted on here because this is a public site, but is available through facebook and email. Thanks everyone! I'm glad that I can keep in touch with all of you while I am gone!