Paseo de Curso Among Other Things

The last week or so has been pretty awesome for me. It was the last full week of school so we had finals but there was also a bunch of time to hang out and my friends taught me some cool Chilean card games. Yesterday was actually my paseo de curso which is kind of like a class field-trip that we took to the beach to celebrate the end of school. We went to a beach called Loreto which is about an hour or an hour and a half from Copiapó where we rented a cabin. The official paseo was only for the day but about half of my class aranged to spend the night there. I only stayed for the day but I had an amazing time! We played some cards with my cool New York deck, we went to the beach and swam in the freezing Pacific, we walked around a lot which I should not have been doing barefoot. After lunch which was an asado (surprise!) we walked to Bahía Inglesa which is a beautiful beach a supposed 15 minute walk from where we were staying. It turned out to be more like 45 minutes, but it was still fun. We went swimming there and the water is so clear! Everybody took a bunch of pictures and I'm posting mine to Facebook as I write if you want to stalk me. My curso even gave me a gift, an Indio Picaro. It was adorable! I think this is the first time in my life that I've been sad about school ending. I feel like I'm finally starting to fit into my Curso and have a place there and now school is over. I'll still go tomorrow to get my final grades and on Thursday there's an acto de premicaión which is some kind of ceremony in which they give out prizes for the best average and a bunch of other stuff. I have an invitation for me and my family for the cuadro de honor, actually I think all of the exchange students do, but it should be cool. Among other exciting things that have happened this week, Friday and Saturday was the Teletón. It is a telethon as in a 24 hour TV show to raise money, but it's so much more than that! It's something that Chile does every two years (I think)to raise money for disabled children. The have a bunch of famous artists perform and people donate money. This year they were trying to and succeeded in raising 16,000,000,000 pesos I think. I get increidbly confused by the size of number here. It was lot of money though. They also showed a lot of stories of people who had been helped by the teletón. It made me cry. They also do shows in all of the major cities and there was one in the Copiapó plaza. My host-mom, my host-sister and I went to the bank to donate and afterwards they got teletón related massages. Saturday night was an AFS thing. We went to my tía Cecilia's house for a culinary night. Everybody cooked something from their country. Nook cooked Pad-Thai, Annika cooked Kartoffelsuppe and Butterkuchen and Julien cooked Quiche Lorraine. I made monster cookies. It was really fun and we talked and hung out as well as eating some Chilean food. So that's basically all of the highlights of the last few weeks.

My Chilean Thanksgiving

I know most of you probably won't believe this, but I put my hand inside of a dead turkey. My host-family wanted a traditional Thanksgiving meal and preparing turned out to be quite an adventure. We had my host-mom's mom, her cousin and her friend over last Thrusday and I cooked. I'd made pumpkin pie and pecan pie (but with walnuts) on Wednesday and my mom had sent me a package with some stuff to make cooking easier (including a loaf of pumpkin bread!!!) so Thursday wasn't all that overwhelming. I did, however, have to make stuffing and stuff the turkey. My host-mom bought an 8 kg turkey which I figure comes out to something like 20 pounds but all went smoothly. It came out of the oven a nice golden brown. We also had mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and apples which turned out a little bit different since sweet potatoes here are white, and some greens. Everything actually turned out really well and everyone enjoyed the food. I even gave a little speech before the meal and we all said thanks which I actually have video of but I haven't uploaded it to the computer yet. I'll try to post it later because it's really cute. So that's basically everything
thanksgivingy. I'm taking my finals all this week. My school has a christmas tree in the lobby.

Carreteando

I've been too exhausted this past week to update my blog. This may have something to do with the fact that I didn't go to sleep until 6:30 last saturday. The funny thing is, before coming here, I always thought 6:30 was pretty early to go to bed, but it turns out it can be pretty late too, at least when you're talking about A.M. The reason I stayed up so late was for my host-mom's mom's birthday party. She turned fifty and my host-mom threw her a vegas themed casino party. All last weekend we were making appetizers for the party with everything from canapes to sushi. It was a lot of work but it was also really interesting to see what goes into throwing a party. The party itself was a lot of fun though. I played some blackjack and even danced a bit of cumbia. Apparently that is not one of my many talents. I had to keep looking down at my feet to keep from completely losing the rhythm. It was fun though. Did I mention that the weekend before last my host siter threw a Halloween party? It was fun, I ended up inviting a few people and we hung out and danced a bit. I dressed up as a devil but it was really a lst-minute costume. Literaly. I think halloween is pretty much just another excuse to party here. Most things are. But hmm, what else has been going on? On tuesday I went to the pool with my class in educación fisica and it was a lot of fun. We swam and hang out. It's getting close to the end of school now and everyone's getting in a summery mood, but there are also christmas decorations in the stores. It's relly weird. Other than that I've pretty much just been hanging out. Today I went to the centro with Sara, a finnish girl here with rotary and we window shopped and talked about Chile. It was really fun and I discovered that apparently everyone goes to the centro on Friday afternoons. I guess there really aren't that many other places to go. I also happened to mail my first letter since I've been here. It was just a simple one page letter but I had to go to a bookstore to buy the envelope then to the post-office where I waited in line for ten minutes and then it took the lady at the counter ten minutes to fill out the paperwork for selling me three stamps. I almost suffocated in bureaucracy. I still love Chile though.

