¿Tres universidades?

In the past week, we had orientations for three different universities in Santiago: Universidad de Chile, La Universidad Pontifica Catolica, and Universidad Diego Portales. Although the University of Chile is the largest, all three school are huge and have hundreds of classes to chose from. This many choices has made it entirely overwhelming to choose courses. Each orientation gave us a tour and different snacks and presents to try to convince us to enroll in their school. Next week is called "la semana de vitrinear" (literally, the week of window shopping) because we go to all the classes that we might want to take. After that week, we are supposed to be able to narrow it down to the four that we want to take. So basically next week will consist of about 21 hours of class and way too many hours of travel time to even count.

My 11 year old brother and I went back to the park for our weekly soccer game, this one being the largest yet with 12 boys all under the age of 13. It is so hard to understand them that I swear they speak another language. They realized pretty fast that I didn't understand what they were saying, and then thought that they could say whatever they wanted about me. It was pretty funny because they didn't realize that I do understand some Spanish...like when one kid said "I can't believe that the girl stole the ball from you!"

I went to the grocery store the other day because I wanted to make hummus for my family. When I asked where the canned beans were, the guy looked at me like I was crazy. Well apparently, canned beans is not a thing there. I also thought it was funny that it is cold enough to put eggs on the shelves...

Last night, my friend Alice and I went to her house for onces (afternoon tea). I got to meet her host mom, brother, and sister. She lives really close to me which is nice because we can walk to each others houses. We decided to go see a movie at a mall in Las Condes. It took 2 busses to get there. On the first bus we missed our stop because we asked the driver if he could let us know when we got to the specific intersection and he said no. We weren't too sure if the "no" referred to "no, I can't tell you" or "no, we don't stop there." It was ok because the next stop was fine for the transfer too. But when we got on the second bus and asked the driver where to get off for Plaza Los Dominicos, he had no idea what we were talking about. Luckily, he was really nice and asked the security guard box on the side of the road where it was. The mall turned out to be right along that route so we were in luck. We had a delicious dinner at a Japanese restaurant and then went to see Despicable Me (Mi Villano Favorito). It was pretty funny to see it in Spanish after watching it in LA in English.

I met my host mom's mother for the first time at lunch today. One of the first things she asked me was if I have a boyfriend. When I said no, she said how old are you? When I said 20, she asked me why I'm wasting time. I guess they didn't lie when they told us they are straight-forward here!

Here is a picture of what I see when I walk from the metro to my house.

I've also added some images to the previous entries...

Una semana para ser turista

A few days ago, we had a large dinner to celebrate my host sister's completion of exams. While eating, my host brother that is 11 blurted this out of nowhere: te pareces como un ardilla (you look like a squirrel). Well apparently it is a compliment. Little did I know, the entire family is obsessed with squirrels because they don't have them in Chile and they think that they are really cute. Now he calls me his ardillita (little squirrel). At that dinner, we had a long conversation about animals in the United States which proved to me that I know the names of very few animals in Spanish. Apparently, that wasn't something we learned in classes.

Last Thursday, we went to visit La Moneda, which was quite an interesting experience. It used to be the Chilean mint but now it is where President Piñera works (he apparently lives in a normal house). There are lots of guards in fancy outfits but the security is no where near what it would be like in the US. We got a tour of the inside and there was a guard who had to accompany us on the tour.

Well, we quickly learned that the term "

official" does not mean the same thing as it does in the US. My friends and I wanted a picture w

ith him and at that moment, he gave my friend Mary his email so that she could send him the picture. He then asked us where we like to go party and then proceded to tell us that he is single. It sure made for a good laugh.

Last Friday, we went to visit La Chascona, which was one of Pablo Neruda's three houses in Chile. His taste is very interesting because he was a large man but everything in his house was small because he wanted it to resemble a boat. During the tour, I asked why you had to go outside to get to the different rooms, and our guide said that it is because he didn't want to cut down trees.

This past weekend was full of Salsa. I went with friends to two different Salsatecas that give lessons before the open dancing. It is quite interesting to try to understand everything that the teacher says in Spanish. On Sunday, I went with a few of my friends to Cerro San Cristobal. We had to wait an hour to take the funicular up the hill. It felt like Disneyland. But when we reached the top of the hill, there were beautiful views of the city. At the top of that mountain, I ran into one of Evan's friends from our synagogue in Los Angeles! My friends and I decided to walk down instead of taking the funicular which, little did we know, would take 1 1/2 hours.




Yesterday was quite an intense day. We had a tour of Villa Grimaldi which was a site of the torturing during Pinochet's dictatorship. Our tour was led by a man who is a survivor of the torturing at that site. It was truly unreal to be at that site and have him tell us what happed at each location. I had learned about the dictatorship before my trip to Chile, but hearing from someone who experienced it first hand only 35 years ago was hard to believe. We saw pictures of his friends that are part of the "disappeared" and tried to comprehend the emotion that he experienced as he told us personal stories. He then took us to Cementerio general where Salvador Allende and many other important political figures are buried in tombs with giant monuments. There is a huge wall that has the names of thousands of detenidos-desaparecidos from the era of the dictatorship. There are some tombs that have fallen apart from the large earthquake that happened last February. They are in the process of being fixed, but we saw bones from some that have not yet been reconstructed!
This is a memorial that was built for all the women that died at this site. The posts have their names and a rose bush is planted near each one in honor of each woman.
This is a tomb that fell apart during the last earthquake. We could see the bones some of the different squares.

