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Well finally you have got an update from me. I am still ages behind with my journal but I've now finished Chile so I am going to put a few blogs up about my time in Chile. Then you will know a bit more about what I've been doing the last two months. It has been extremely busy with Spanish lessons and then travelling with my mum. My mum and I enjoyed our time together.
First of all my time in Santiago was enjoyable but I did have a couple of problems to begin with. As it is summarised it may come over that I spent more time worrying about things than I actually did. However, you wouldn't want me to put all the information that I've got in my journal otherwise you would be reading for days. Plus my journal isn't that interesting as its also got the food I eat every day and some other random, boring stuff.
21st January Santiago, Chile
Well it started off a lovely relaxing day and ended being a bit of a stressful day. After getting up late I went for a walk. I ended up walking along main road and after about half an hour I decided that as I was walking next to car showrooms, motorcycle showrooms and kitchen shops I'd better turn around. I then walked back to close to the apartment and as I was crossing the road someone asked me something from car- may have been directions. If it was good as it means I don't stand out too much as a tourist. I had a swim at the top of the apartment block. The swim was more like a dip again as the local residents were in the tiny pool and weren't swimming so I wasn't either. When I got back to the room I was on the laptop when it ran out of charge. When I tried to plug it in I realised I had got the wrong adaptors. I thought I'd better tidy this room and when I put my passport cover away I realised my passport was missing.
22nd January Santiago, Chile
My ipod alarm was too quiet but I only slept 10 minutes more than I should have done. I got ready for 10:00am and the person who owned the apartment picked me up to take me to the other apartment. I was early by half an hour as I had been trying to explain that I needed to be there for 11 but it didn't quite work. Angela who owns the apartment that I am living in for 2 weeks is really nice. I went through all my bags and my passport wasn't there. I was asking Angela where to go for shops to get a new travel adaptor and where a call centre was. She suggested that I may as well go with her later as she was going to a swimming pool which was right next to a shopping mall (Parque Arauco).
Angela and I walked down to get the metro and then the bus to mall. She gave me a blip (travel) card that other students had used and got it uploaded with money for me. In shopping mall I began my search for plug adaptor and no I couldn't use the word plugo mum. At a camera shop I was trying to explain what I wanted. He kept picking up all these things behind like filters for cameras etc. When he realised what I wanted, he knew he didn't have it but he drew me a diagram and gave me the Spanish name for it. It wasn't greatly different to the English name. I was also looking at the interactive map for a call centre/internet centre. I ended up on the page for mobility scooters. Definitely not what I wanted. It was due to looking up what services they had in shopping centres.
I then had to get back to apartment on my own. It was no problems getting the local bus and then the metro back but I got lost walking back. I ended up getting taxi back. Driver wasn't too amused that I didn't know where I was going but was nice enough. He ended up doing quite a few turns in the Jose Tomas Rider Road where I was living.. I was trying to ask him from there shall I get out and walk but I couldn't ask it properly in Spanish. I came in and I thought I don't fancy trying to cook so I thought I'd go out for a meal. The way things were going I would likely get in a mess. I went out to lock the door and door didn't seem to have locked but I couldn't get back in. It seemed to be jammed. I didn't want to leave apartment insecure or have Angela come back without me explaining. I was waiting for her to come back for an hour sitting outside the door. I tried a few times to get back in. Neighbours were giving me some odd looks. My neighbours directly next door tried to get in using my key and they couldn't. In the end I decided I'd better go and ring Angela. On way I explained in broken Spanish and sign language to other neighbours my problem. A male came and helped and got straight in like magic. I did feel very stupid.
23rd January Santiago, Chile
Well horrible dreams over night. Dreamt about rats and mice. It is good job no one was in the apartment with me as I would probably have woke people up sleep talking, shouting etc. After exam in morning I tried to find out whether my passport was at the airport and had terrible trouble on the phone to lost items in the airport. I still couldn't find out whether passport was at the airport due to bad phone lines, my poor Spanish and the staff at the airports poor English. I got a plug adaptor though. After lessons I went for a drink with classmates and I went to barbecue at ECELA (Spanish school)- That was nice. I met Alessandra from Luxembourg- she is really lovely and gave me a big hug. We all talked for a while and Alessandra did some translating for me and Angela.