"Nothing Exciting" in Chile

I was just telling my host-sister about how I couldn't update my blog now since I hadn't done anything exciting this week. She then reminded me about how I played the bass in the plaza yesterday and how my host-dad threw a party at our house last night. Actually, as she also mentioned, a week of life in Chile is enough to write about in itself. She's right, of course, but things here are starting to feel normal. I'm beggining to forget that if three months ago, I'd done any of the things I've done this week, I probably would have written a very long blog post about it. I suppose yiou really can get used to anything. In the spirit of trying to recapture my sense of wonder though, let me tell you about how Wednesday, I went with my host-siter to the library to look for a book I have to read for school. I didn't find it, but I did check out an Agatha Christie book and Ely and I have decided to make weekly trips to the library a tradition.
I should probably also elaborate on the things mentioned above. Yesterday my school orghanized a "caminato familial", or a family walk from my school to the plaza. Once they got to the plaza, some of the bands in my school played live music. Do you remember how I played the bass during our school's celebration of the 18th? Well we played the same song, El Guillatun, again. We also went first. It was pretty exciting. After that, my host-sister and I went to the exhibition in the Casa de la Cultura dedicated to the 33 miners. It had poems that people had written, things from the "Campamento Esperanza", the camp that the families made outside of the mine, and a lot of other mementoes. It was really beautiful.
After walking back to the house, we improvised something to eat for lunch since my host-mom is in China on a buisness trip. At about 3, my host-dad's friends started arriving for a birthday party that lasted until about 6. Yes, I'm talking about 6 am. I went to bed at about 11, but I did go swimming for the first (actually make that second) time in our pool. Apparently my host-dad's friends are all very musically talented, they're part of a tuna or some kind of traditional band. They played a bunch of songs on the guitar and sang. It was pretty cool.
Today, we pretty much spent the whole day sleeping and cleaning up.

Chile, Chile Lindo

I've just been informed that my dedicated fans are clamoring for more news of my Chilean adventures. Before I start telling you about last few weeks, let me take a moment to extoll the virtues of this country. I am under the distinct impression that Chile is the most beautiful place on Earth. I haven't seen enough to say this for certain, but the few places I have been can best be described as awe-inspiring. The Elqui Valey in La Serena is idyllic. The mountains around Santiago are gorgeous. The Atacama desert is other-worldy. Did you know they filmed the moon landing here? That's what my host brother says anyways. My host-family spent the day at the beach the other day and among the few photos I took, aboiut half are worthy of national geographic (a slight exageration). This is not due, as much as I may wish it were, to my photografic talent, but to the mind-staggering beauty of Chile. Before I begin to bore (is it too late?) let me tell you about what I've been up to these last few weeks.
After we got back from La Serena we went to the AFS asado to celebrate the 18. There I got to talk to the other exchange students scattered around Copiapó, and we got to know eachother a little better on our excursion to Santiago for our first AFS orientation. The exchange students from the middle part of Chile all met up in Santiago to talk about how our experiences have been going. Although we've all been living disrtinct experiences, we had so many things in common! I feel like I made some life-time friends there in the space of four days. I also got a chance to practice my English and catch up with two of the other Americans who were at my Miami orientation. Rosemary ws telling me about a friend she has in the US who's interested in coming to Chile next year who had actually read my blog. I'm not going to lie to you, I felt very important! A thing that really surprised me at the orientation though was how many people were still more comfortable speaking English than Spanish. I think the US really needs to come up with a new method for teaching languages because frankly, after five years of taking it in school, my German still sucks! And don't even get me started on how bad my Spanish was when I got here!
Speaking of my Spanish, its been improving fairly steadily. I recently discovered that I can read books in Spanish. Or book anyways, I just finished "the Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown. Yeah, I felt prettyu good about myself after that. I even walked to the plza the other day and signed up at the library. Let me tell you, that was an adventure in itself. I had to figure out where to get things photocopied! OK, so not that exciting, but its these little Chilean things that I still haven't gotten figured out. I suppose I still have nine months to work on that.
Hmmm, so other news. My host-mom left for a mining exposition in Shanghai today. That's right, we sent her off to China for two weeks. I might be more jealous if I wasn't currently in Chile! I¿ll try to keep the updates more frequent in the future! (On a side note, comments are always nice).