Today we met for classes at the San Joaquin campus of La Universidad Catolica, which is where most of my classes will probably be. Some current students gave us a tour of the campus, which is so much bigger than I am used to! The architecture is amazing there but the funny thing is that none of the buildings seem to match.

La primera semana

So I'm not really one for blogging, but after many requests, I've decided to start a blog of my adventures here in Santiago, Chile. I arrived in Santiago one week ago and I had no idea what to expect. Upon clearing customs, there were suddenly dozens of people yelling at me in Spanish and asking if I wanted a taxi ride. I looked around and could not see the CIEE (my study abroad company) sign but I heard someone call my name. Luckily enough, one of the people who works for CIEE was waiting for me and had memorized what all of the participants look like.

There are 35 CIEE participants here in Santiago. Everyone attends a university in the US and most of the people are from the east coast. Of course, there are 3 Alisons and one Alice. We all spent one night in a hotel called Rent-A-Home and participated in a scavenger hunt to help us learn new words. The next day, our host families picked us up and took us to our respective homes. Yamile is my host mother. She is a single mother and has two sons, Diego (17) and Sebastian (11), and one daughter, Joana (23). The four of them live upstairs and I live downstairs. They are all very nice and and accomo

dating. I am their fourth foreign student. Yamile does not speak any English but her 3 children are learning it in school. The home of my host family is in a region of Santiago called Las Condes. My host mother makes

wonderful vegetarian food for me. They eat lots of bread here and she thinks that it is strange that I don't want to eat about 7 pieces every day. Dinner is very late (around 9pm) so they have "onces" which is like an afternoon tea and sandwich around 5pm.

So far, we have had orientation courses every day. CIEE provides a course called Contemporary Chile. The group meets every morning an

d we have guest lectures from the universities. The topics vary, and some are much more interesting and/or easier to understand than others. We take a break for lunch to eat our colación--the lunch that our host mother prepares for us. In the late afternoon, we walk or take the metro to see something new. So far, we went to the Plaza de Armas, Museo de Santiago, Mercado Central, and La Vega (a huge marketplace where people yell at you to buy their food).

Every day, I have to leave my house an hour before we meet for our class at the Univesidad de Chile. I walk a few blocks to the bus stop (the busses are called micros and don't stop unless you flag them down...definitely learned that the hard way) and then I take the micro the metro station. I take the metro for about 20 minutes to a stop near the Universidad and then I walk to our class. It is a big adventure to navigate the city and depend on public transporation. As they tell us, it is definitely best to avoid "las horas peak" when there are so many people trying to get onto the metro that you actually have to push and shove to get on...something that I am definitely not used to. To take public transportation, you have to have a "tarjeta bip." "Bip" is pronounced like beep because it beeps every time that you scan it and it beeps many times if you do not have enough money on it.

This past weekend, I discovered that people don't leave their houses very much during the winter. It is absolutely freezing inside most houses because there is usually no central heating system. The first night, my host mother gave me my sack lunch before bed. When I asked if it should be refrigerated, she said "Oh no, it is definitely cold enough in the house!" That made me laugh because I would never have thought of that. I don't really understand why peo

ple would want to stay home when it is just as cold, but I think it is because they don't want to leave their beds. We use "aquateros" which are rubber cases that you put boiling water in so that you can be warm in bed. Most houses also have "calefonts" which you have to light when you want to take a shower. Anyway, this past weekend I played lots of soccer with Seba, the little brother. He likes to

give me exams on my numbers and vocabulary, which are really quite helpful. I also went with some of my new friends from the program to explore. We went to Parque Forrestral which is a huge park where people go to walk, have picnics, parties, etc. We also went to el Museo de Bellas Artes and Castillo Santa Lucia. It is an ancient castle that was established when the city was founded. You can climb up to see the entire city. It is really amazing because the city is at sea level and the entire east is lined with snow-capped mountains that just seem to be looming

over us.

As for my Spanish, I can already tell that I can understand more. However, it is barely Spanish that they speak here and everyone speaks so quickly and quietly. It is a type of Castillano, but specific to Chile. There are so many "Chilenismos" that we had to spend a day learning the most important ones. Some of the most common ones are "cachai" (do you understand?) and "si poh" and "no poh" (yes/no, of course). One that makes us laugh is when they say "super!" (pronounded Sue-Pear with lots of enthusiasm) like "super bien!" or "super frío." They also say Ya (pronounced jaw) all the time instead of "yes." The b's and v's all sound the same when they talk and most of the time s's aren't even pronounced. It's good the they can always understand me, but it will definitely take a while for me to be able to speak the Chilean Spanish.

I'm having a wonderful time and I miss you all! I have internet in my home and the Skype connection is good so just let me know if you want to video chat!