24th January Santiago, Chile
In morning after talking to parents I decided not to go to airport but try and contact the embassy instead. I finally got through and she said she would ask the airport for me whether they had got my passport and then get back in touch with me. Primavera (the dog) at the spanish school was a comfort at the school so I stroked her quite a lot that day. Had Spanish lessons in the afternoon. After class I got the result from embassy that my passport wasn't in lost and found at the airport- only an argentinian passport and Peruvian passport. I lost all hope then and began to fold. When I got back to apartment I just cried. All I wanted to do was jump on a plane back home but I couldn't even do that even if I decided to as I had no passport. Scary being in a country on your own without a passport and is something I never want to go through again. Angela came home and was surprised to see me crying. I explained that it doesn't happen often now-I haven't cried for months. I read till late to take my mind off things. Shantaram may not be the best book to read though when its talking about forging passports and stealing passports.
25th January Santiago, Chile
I did homework in the morning and tried to relax while waiting for answers from embassy about what I had to do next about my lost passport. I had lessons in afternoon. I went out for a meal with Angela, Angela's sister, Angela's cousin and Alessandra. Alessandra and Angela looked at what I was going to say to police about my lost passport and kindly wrote it out in Spanish for me.
26th January Santiago, Chile
I got up and tried to get everything together for embassy etc as I was going to police first and then embassy to get an emergency travel document. For the emergency travel document I needed 2 passport photos but in my case there was only 1 passport photo. I swear I brought more. I went to police and showed the information to person on the door. I was told to take a ticket and then go and sit down. It was embarassing as they were asking for the person who had requested a lost report and they spoke so fast I wasn't sure it was for me. I went over to police office and he went through it looking at what had been written by Alessandra and asking the odd question but mainly looking at the photocopy of my passport. I was then took to an office for them to print off the document for me for the embassy. They then decided to take me up to see a policeman that spoke perfect english. It is a good job they did as I had just spotted mistakes in the document. I was Suzanne Dane Ellis and living in Hollanda. So I then had to go back to first policemen for him to correct the document and then to office again for them to print off document. By the time I got out of police station I realised there was very little chance me making the embassy before it closed to public.
I went to photo shop and had a conversation there in Spanish as well as requesting passport photographs for the embassy. I couldn't make it in time for embassy so I decided to go and look at my e-mails In my junk e-mails there was an e-mail from airport saying my passport was in a customs office. I sort of said yes in an internet cafe. People probably thought I was mad. I felt like crying with relief. Nearly a week I had gone through feeling stressed about my passport. So glad I had e-mailed the airport otherwise I wouldn't have known it was there.
I then went to lessons and after lessons I asked how best to get to the airport in Spanish. I got metro which was a little bit crowded and I did start to regret maybe not going to airport tomorrow morning but I wanted my passport back as soon as possible. I then got bus from metro station to airport. I very quickly found the grey door near customs that I had been told about in e-mail and then I had to ask the man outside in Spanish about my passport. He talked to someone else and then I was allowed into the office. I had to wait a bit before they could unlock the next door and get into drawer but in the drawer with loads of other passports was my passport .I then got bus then metro then walked back to apartment.
27th January Santiago, Chile
Had Spanish lessons in the afternoon, went out for a drink after lessons and then back at ecela (Spanish school) I had dinner. The dinner had been cooked underground in the soil in tin foil. We had pork, chicken and fish plus a jacket potato. The other food was nice but the jacket potato was hard.
After food we walked to have a drink. I was worried about getting back to apartment on my own so I tried not to leave it too late and I got a taxi back to apartment. There were no problems.