Hanging out in La Serena and Celebrating the 18 de Septiembre

So last weekend was the long awaited 18 de Spetiembre. My family went to La Serena (a city about a four hour drive south from here) where we stayed with my hostdad's sister. On Friday we went for a paseo in the Elqui Valley to my host-family's lugar secreto. Frankly, I probably shouldn't be telling you about it, but it's not like I could tell you where it was if I wanted to (and I don't). Suffice to say we had an asado there with my host-family, my host mom's mom and my host-dad's mom, dad and sister. As you can probably guess, we ate empanadas and large amounts fo meat before breaking out the guitar for some typical chilean songs and dances. I mainly just watched most of this, but I did dance some cueca. On saturday, more or less the same thing was repeated, but this time at somebody's house also in the valle. You will probably be shocked to learn that there was no cueca danced n the 18th (ok, so not where I was, I'm sure there was somwhere in Chile. I did however learn how to hacer bailar el trompo (I'm not actually sure that's the correct term for it). It's something like spinning a top, but it requires way more skill. I'll try to upload a video but I'm not sure if I'm blog-savvy enough.
My succeses with flying kites were a little less, well, succesful. Apparently Chile is big on kites, who knew? On Sunday we went to the beach (no, it wasn't exactly beach weather) and explored Coquimbo, La Serena's port counterpart. We ate at a restaurant in the seafood market and wandered around a bit before heading to a giant fair that takes place every year over the 18th. It was packed with people and everyone had to stick close together so as not to get lost. Monday we headed back home because my hostsiblings had school starting on Tuesday even though I have this whole week off. I've pretty much been studk at home for the past couple of days attempting to tach myself guitar, but yesterday I met some friends at the mall and window shopped. Getting there was a bit of an adventure, I decided to walk and ended up getting just a bit lost, but I made it. Last night was also my hostmom's cousin's 18th birthday, so they had a fmily asado with all of the cousins and everyone. I go back to school on monday, but this weekend I have an AFS get together, and next weekend is our first real orientation! I'm excited about hanging out with the other exchange students again!

Getting ready for the 18 de Septiembre

For this to make sense, you should know that the 18th of Spetember is the Chilean national holiday. Picture the fourth of July, but a way bigger deal. The whole month of September gets devoted to being Chilean, people put flags on their cars, on their houses (apparently it's against the law not to) and act Chilean. From what I can tell, this involves dancing cueca and going to asados. Last weekend my host family went to visit my host dad's grandma in Totoral, a village in the Chilean countryside. Yes, it is as cute and rustic as that description makes it sound. There we ate a ridiculous amount of grilled meat. I'd been under the impression that asados were like barbeques with the salads and side dishes etc. but it turns out that they are comprised of grilled meat. Period. After eating, my host-mom helped me improve my cueca (the Chilean national dance) because I was going to dance it in an act at my school on the 16th. Don't think that because Chile is a Latin American country that it's national dance is anything like tango or salsa (which by the way just means sauce) because it's not. Cueca is a quirky flirtation. Frankly, I can't describe it. Go google it if your curious. My cueca did get to the point where it was passable, and dancing it in front of the entire school was actually fun! I think I'm growing to like the spotlight. If you're wondering why I ended up dancing the Chilean national dance in an act, you're not the only one. (I'm still wondering this myself.) All five of us exchange students had to dance and they partnered us with Chileans who are actually good at dancing to make up for our lack of knowledge. All and I'll I'd say it turned out pretty well. I also ended up playing the base for a song that my class was performing a Mapuche dance to. (In case your curious, yes I did feel cool, despite my flowery cueca dress). Speaking of which, everybody with a few exceptions came to school dressed like huasos (chilean cowboys?) today. Why don't we do anything like this in the US? To wrap this up let me mention that my family is going to la Serena for the weekend of the 18th where we will (hopefully) eat empanadas, go to an asado, and dance cueca.

Anniversario del Colegio

I apoligize for being boring lately, but it's gotten to the point where life here almost feels routine. After a month here, I obviously don't speak Spanish fluently or really fit it, but that's t be expected. I can however, understand a lot more, and I'm way more comfortable with Chilean life in general. I even went into a store and bought something all by myself yesterday! It was only a bottle of coke, but still, I felt accomplished.

As you can probably tell from the above mentioned adventure, I've been having an exciting week. Last weekend, my family went to the desierto florido for a passeo. We drove a couple of hours on a highway before turning onto a dirt road that led to the village that my abuela and her mom live in. They have goats by the way. That dirt road turned out to be nothing compared to the one through the desierto though. We stopped and took alot of pictures, and I spent part of the time riding outside of the car (Ely got the roof, I'm a bit jealous). Overall, it was a bit like stepping into a Monet painting. Everything was pastel colored, the flowers were like the dots of paint from an impressionist's brush, and the clouds were so damned fluffy! Whew, there, I'm done trying to be poetic.

