This is a collage mural at the Universidad de Chile.
My adventures of the week began last Sunday when we had a family lunch with my host mom, brothers, sister, uncle, and grandmother. The uncle talked so quickly that I had no idea what was going on the entire lunch. It's really hard to tell when I'm being asked a question because they don't say my name before asking the question so I usually just know a question was asked when there is a sudden silence. Well, he asked me if I'd ever been to Las Vegas. The problem is that in Chile they don't pronounce their s's so to me it sounded like La Vega, which is a large marketplace here were they sell meat, vegetables, and fruit. So, I responded, "Oh yes, my study abroad group took us there during orientation." And then I was very confused when everyone at the table was looking at me oddly. It took me a few minutes to realize that he had asked me if I'd been to Las Vegas and then we all laughed.
On Monday, I went to an education class at Universidad Católica that I liked a lot. Tuesday was a pretty typical day in terms of Chilean colleges. I went to a sociology class at Universidad Católica and there were only about 15 people there and no professor. We waited about 30 minutes and still no professor. I went to the sociology department office and they said very casually, "The professor sent out an email saying that the class is not starting until next week but you didn't get it because you aren't on the email list yet." That was just great to hear after spending an hour getting to the campus. So then I had a little less than 2 hours to get to a campus of Universidad de Chile for a class there and I decided to just go early and hang out there. Well that turned out to be a great idea because it took that full 2 hours to find my class. I took a metro and then a bus to get to the campus because of course it is right in the middle of two metros, so not that easily accessible. I found the campus easily but since they don't post classroom numbers ahead of time, I went into about 4 different buildings asking where my class was and no one knew. I decided to go ask a security guard and he was positive of where it was. Well he took me to an office that was for postgraduate, obviously not the right place but the lady there made about 3 phone calls and finally found the room of my class. I was right on time at that point for my class. Afterward, I had to pee so badly but there are so few restrooms on that campus that I couldn't find one. When I finally found one, of course the womens was locked so I just went in the mens. Well when I was in the stall, a man came in so I decided it would probably be best to remain in the stall until he left which turned out to be like 5 minutes later. They don't have any co-ed bathrooms here like at LC, so I didn't know how the guy would feel if he saw me...
At dinner that night, my host sister and her boyfriend (Boris) made pizzas. It was a very long dinner because we each ate a piece of each one as they were coming out of the oven. Boris decided that it would be fun to see if I could do a Spanish tounge twister. I couldn't, but it was pretty funny. Then he wanted to try an English one so I said: Sally Sellman sells sea shells by the sea shore. He wanted me to translate it which turned out to be a slight disaster because I didn't know that when you want to say "sea shells" you have to say "conchas del mar" because just saying "conchas" means something entirely different, which I did not know until the table was dead silent and everyone was looking at each other. Boris whispered it in my ear because he didn't want the little brother to catch on. I sure learned a lesson there.
This is a typical Chilean school bus! -->
On Wednesday, I went to 3 classes- 2 at Universidad Católica (one psychology and one education) and one at the CIEE office. The CIEE course is on human rights in Chile and there are only 4 of us in the class. It should be pretty interesting because there are 2 teachers but we will have about 7 seven guest lecturers for just the 4 of us.
On Thursday, I decided to go swim at the pool at the university. The guy working behind the desk was literallly impossible to understand. When I asked him if he could talk slower, he said sure but didn't change the speed at all. He was trying to ask me if I brought a lock but I had no idea what that word was so it took a few minutes for me to realize what he was talking about. He then told me I had to take a swim test before getting in, and that I should go change and there would be someone waiting for me at the pool. Well I waited for about 10 minutes at the pool and no one came. So I went into the lobby in my bathing suit and surely enough the two guys working there were still sitting at the desk so I said "now?" The guy came out to watch me and said to do 2 laps. When I got to the wall he wasn't even watching me. So I waited in my lane until he looked over and gave me the thumbs up. I was glad to shower at the pool because I didn't have my host mother forcing me to blowdry my hair. Then I went to another section of the same education class to see which one I liked better. The second professor was easier to understand and I made two friends in that class (which was very exciting) so I'm going to take that one. Then met my friend Alice at this cafe that is by our houses. It took us two hours for us to each discuss what had happened during our week.
On Friday I went to another sociology class in the morning. It was very interesting because the first thing she had us do was draw pictures of our families and then share them in small groups. My group was facinated by how small my family was. They did not understand how I could possibly have 3 first-cousins. In the evening, Alice and I went to The Choripanada which is a big welcome party for the foreign students in one of the cafeterias of Universidad Católica. We ran into some of our other CIEE people there. It felt a little like a high school dance at first, but then a lot of people started to dance and it was great. The dj played a mix of lots of typical pop songs from the US and popular reggeton songs from Chile.
About 5 days ago, my host mother asked me if I was free on Saturday afternoon. She said that we are going to go as a family to McDonalds. I was really surprised by this because McDonalds is not a very special thing here and in the 3 weeks that I've been here, I've never been out of the house with my family (with the exception of the park with my brother). And we are even going to take a taxi since it is a big family outing. I really don't think my host mom understands that I'm not going to eat a hamburger there, so it should be interesting when we get there. So ever since Monday, I've been reminded that on Saturday we are going to McDonalds and of course I'm just bursting with excitement.......
al!
ResponderEliminarthis is awesome. what an adventure. would have done anything to be at that dance. sounds hilarious. glad that you've found good classes to take and good people to hang out with. miss you so much, and can't wait to keep reading!
natalie