28th January Santiago, Chile
I walked to ecela to meet Mark (other student at ecela) for 2 and then we got the metro to Plaza de Armas. The museum was closed that Mark wanted to go in so we went to Central market instead and then went back to Plaza de Armas for lunch. The beggars started coming round. They did want money originally but they then asked could they take our bread in the restaurant and another one asked for a cigarette as Mark has his on the table. Someone had also been playing an instrument so I had to go into my wallet for some change. In the plaza one person was doing football tricks and then later a group was break dancing. It did have a nice atmosphere in the plaza.
We then walked to Santa Lucia and walked up the hill. Up on the hill I took photos with statues, cannons and a dog statue. With the statues we tried to work out which was the man and lady of the statues- one looked like he had breasts but in all other respects seemed to represent the man as the other statue had a different hat but seemed to be wearing a dress. We explored the park further by walking up to fortress on the top and church. We walked out past some beautiful fountains when the park closed at 8.
29th January Santiago, Chile
I managed to miss the tourist bus at 12:00 as I couldn't find the bus stop. I saw it go past me so I walked up and down this road to find it. In the end I went into a hotel and asked where bus stop was. It served two purposes as it meant I could also buy a ticket there. At 12:30 I finally got the bus. I had to ask the guide for the tourist guide to the places as I hadn't got it when I got my ticket. I travelled on the double decker bus around the city watching the views and trying to work out where I wanted to get off the bus. The guide asked what was the English name for funicular and I said cable car which I realised it wasn't when I got to it.
I finally decided to get off in Patio Bellavista and have lunch there. They took ages to serve me. Instantly I sat down they were asking me about drinks but they had a massive menu so when he came to order my food I wasn't ready so asked for some more time. He never came back- in end I had to ask someone else and it still wasn't coming so I waved the first waiter over and ordered again. I was a bit worried that I would end up with 2 club sandwiches but I didn't. I wasn't sure I could explain in spanish that I had already ordered once.
I realised I would have missed the bus to next stop so I asked could I walk to the next one as it didn't look far. As I was walking along I wasn't looking at ground but looking ahead. Then I saw someone signalling at me sort of panicking. I thought whats he panicking about. It was almost like he didn't want me to walk that way and I thought I'm only walking over a grid in road. When I looked down I realised what I'd actually walked on was his earing display on the ground. I apologised profusely and looked to see whether I had damaged any of the earings. They all looked fine so I had obviously walked across the blanket but managed to walk between the earings. Phew. I carried on walking to funicular which was very close and asked in Spanish at an information centre do I buy the ticket for funicular here. They pointed, spoke or signalled that I bought the ticket in like a small little fort and then I had to join the long queue for the funicular. On the top there were a lot of sleeping dogs around, shops, a sanctuary and beautiful views of the city. I also walked up to the statue on top of the hill but unfortunately it was under scaffolding. I then got the funicular back down and began the walk back to Patio Bellavista but the bus ended up being early so I then had to walk back past waiters I had already been past saying el bus temprano. They said run and I had to run to where it had stopped. I then was getting the bus back to where I had caught it. I went past an interesting lime green building, a cinema only for adults with special showings (there can't be many places that are that obvious that they are showing porno films) plus Plaza de Armas and Constitution plaza.
After getting off the bus I walked to nearest metro station and close to metro station was a supermarket so I went in. Trying to find cheddar cheese and trying to choose which butter/margarine to buy wasn't made easy by the foreign language and only wanting very little butter/margarine as leaving on Sunday.
I got metro back to Manuel Montt and then wanted to get some ear drops on walk back. The 1st pharmacy I tried I said medicacion por los oijos pointing at ears and trying to signal drops. This didn't work and they directed me to back of pharmacy. I think they may have thought I wanted cotton buds. I thought I'd give up and try and find my india ear drops. I passed another pharmacy and thought I'd try again this time saying I had ear-ache in spanish. I didn't really have ear ache but it was beginning to feel like I was going to get it. She asked me whether I had allergic reactions and gave me some tablets. I then signalled and said non tablets and she got what I wanted ear drops.