Besides Chile's awe-inspiring landscape, there has also been the matter of my school's anniversary. Apparently in Chile, school's celebrate their anniversary once a year (that needed clarification) by forming alliances, having a bunch of games/contests, and doing other crazy stuff. I was in the Hollywood or white alliance (we won by the way!), and this involved doing a show where people dressed up as celebrities and walked the red carpet. I was Madonna. (Please try not to laugh.) Part of the festivities also involved having each of the exchange students come up on the stage and dance. (Previous comment reiterated) Basically I've been feeling a little bit out of my comfort zone the past few days.

The anniversary ended Friday night with la fiesta del colegio. It was regala, and since I don't own any fancy clothing, I ended up borrowing my mom's sister's dress and shoes, my host-sister's leather jacket, and having my host-mom do my hair and makeup. Getting to Casa Norte, where the party was, was an adventure in itself. It was down a long dirt road, but since it rained thursday, mud road may have been a more accurate description. When I showed up at ten (it started at nine) the two exchange students with rotary, me and a handful of Chileans were the only ones there. This whole notion of latin time is taking some getting used to. I danced with Sara (the finnish exchange student), Daniela and a couple of other people.

The rest of the weekend I've mostly done homework. Guess who got assigned a two page essay to write! Yes, I did! It's to replace a dissertacion that they did in tecnología while I wasn't here. I also have to read book for thursday. Fun. I did, however, walk around the centro yesterday with my hostmom and sister, and saw the mil cuecas they're dancing in the square. We also ate sushi (apparently that's one of my host-family's favorite types of food).

What Happened to Secular Education?

I'm fairly certain my school isn't catholic, but somehow I ended up at mass today insted of in English class. Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore (does anyone else think this is a bad analogy?). But back to the point, I'm pretty sure everyone here is catholic. Apparently when I say I'm Christian this gets misconstrued as me being evangelical or something. I'm not quite clear on that.

Well, despite my little run-in with religion, things have been going fairly well. My Spanish is getting better, but it's still not up to writing-a-presenttion-for-lenguaje level. Yeah, that went well. The conclusion I've come to is that school here is easier (with the possible exception of Spanish). I'm actually doing well in math... don't sound so shocked! The other conclusion I've come to is that books here are expensive. While you can buy a full meal here for under 1000 pesos (2 bucks), the book I have to read for school came out to around 6500 pesos (yeah, thirteen bucks) in paperback! This probably doesn't matter because it's not like I'm going through reading material very quickly.

Erika Can't Dance

Have you missed me? Sorry it's been so long since my last post, but fate has been trasnpiring against me. Last Wednesday, the internet was out because... it rained! People started chanting to be let out early and life basically came to a halt. I have to admit, I was a bit baffled by this, but apparently it only rains 3 or 4 times a year and there are no storm drains so it's kind of a big deal. Other than that, well, I've just been busy.

Monday my class had a bienvenida (welcome party) for me! It was fun and we had cake. Monday I also found out that my school has a hymn. That's right, we're just that cool. I thought the U.S. was supposed to be big on school pride, but from what I can tell, Chile wins this one. Other than the previously mentioned events, not much of note happened during the week, but my weekend was fairly eventful. Friday I met Tiare, Marjorie and Fabio after school and we hung out at the Jumbo (Chilean Carrefour. No that probably didn't help. Chilean supermarket.) We ate some kind of sandwich with beef, avacado and tomato. As far as I can tell, all Chilean fast food consists of sandwiches with avacadoes and tomatoes. On a somewhat related note, completos (hot dogs with, you guessed it, avacadoes and tomatoes) are actually not bad.

But anyways, back to my weekend. Daniella, the girl I sit next to in class had a birthday party Saturday! That's right, my first Chilean party! The invitation said it started at nine, so I showed up at 9:15 or so thinking I would be fashionably late. This was not the case. When I got there, one other person was there. Apparently in Chile, 9:00 actually means 10:30. The next hour or two people spent talking and smoking (yes, really), and around eleven or so, we sang happy birthday. Somebody pushed the birthday girl's head into the cake, but come to think of it, this happened at my bienvenida too (to someone else). Note to self: Ask if this is normal or if all of the people you know are just weird. After the cake, people started to dance to, you guessed it, reggaeton. It actually has a better beat for dancing than the music they play at parties in the U.S. The bad news, however, was that everybody here actually knows how to dance. This is really only bad news because I do not know how to dance (see title). I gave it my best shot anyways, but one of my goals for this year has become to learn how to dance. My other goal is to eat an obsecene amount bread and butter.

