Hola everyone from Pucon, Chile.  Well, I´ve survived my first week in South America and I am doing well.  As far as communicating is going, I am doing well (certainly better than my first day here) and can converse with people, abait slowly.  And even though I can converse, it is very hard for me to form complete sentences that make sense and harder still for me to understand what others are saying.  I probably only understand about 30-50% of what I hear, but I am making do and learning fast.

Class is pretty fun.  I am taking private classes and have a lot of fun learning spanish (a huge suprise to all my previous spanish teachers I´m sure).  It is a good think that I knew some spanish before coming here, otherwise I would be having a really hard time with the most simplest conversation.  Sometimes I purposely say or write something incorrectly so I can learn the structure of castellano grammar and how the language is organized (ends up I´m learning Castellano, not spanish!).

Later I am going to hike up the volcano here with a group and guide, all the way to the top where I can see the liquid hot magma (actually lava when it isn´t under the crust I think).  Things are actually very expensive here, mostly because of the tourism here.  For example, I needed to buy a pair of jeans here and when I looked around, I couldn´t find a pair of pants for less than 30,000 pesos (about $60).  Luckly, Anita and her friend took me to a store where clothes were more reasonable and I bought a pair for 3,000 pesos ($6!).

My plans before I got here was to stay in Chile for 3 months then travel to Argentina, but since class is almost half the price in Argentina and everything else is much cheaper, I am going to Bariloche, Argentina Nov. 5th.  There I plan on taking 3 more weeks of private classes to begin with, then who knows what.  Luckly travel is very cheap, and it will only cost me about $30 to take two buses to Bariloche from Pucon.  I chose Bariloche because everybody recommends it and it is relatively close ( 300 km away).

 In the meantime, I am having a great time here.  The family I am staying with are great.  Monica takes care of the family and Amador works.  Anita, 12 yrs old, goes to school and Alehandra, 24, works for a horse riding company in town.  Cesear, 32, has a wife and a child and lives close by.  There are many visitors to the house frequently, mostly family that lives nearby.

 Anyway, I´m outta here.  I am going to go chat with Monica and study my spanish.

Chao - Goody