30th January 2012 Santiago, Chile
It took longer than I expected to find a good laundry. The first one I saw was expensive as you paid per item. I arrived just on time for Spanish school and I didn't have time to get lunch. I couldn't answer simple question correctly because I had raced to get there. We had 2 new teachers this week and 2 new students joined us-male Robert from Austria, Nicole female from Canada. We lost 4 students from last week. The grammar teacher is a slower speaker which was clearer. There were odd smells coming from outside. For conversation class we ended up working outside and teacher ended up saying to Robert the person has got grey hair like you-oops. Had to think of famous people which I found quite hard as needed to think of ones that people would know all over the world. I had to answer yes and no to peoples questions for them to find out that I had father christmas as a famous person. After school there was an event to have Pizza and watch a film. We watched a film called "taxista para tres personas". Not sure how much of the story I got as it was in Spanish with Spanish subtitles. Primavera (dog) sneaked up behind Robert and began drinking out of his cup of water. I told him not to drink his water later and he looked behind and there she was drinking it.
31st January 2012 Santiago, Chile
I walked to metro, got on metro which was busy, changed lines and got to plaza de armas.
I walked down to Mercado Central for a walking tour of the city. As the other two were late the tour guide decided to start tour but then the 2 chileans joined us (they had been waiting in mercado central). The tour guide then had to speak to us in both Spanish and English. On the tour we walked around Mercado Central, Plaza de Armas, Constitution Plaza, Santa Lucia plus other places. At the Universidad de Chile there had been a protest about fees where the students had took over one of buildings. It was a lovely old building but was a bit odd as it was painted in a light yellow but the bottom of the building was covered in grafiti. The other tourist said they were very ashamed of it. I also saw a replica of one of the statue heads on Easter Island and apparently there is an original in Vina del mar in one of the museums. The guide was getting a little annoyed at the others as they were wandering so slowly. They left us early though as daughter was tired so we managed to get back on time. I got on the metro near to Mercado Central this time and had to change lines again. I had trouble trying to find the other line. I wasn't the only one though as someone else was asking me in Spanish how to go somewhere.
In lessons we had to fill in past verbs in Cinderella story, talk about what we'd like for a present from a sheet of drawings by questioning each other plus make up 2 true sentences and 1 false. People thought it was false that I'd done hang gliding in Rio rather than eating a sandwich yesterday. We had to do a listening exercise which I misunderstood as I thought she was asking us to listen the first time to words we didn't know and ask her. We were doing that but we should have also been answering questions which I wasn't doing. We then looked that how to get a room in a hotel which I am glad we did considering it is coming up to the time when I am going to have to travel on my own.
1st February Santiago, Chile
When I opened my pepsi it made a popping sound and I should had moved it away instantly from me as it then began squirting coke at me. I then had to go and wipe my dress down with the towels with water and then wipe the chairs and tables to stop them being sticky.
In the grammar lesson we talked about emotion verbs. In conversation class we listened to a song, did other things and made up a fictitious person for reality show. My fictitious person got eliminated. She liked alcoholic drinks, handsome men, going out partying and magazines. Her passion was going out shopping and buying things like dresses. She didn't like work and she hated complicated books. Primavera had moved her cup of food in her mouth and the teacher almost tripped over it.
2nd February Santiago,Chile
I got to school early, revised for my exam tomorrow and looked at what questions I needed to ask about exam. I did make the mistake of choosing a comfy sofa to revise on but still revised anyway but made me want to go asleep. Spanish lessons in afternoon.
3rd February Santiago
Revising this morning. I then had to begin doing the exam once I got to ecela. Writing part of test was hard as I had to write about a past holiday in Italy, Egypt, Tahiti or China. The only place I've been is Italy but that was ten years ago. Not only was I struggling with Spanish vocabulary I was struggling because I couldn't remember what you could do in Italy. It probably would have been better- just to write about Tahiti and pretend I had just done a beach holiday. It was something you could make up but I just couldn't think what to write for the different places as I don't know them. I didn't do well in the exam probably due to the problems of my passport in the first week.