My First Hamburger in Eight Years

Yes, you read that right, I ate a hamburger. I'm going to pause for a while and let the significance of that sink in. Ironically, I had to come to Chile to eat it. Did I mention that I've also been eating more cereal than I have since... France? What is it about leaving the US that makes me identify with my American heritage so much more? I think I could get used to this. The being American thing, not the hamburger eating. That I suppose I have no choice but to get used to.
Well since I last wrote, I went to another two days of school and... I met my host-family! Thursday morning was a huge improvment on Wednesday. I was beggining to understand some of what people said (I suppose I'm getting more used to hearing Spanish) and people seemed more comfortable talking to me. At this point I'm hardly what you would call a great conversationalist, but I appreciate when people make the effort to make me feel included. I got a bit of a language lesson outside of the normal school curriculum (my Spanish teacher seems a bit scary) as well as math and History. We had a test in math, but History was pretty fun. We talked about the Encomienda system and I actually understood some of it! Then after going home for lunch I had biology and P.A.S. I'm fairly certain that Biology was mainly a discussion of STD's and birth control, but at that point I was exhausted and paying attention would have simply cost too much effort. I was feeling a little bit better by P.A.S. time, but I still have no idea what it stands for. It seemed to be an additional Spanish class though. Maybe grammar? Oh, did I mention that Fabio, the guy I sit next to, ´s new favorite game has become: Quiz Erika about random American brands and cities? I think he's trying to place me on the social scale, but it's a bit annoying/amusing. For the record, no, I do not have a Northface jacket or a macbook.

After school on Thursday I packed up my stuff and went to meet my host family! I didn't do much except go to bed that first night and I had school friday morning, so I didn't really spend that much time with them until the weekend. First however, let me tell you about Friday. I'd been feeling a bit overwhelmed by meeting my host-family etc. and out of my comfort zone so I was really not looking forward to going to school, but it was much better than I had anticipated. We had Physics, Lenguaje and, wait for it, English! Yes, this may have been the highlight of my week, but probably not. The teacher's English wasn't perfect, but it was so much better than most of the people at my school 's English. We talked about Twisters and the Wizard of Oz. Ironically the Wizard of Oz came up twice on Friday, once in English class and once when my host-family was trying to explain straw to me.

After school on Friday I went with my host-mom and host-sister to the centro where we walked around the feria (market) and hung out. I will gladly admit that I was half asleep at this point. I only got to sleep nine or ten hours that night because my host-brother, Alvaro's primero communion was on saturday. We went to the church with my extended host-family (my host-dad's mom, my host-mom's mom and grandma and grandpa etc). It was through the school (they go to the liceo catolico) and it was a bit long with a lot of standing, but afterwards we went home for an Asado (barbeque). Elizabeth and I played with her little cousins, and I threw a football (yes, american) with Alvaro. It was fun and since then, things have gotten less awkward.

After sleeping 12 hours saturday night, I got up this morning and helped make pankekes con manjar. They're sort of like crepes with dulce de lece filling, and as you can imagine, they were delicious! For lunch we had some more meat. I miss vegetables and water! They eat tomato, cucumber, celery etc. salads, but not without salt. Tea is also taken with artificial sweetner. I probably should not find this weird, but I do.
Did I mention that I have three host-dogs? A family of German shepherds! There's even a baby of three months. He's adorable, but rather mischevious. Their attitude towards dogs is very different here, or at least it is in my family. In the US we tend to treat our dogs like humans, let them sleep in our beds, cuddle with them etc. but here the dogs stay outside and are treated like... dogs. We spent some time trying to train the puppy (achilla), but it was more through dominance than the positive reinforcement methods I'm used to it. After the dog training session, my host-dad attempted to teach me to play the guitar and we had a Beatles sing-along. The only problem is that I can't sing. Maybe that will change after a year here, but I think not!

First Day of School!

