Hola Todos!

Well I'm finally starting to feel more comfortable here. Its only been 4 days but already I feel like I know the area I live in pretty well and my Spanish is improving daily. Its definately been an adjustment though. One of the hardest things to adjust to is the food and eating times. In Chile lunch (almuerzo) is the biggest meal of the day, and generally is the meal the family eats together. Dinner is then very small and more casual. In my family we eat lunch together on the weekends, but during the week because we have such different schedules and my host mom and sister both work, we won't usually have lunch together every day. But in many families the parents will come home from work and everyone will eat lunch together every day. Meals are also generally a lot later in the day than they are here. We usually eat lunch anytime between 1 and 4pm and dinner is usually between 8 and 10pm.

Overall I like the food a lot, but I've found it can be rather repetitive. We generally eat the same thing for dinner and breakfast every day. Usually it is just bread with either cream cheese, which they call "queso Philadelphia" because of the brand name Philadelphia cream cheese, or avocado and salt. I live avocados but even after 4 days I am starting to get sick of having them at every meal. Another thing we have with every meal is tea, except at breakfast when my sister and I have coffee. It's a good thing I like tea because otherwise I would drink almost nothing during the day. I am still a little nervous about drinking the water here, because I have heard some mixed opinions about whether or not it is safe. Many people say yes it is clean enough and you won't get sick from drinking tap water. But others say that it is not safe for Americans to drink. For now I have mostly been drinking tea, but have had a few sips of the tap water and haven't gotten sick yet. Most of my classmates said that if you ease your way into it, you won't have as bad of a reaction.

As I said in my last entry, there is no central heating in the houses or apartments so it is very cold. The other downside of our apartment I've discovered is that the walls are very thin. I can hear everything from the other rooms, outside, and even the apartments above and below us. It also makes me think that the walls are not very well insulated which makes it extra cold here. Another interesting thing about my apartments and houses in general in Chile, is that they don't have hot water plumbing. They have what is called a calfone (I'm not sure if I'm spelling it right) that we have to light every day before we shower or wash dishes. It heats up surprisingly fast though, so its not too inconvenient.

My host family has been very nice and welcoming since I have been here. Every day we are able to converse a little better and I am more comfortable around them. The more conversations I have with them, the more I learn about Chileans and their culture. They are a little bit superficial about many things. Every time we watch they Olympics they make comments about how many of the women look like men, and on the commercials comment on people's size and weight. I don't know if they mean to be so harsh though, because when we saw a commercial for a campaign similar to Dove's real beauty campaign, where they use regular and larger sized people to model, my host family talked about how great that was. So I am interested to observe more, and try to understand better why they respond the way they do to so many people's looks.

Television in Chile is very interesting. There are several Chilean and Spanish speaking channels, but the majority of the channels are just American or English shows and movies with either Spanish subtitles or dubbed over in Spanish. It is very interesting and kind of fun to watch some of my favorite shows and movies with Spanish subtitles.

In the past few days I have been getting busier and having more time to explore the city. I live very close to the largest mall in Viña and have been there a few times. It is absolutely huge, not quite as large as the Mall of America, but much larger than the Ridgedale or the other malls in the Twin Cities. The only times I went were during the weekend, so it was very busy. Another thing I have noticed about Chileans is they are quite crazy drivers. the few times I have ridden in cars, to and from school, the drivers have just whipped around every curve, and I have witnessed many near misses. And when I walk I have noticed how frequently they honk, they can't seem to wait for even the bus to stop and pick up passengers. It reminded me a little bit of when I went to Chicago and how impatient everyone was at the stoplights.

Yesterday I walked with a group of students to the ocean and it was very interesting. The ocean itself is very gorgeous around Viña, but since it is still winter there were very few people sitting by the beach or swimming. There is a very nice boardwalk, that goes along the beach for a long way and was very fun to walk on. Surrounding the boardwalk were a few artists showing off their work, including two sand artists who made very impressive sand sculptures. The picture above is of one of the sculptures I saw. There were also many stands set up selling handmade jewelry scarves and blankets for very cheap prices. I saw many beautiful earrings priced at $2,000 pesos, which is the equivalent of a little less than $4 American. I didn't buy anything yesterday but would like to go back, provided I can have some self restraint and not buy everything, because it was so pretty and inexpensive.

After walking on the boardwalk for a while we stopped and a small food stand and ate Chacareros and Completeos. Chacareros were roast beef sandwiches piled high with beef, tomato and the Chileans' favorite food, avocado. A completo is a very interesting food, it is a hot dog with mayonnaise, avocado, tomato, and I believe hot sauce. I didn't try one but some other people did. I will have to track down a photo of it, because you have to see the size of it to really appreciate it.

Next to where we were eating was a small kiddy amusement park with bungee jumping trampolines and a little race track where kids could rent Power Wheels cars and drive around for quite a while. It was very entertaining to watch, and I think the poor driving skills of Chileans starts there. We saw so many crashes and near crashes. It would definitely have not lasted long in the U.S. because of the large potential for law suits.

Today I went to classes for the first time. It was very interesting. Since I live on the other side of the city, I took a colectivo to school. Colectivos are like taxis that you share. I managed to flag it down by myself and ask it to take me to UAI (my school) without any problems. I had two classes this morning, a Latin American film class and a history of Chile class. Both went well and I was able to understand the majority of what the professors said, which was all in Spanish. The professors of our classes are very understanding and speak slower for their American students than they regularly would. It is helpful especially now when our Spanish still needs so much work. After class we got our pictures taken for our student ideas and were able to sign up for sports. I joined a jogging group and also am going to take a rowing class once a week. I am very excited because it will be my first real opportunity to get to know the other Chilean students.

On Wednesday we are going as a group to Santiago to watch a documentary about Ariel Dorfman, a famous Chilean author, who wrote the play, "Death and the Maiden" which was inspired by his experiences in Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship. The film is being shown in a theatre in La Moneda, which is the Chilean equivalent of the White House. Dorfman is going to be there, and as one of my program directors was a student of his at Duke, we will hopefully get to meet with him privately as well. I am very excited. And will keep you all posted on this and other adventures as they occur.

Hasta Luego!