Alessandra and I then went out for a Chinese. We were thinking of going out but by the time her cousin texted her and was coming to pick us up it was going to be 1am. We had lost enthusiasm for going out by then and we were tired.
4th February Santiago
At 9:00 I woke up and had the usual struggle to make my suitcase close. Had to sit on it and I now know why I've been having dry skin down the side of my fingers. Its due to wrestling my case shut.
Around 11:00 Leia arrived (which was why I was moving out of my room a night early as due to my confusion about what day I had to leave- there were more people in the house than should be.) We went over to Angela's sisters boyfriends apartment for the day (got there by metro and bus). We went swimming in the rooftop pool. It was amusing to watch me as when I wasn't swimming I was trying to find the shade or putting a load of clothes on to sit in the sun and covering my feet with a towel. I hadn't put on much suncream and it was a lower factor than I was used to as I had left mine at Angela's. A German asked me don't I like the sun and I said I do but I am concerned about burning. If I had burnt too I couldn't get my aftersun as it was down at the bottom of the case. We then had lunch on the apartment balcony looking over Santiago and the hills behind.
5th February Travelling to Vina del Mar, Chile
I got up at 9:00 and had a chat to parents as I wanted to talk to them about a few different things. I was surprised when it was mentioned that mum could come out and see me in Chile and dad look after Laser.. I had a little bit of trouble hailing taxi as one refused to take me. I got the taxi to the bus station. When I got there I knew what line I had to wait in as it was on my bus ticket. So I went to wait in at line and after waiting there for a while I began to think I may be in the wrong line. I could see Tur-bus buses (the company I was using) being washed on other side of bus station. I thought I'd better go for a little explore and it is a good job I did as there were two different lines with the same number. Some of lines on other side of bus station had same numbers but were dedicated to tur bus. I arrived on time for my bus and there was a little bit of a discussion with the conductor in bad Spanish as he wanted me to put my rucksack in the hold. I didn't want it going in hold as it had valuables in but he was saying it was too big. I had never had any trouble with that bag before on my trip. The other staff on bus let me off though and said to the other person it was fine. I then sat on bus with the bag on my knee trying to increase my vocabulary reading the spanish dictionary.
When I arrived in Vina del Mar there was a little bit of confusion for me to try and get a taxi. I was tempted to try and walk to apartment as I didn't think it was probably far away that all. However I wasn't sure as the name of street I had was slightly different to one on map. It was just a shortened version of same name. I got ripped off getting taxi to apartment but when I arrived I felt a little bit threatened with all my bags and not knowing where I was going so I jumped into taxi. Taxi driver wouldn't use his metre. I should have just refused and got out but he already had all my bags in the car boot. It was less than 5 minutes walk so I was quickly at the apartment block in a taxi. I asked reception and he told me to go up so I knocked on the door. Rocio greeted me at door and carried my bags in. I felt awful when my bag which was top heavy fell onto the glass shelves. There was no damage though so it was all fine. It was a beautiful room and she knocked on Kaike room to say I'd arrived. Kaike and I had a chat together which Rocio said she couldn't understand. I was then showed the kitchen. There was a little bit of problems understanding everything that she said as was in Spanish. She then introduced me to Ricardo who was also very welcoming. Kaike showed me around Vina del Mar. When got back I thought thats good we are back at a reasonable time so I can do some revision. I was then asked do I want to go and see Arbol de Vida (tree of life) with Brad Pitt. I was like no I need to revise and then thought it may do me some good to talk to Rocio and Ricardo in Spanish as well as reading the subtitles in Spanish. The film wasn't very interesting and I was finding the subtitles tiring to read. I was beginning to become very concerned that I wasn't revising and all these scenery shots were coming on the cinema screen with no words. They were bright scenes so I got out my Spanish verbs and began revising them. Ricardo told me to relax and if needed he would help me revise later. After film got a subway to eat later while I was revising and went to toilet. The others asked whether I had revised on toilet but it had just been queues.
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