I think I may have mentioned something about going to get my uniform in my last update? Well that's what we did Tuesday! I also got my visa verified (I don't think that's the right word) at the Chilean equivalent of the FBI. There we met a very nice mormon boy from Minnesota. He was helping his Nicaraguan friend with his visa so we chatted for a while and he's volunteering in Tierra Amarilla teaching people (yes, I had to ask, about God). Apparently he has already been in chile for 6 months so his Spanish is much better than mine, but I thought I heard an American accent. After we got my paper saying my visa was verified (I remembered the word) we went to a kind of city office where people register births, deaths wedding etc. and applied for my carnet or ID card. There we ran into mormon boy again and after talking about Chile for a while, he started to tell me about... his religion! That's about when they called my number to go apply for my carnet so we politely excused ourselves. After that I got taken to an AFS meeting conducted in rapid-fire Spanish. I thought that was a reality check... until I started school. Speaking of school, after lunch, we went back to Copiapò to hunt down my uniform. We started at a little uniform shop where I bought my skirt, two yellow polo shirts that I'm allowed to wear to school when I go back after lunch, and my PE jacket. Then we moved on to another small shop in town where we bought two white shirts and two pairs of grey socks. Next we bought shoes, little black mary janes (ok, I haven't owned a pair of those since the fifth grade I kind of would have preffered to keep it that way), then we went on a wild goose chase to find a blue polar. We went to store after store asking for one and the answer was always: no, but try.... It turned out that Javiera, one of the volunteers at our orientation who also happened to go to my school, had a polar, a vest and a tie I could borrow. So that was it, no more stalling! We went to speak to the director of the colegio and he told me that I would start the next day in segundo medio D! That's tenth grade for those of you who are as confused as I was. So last night I got all of my stuff together and set my alarm for 6:40. Just my luck. It didn't go off. I woke up a couple of minutes after 7, so I didn't have any extra time to worry. I'm not going to lie, I was nervous, but not as much as I would have expected.
So when we got to school it was a couple of minutes before 8 and school started at 8:10. I followed a friend of my tia's around for a little while like a lost puppy dog (pay attention, you're going to see a theme here) before she waylaid a kid that was apparently in my curso and told him to take me to class. He became my mentor for the day and he presented me to the class, then we sat down. Chilean kids are shockingly unruly in class! We had religion first and I didn't understand much of what the teacher was saying, but she gave us an assignment which I also didn't understand. That's OK because Fabio, the guy that was showing me around, spent a good half an hour to an hour picking my brain on the subject of American music. For those of you who know me, you can imagine how this conversation went.
"Do you listen to Justin Bieber" *starts singing song involving the words hey baby*
"No" *shakes head*
"Miley Cyrus?"
"Nope"
"Then Britney Spears?"
*Snorts* "No"
So the conclusion I've come to is that I simply don't like music very much. I mean yes, I listen to it, but always distractedly. I don't get really into music like so many people seem to. OK, moving on, let's discuss... music class!
Between classes, we apparently have a ten or fifteen minute break during which I followed Fabio around (lost puppy dog theme again) and was introduced to people. It was kind of fun, but I don't think I remember a single name. After that dventure was music class. For this, we moved to another room with a bunch of guitars and drums. I think I copied down song lyrics in my notebook (ok, so I think they were song lyrics, I know I copied them down). Kids were playing drums and guitar and it was kind of awesome, if a bit loud. I even got a drum lesson at the end of class! It was really cool, but I don't think I have that kind of coordination. Then we had another break and stood around talking to people (ok, stood around in my case) before going in for Qimica class. It was exciting because I actually understood this teacher! However, chemistry is another story. I copied it all down in my handy dandy notebook (a cool AFS one none the less) and listened to people talk to eachother and at me for a while. Somehow Fabio became my unnoficial translator and people have to talk to me through him even though he generally just repeats what they said in Spanish. It's kind of funny, but a bit limiting. Did I mention that somebody actually put a tack on his chair when he went to get up? He sat on it. I'd been under the mistaken impression that that kind of thing only happened in movies. Apparently Fabio is muy rico as in plata, something that a few people pointed out. I found it a bit strange, but maybe it's a cultural thing. That would explain the iphone with which my musical inquisition was conducted and his snazzy green watch. Yes, when I say green, I mean lime green. I'm more than a little jealous. So at 1:00 when Qimica finished, we left to go home for the day and I practically bolted to the car. I felt much better after eating lunch and helping to make bread, but my first day was a bit challenging. I spent most of my day feeling like an overgrown baby. I feel really tall next to these tiny Chilean girls! And on second thought, I speak neither un pocito nor un poco Español (it seems that whenever I say un poco someone chimes in with pocito and vice versa). The other kids were all very nice, but they speak really quickly and it's very hard to understand them. I think I'm going to have a really good time here, but these first few weeks are going to be tough. Let me end my novella here by saying that my host family gets back tonight! I should meet them after school tomorrow! I'm a bit nervous, but very excited!!!!

