Pics

Me and my friends from school at one of our asados! ( from left Luciano with Camila´s dog Machu, Nacho, Franco´s cousin, Roman, Carlos, Valentina, Franco, Camila, Jorge, Me, Hernan)

This is the military building that overlooks the city. It is also a popular place for weding ceremonies. I went here with Jorge and a cousin who lives in Santiago on a bus tour of the city that was free as a promotion thing from the city!

A typical street store with a saying that I liked.

Buildings along the Plaza de Armas en el centro de La Serena. The red building is a municipal building, the white is a museum I went to and the last is the cathedral.

New food! This is a tomato with tuna fish inside and veges on the side.

Me and my two sisters Conny and Caro getting ready before going to a discoteca. Discos are a big part of typical life for the younger people, the one we went to was called Babylon and was one where people go just to listen to music but there are others where everyone dances. I don´t have pics of the place because it was better that I blended in!

Camila, her sister Natalia, me , and a performer at a restaurant in Santiago. This was taken at 10:30 pm but that´s a normal time for dinner here.

Santiago looking from the hill where the Spanish claimed the city.

Santiago. Here we saw a bunch of street performers and even a group doing a history alive presentation of how the spanish took over the city despite the wishes of the natives.

Camila and I outside the Moneda (equivalent of the white house). I couldn´t get over the fact that there was practically zero security. You could walk up and look in the windows, enter the plaza without a bag check, and there weren´t police officers everywhere either.

Coquimbo harbor. The pelicans here are the size of me but are too fast so I have a bunch of pictures of blurry flying objects :)

Me in Coquimbo. Coquimbo is only about a 15 minute colectivo ride from my house in La Serena but I´ve only been there twice because it is a lot more dangerous than La Serena. Everything there is either really beautiful or really not. I haven´t been to the 3rd millenium cross yet but I´ve been told I have to see it before I go home so its on my list to do!

This is my host family´s house at 1302 Carlos Naranjo

Me in Parque Japon which was a gift to the city of La Serena by Japan. Years ago, Japan and La Serena had one of the major trade routes across the Pacific. Still today lots of trade occurs between Chile and Japan.

Winter Vacation This Week!

Wow, I guess it´s been a while since I last blogged and a ton has happened! I went to my first asado with my friends from school which was really cool, it´s still hard for me to believe how incredably welcoming they are. Also another exchange student arrived from Italy and is going to be going to my school. She´s really nice but doesn´t speak more than a few words in spanish which is kind of a bummer and, like all the other exchange students, is a year older than me so we won´t be in the same classes :(. That´s ok though, we both had a meeting with the director of our school and I changed around my schedual a bit to drop quimica and fisica in order to help out with some english classes and take a spanish class ( I made it into the 4rd grade!!) so I´m really looking forward to that. Earlier this week I went with my friend Camilla and her family to Santiago to see everything there and had a great time. There is so much less security here than in the US, I couldn´t believe there weren´t any metal detectors or bag searches anywhere and we took a picture standing at the front door of the president´s house. I´ve also had the chance to try some amazing Chilean food like meat with eggs on top and salmon baked with tomatoes. They also eat a lot of soup here but its more like a meal in a bowl with liquid around it and it´s acceptable to take the elements of the soup out and eat them on a plate. I really hope my spanish has improved but I can´t really tell. The hardest thing is that my dreams are apparently still in english because I wake up and everything is much harder to understand than the night before, but normally within an hour or so my thoughts are more in spanglish and by lunch (2 or 3 pm) my thoughts are for the most part in spanish.
Even More New Things!! : -the parents of friends or friends of Mami Mile are Tio and Tia, not Snr and Snra -there´s papaya flavored ice cream -if you´re with friends its ok to eat french fries with your hands and with ketchup/condiments, but if adults are around you use a fork and no condiments -the radio is a mix of spanish songs and songs in English (I really like the group called Camila because they sing slower and I can understand the lyrics) -at most stores besides supermarkets, you go to one register to give all of your items, leave your items there, go to another register with the recipt to pay, then go back to the first register to pick up your bags

Pictures!

La Serena looking up from the beach

The lighthouse I went to on my first walk around the city

Landing in La Serena!

Me and the other exchange students during the orientation in Santiago (I´m in blue)

Pic of the Andes from the orientation site in Santiago

My First Week

Hey Everyone! My first week was great! My school, Scuola Italiana, is not taught in Italian. Everything except for Italian class is taught in Spanish and I don´t go to Italian class so I´m working on my Spanish a lot. The school is really cool because it´s an outdoor campus. It´s really small too but all of the schools here are small and private. My grade has two classes, A and B. I´m in the B class and we have 13 kids and then I make 14. The older kids at the school have exams that seem like midterms, but are a lot shorter, stretched out over last week and this week and then there is winter vacation. I took the language test and got a 2 out of 7 which everyone thought was hilarious seeing as a 4 is the minimum passing grade! I also took the math one which was stuff I learned in 8th grade so that one was easier. I take a colectivo to school and home but I decided to walk home the other day and it only took about 45 minutes. On Friday I didn´t want to take the physics exam so I asked to go to a class to work on my spanish so first they took me to the 3rd grade, but they were doing something so I got to go to preschool! It was actually pretty fun...my classmates are cool and really nice but they forget that they talk really fast and a couple of them were discouraged after we had a history lecture and I had a full page of notes but then I couldn´t understand when they asked me if I wanted to eat lunch inside or outside, o well! Everyone loves my pictures from home and they keep comparing SHS to high school musical because that´s the only other school they´ve seen that´s as big as Shrewsbury´s. It is cold here and I´m so glad I have under armor but today is really nice and I´m in a t-shirt and capris. It´s not anywhere near as cold as it gets in MA but there isn´t any indoor heating anywhere so if your sitting around it´s freezing. The house is nice and I wear my shoes all the time because there aren´t any carpets and my family is very convinced that if you wear only socks you´re going to get sick. On Wednesday I wanted to go out so I took the map I got from AFS and wanted to go to Japon Parque but ended up at the beach instead...perfectly ok with me it was one of the most beautiful things I´ve ever seen! On Thursday, Jorge went with me to the center and showed me a ton of stuff and I told him my mom would love him because he insisted on taking a picture of me almost everywhere we went. Sunday afternoon I went to the mall with Conny and Mami Mile and Sunday morning I went to church with Mami Mile. It was nice because I understood a bunch and the mass was the exact same as the ones at St. Anne´s but it wasn´t so nice that I wore my sundress and tights and everyone else was in jeans. Even the people speaking were in sweatshirts and sweatpants, next week I´m going to dress down more. My room is nice, they moved a tv in there for me because the tv is on 24-7 here even if no one´s in the room or everyone´s sleeping but I haven´t really used it much. O ya, another thing, everyone swears here like crazy because they watch the Simpsons a ton and when they listen to music its rap. It was so funny, my classmates swear a ton but I don´t think they really know what they´re saying because I looked up and said the word for but and they all turned red couldn´t stop laughing.
More New Things: -there are no speed limits; everyone drives fast and stops, there is no slowing down -people put salt on and in everything they eat -cars are not called "coche" they´re called cars or autos -we go to the supermarket everyday to get bread and meat for onces -I´ve tried a ton of new food that I love like completos (hot dogs with mayo, hot sauce, and avacado) but I really don´t like "Pap"(papaya flavored soda) -classes at school don´t start and end when the bell rings, they start whenever the teacher shows up and whenever the teacher leaves -it´s polite to kiss your teachers goodbye as well as your friends