Orientations and Copiapò in More Detail

This is just a more detailed Synopsis of the orientations and my first day in Copiapò, but here I go.
Since I left New York wednesday morning, a lot has happened. I feel as though years have gone by. I flew to Miami where I had the most-difficult time catching a shuttle to the hotel. This did not bode well (after all, it was in English), however, everyone else had an equally difficult time with the shuttle, so if it's an indication of anything, I'm not the only one in for some hard times. After we got to the hotel (beautiful by the way) we spent a couple of hours hanging out and showering (although not both at once). I was roommates with Mimi, the girl I'd been talking to on Facebook. It was awesome, we became really good friends in like, a day! There were six of us going to Chile, three year kids (Me going to Copiapò, Mimi going to Temuco and Bo going to Iquique) and three semester kids (Rosemary going to Quillota, Allison going to Arica and Carah going to Limares). There were also the people going to Brazil and Paraguay at our orientation, so we hung out with them too, but the Chileans were the last to leave so we had like five hours by ourselves to talk. Most of the orientation in Miami consisted of waiting around, being yelled at for being late (oh, the irony!) and listening to stuff we already knew. Talking with the other AFSers was fun though.
After our day and a half in Miami, we took a hotel shuttle to the airport at 8 o' clock for an 11:30 flight. I managed to sleep through some of it, but I was in the middle of the middle row, and whenever I woke up, the people on both sides of me were sleeping. I did however get an amazing view of the snow capped Andes, which really drove home that it is winter in Chile. The real shock, however, was when we got off the plane and realized that they didn't heat the buildings. We spent most of our two days at orientation camp shivering. It was held in this large building full of pictures of Jesus and crosses that was practically impossible to navigate in. Somewhere in that maze however, there was a room with a fire, but we couldn't all fit around it. There were maybe sixty or seventy kids, mainly from Europe (actually, they were mainly from Italy), but people more or less stuck together in their country groups, and it was a bit awkward. Most of the other kids spoke English to some extent, so we Americans were embarassed by our language abilities. My roommate was a girl named Charlotte Rousseau (from France, in case you couldn't guess), and we had a small room with bunk-beds and a completely inadequate supply of blankets. Last night was the first night in a week that I haven't woken up frozen! And I slept thirteen hours for the record. School is going to completely wipe me out! Well, we spent most of saturday in our area specific groups (I was in group one, el Norte) and we found out a lot about the country, the culture and AFS. The rest of the cities in el Norte had the kids going by plane, and most of the closer cities, the kids were getting picked up, but us lucky ones got to leave that night for the bus station. There we waited around for a couple of hours, and I talked with Mimi a lot. We were the only Americans laeving that night, and it was sad to say goodbye to her. It's crazy how close we got in like four days.
My bus left first at 10:00 pm, and there were four of us on it from AFS. Me, Javiera, an AFS volunteer, Julien, a French boy going to my school, and Carmen, a Swiss-German Girl, all going to Copiapo. I slept through most of the bus ride because the seats reclined into almost beds, but I woke up a bit before we got there and looked out the window. The desert is gorgeous! When we got to the bus station, Carmen and Julien's families met them, and my hostmom's Tia Cecilia (she's actually her god mother) met me and brought me home. We drove by my host family`s house on the way and it is beautiful! Red painted stone of some sort. She thinks that my host family will be home by wednesday or thursday, but until then I'm staying here. She took me around town to see the mall and town sqaure, then we met her husband for lunch: a plate of grilled meat. Sorry Marie, I think I may have eaten your steak. Once you're all done laughing, I'll mention that my tia speaks English, but her husband doesn`t. I understand most of the Spanish directed at me (It's much slower), but reponding is difficult. I`ve completely forgotten the future and past tenses, so living in the present is pretty easy.
I've been exhausted for days now, but that did it. Did I mention that I slept thirteen hours last night? Before that though, she brought me out to Bahia Inglesia and Caldera. The desert is full of flowers right now since it rained recently and it's beautiful! Anyways, we got home (it's about an hour drive and did I mention she has a beach house?) and ate dinner (some kind of beef and rice) before going to bed. We may be going to find a uniform today or visiting Carmen who lives very close. She had to go to her school today, so I'm alone with the nana for a while. After she gets back, we'll see. I don`t really know what's going on, I think I don't start school for a while, but I'm sure I'll find out soon enough.

¡I'm in Copiapò!

I wish I could post pictures, but I'm too lazy to figure it out. You'll just have to believe me when I say Copiapò is beautiful. Actually Chile in general is beautiful! We had an amazing view of the snow covered Andes while we were flying in becasue yes, it's winter here. At our orientation in Santiago, most of our time was spent huddling around the fire (no central heating) or shivering. This was even more of a shock after our orientation in Miami earlier this week. I feel like we've done nothing but sit around and wait for something to happen for the past week, but it was agreat opportunity to get to know some of th other exchangers. There are 6 of us from the US, three year and three semester kids, as well as the Paraguay and Brazil kids. We spent a lot of time hanging out together and talking about Chile because we were the last to leave for the airport on thursday. None of the other Americans are being hosted very near me, but there is a Swiss girl named Carmen and a French boy named Julien who will be going to the same school as me. Right now I'm staying at the home of an AFS volunteer, my host-mom's tià Cecilia, until my host-family gets back from vacation on wednesday or thursday. She's been really nice to me, showing me around copiapò and even taking me by Bahià Inglesia. The house is beautiful, and she's been explaining things to me (some in English, some in Spanish). I can catch most of the Spanish if it's really slow. I think we might try to go buy our uniforms tomorrow, but in anycase I don't start school right away, which is really nice because I'm exhausted! I should probably also mention that the dreaded bus ride went very well. I slept through most of it, and our seats reclined into almost beds. It's nice to finally be here though. I'll try to write another update soon.

Don't Pinch Me, I want to Keep Dreaming

34 hours until I leave my house.
38 hours until my plane departs for Miami.
4 days until I arrive in Santiago.
This is so surreal.
I can't quite seem to grasp the fact that I'm not going to wake up in my bed Thursday morning.
Waiting for exchange has become such a big part of my life that I'm actually going to miss it. My suitcase is officially packed (yes, it's purple), and I can't imagine what I could possibly think of to do tomorrow. I want to do something special, something that brings this chapter of my life to a close with resounding finality, but in all likelihood, tomorrow will be like any other day, just filled with more anxiety and excitement than usual.
I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about leaving everything I know behind, actually, petrified may be a more accurate description of how I feel. I'm really going to miss knowing what to expect, but that's the fun of it, it's an adventure. I'm going to be living a year that I just cannot imagine, and that's an incredibly exciting thing.
Even though I am nervous, there are so many things I'm looking forward to. I cannot wait to meet the other Americans going to Chile in Miami, and I can't wait to meet exchange students from all over the world in Santiago (maybe somebody else going to Copiapo?), but I think I'm the most excited about meeting my host-family! On the other hand, I'm more nervous about meeting them than anything else (ok, maybe my first day of school). I heard from my host-mom again, and I have a 12 year old host-brother named Alvaro and a 13 year old host-sister named Elizabeth! They seem like they're a lot of fun, and I think we could get along really well, but I'll meet them soon and all of the speculation will finally be over.

Host-Family

After waiting impatiently for my host-family placement, I finally got it at the end of June. My host-family lives in Copiapo, Chile, a city in the Atacama desert! Maybe I'll finally have a chance to dry out after three years of living in Upstate New York. But back to my family: I haven't gotten their application yet, so there are still a lot of blanks, but I have been e-mailing with my host-mom. She seems really nice, and last I heard, she was preparing my room! It seems like every piece of information I get makes this seem more real. Speaking of information, I recently got my flight info and my orientation starts in Miami on the 28th. I'm incredibly excited to meet some of the other people going to Chile, and we'll have a ton of time to get to know each-other on the nine hour flight to Santiago that gets in the morning of the 30th. On the other hand, maybe I'll actually end up sleeping since it's overnight. After my Santiago orientation, I'll be traveling 600 some miles north where I'll be met by the coordinator of AFS in Copiapo since my host family will be on vacation in Canada until the 2nd of August. This also gives me a chance to recover from my 10 to 15 hour bus trip. So far besides e-mailing with my host-mom, I've also talked briefly with my two host siblings on Facebook. I'm really excited about having host-siblings despite the fact that we won't be going to the same school as me. I will be attending the Colegio de San Augustin de Atacama, which, from what I hear, is a bit further from our house than the school my host brother and sister go to. I'm excepting more information about my host-family soon, but in the mean time, I'm going to NYC to get my visa on the 14th, and I'm starting to compile a packing list because yes, I need a full 17 days to pack.

T - 6weeks

The title of this blog probably clued you in, but I will be travelling to Chile this summer for the 2010-2011 school year. I sent in my application to AFS (the exchange organization I'm going with) sometime last fall, and I received confirmation that I would be going to Chile sometime in March, but at this point, I'm still waiting to find out exactly where I'll be staying. I've been checking my email -- there's no other word for it -- obsessively, since my pre-departure orientation two weeks ago, but still no host family. With a little over a month until I leave (no exact date yet, but it should be sometime in the end of July) this isn't exactly abnormal, but it's been driving me crazy all the same! Chile ranges from almost Antarctica in the south, to one of the driest deserts in the world in the north and I could end up anywhere! Not to mention, I'm absolutely dying to know what my host-family will be like and to get in touch with them! At this point though, there doesn't seem to be much else to do but wait and get accustomed to the idea of spending a year in a foreign country without my family, but I've more or less been been getting myself used to the idea all year.

On a closing note, I would like to thank my scholarship sponsor who generously contributed to the price of my AFS experience through AFS's Global Leaders scholarship program. I am incredibly excited for my year in Chile and I cannot wait for the next few weeks to fly by so that my Chilean adventure can begin!