Classes and Some Other Things That Have Taken Me by Surprise

I love my classes so far. the profs are super chill and the material so far has been in english. my interpersonal communication class is only me and my friend erin so today was mostly conversation about the slides of information that we read. i love that! i have been craving good conversation but it is difficult to have at my house because of the language barrier. so english conversation is something that i have come to cherish. even conversation about communication at 10am when i havent eaten breakfast yet is a special time for me (and i do not like to do ANYTHING before I have eaten breakfast). but i am a little bummed because i think i only get to take 15 credit hours while im here so i wil have to drop my international relations class. this class is my sueña (dream)! it is solely talking about the world and culture and economics. and the professor is super chill and knows a ton of english slang, which is hillarious. so i think im going to talk to lizette and see if i can maneuver things so that i can still take the class. its strange to me that while im in this new culture learning a million new thing every day, is when i am most desiring to be a student. i would have thought that i would have been so overwhelmed with chilean things to learn that i was going to dread classes but it is exactly the opposite. there are about 5 classes that ive heard people talking about that i wish i could take. but alas, my schedule is full, my time is strained, and my brain is close to bursting with new information.   

And here are the other things that have surprised me:

-I have started to crave oranges. I began eating them here out of necessity but then they became one of my favorite foods
-my mom seems to be prejudiced against chineese people. everytime a chineese person does an event in the olympics she does what we all did when were kids pretending to speak chinese `shing shong wha wong`. she just mutters fake chinese jibberish and then laughs at them. i have begun to love her for this because its just too funny.
-my mom reminds me sooooo much of Aunt Sylvia. when she talks about her granddaughter her voice inflection sounds exactly like Aunt Sylvia does when she talks about Aiden.
-i learned this morning that chileans dont cook with a lot of onions or garlic because garlic breath and onion breath is absolutely repulsive to them
-the worship music at the church here is amazing. they have an entire chorus of people that sing, a full band, and screen that projcts the lyrics of the songs. for some reason i expected them to play cheesy 90s american worship songs on a cd player
-yesterday there were 2 women with cement and a ton of bottle caps decorating some giant cement flower pots near the metro. in the states this would have been considered graffiti and they would have been fined. here they collect tips for their work and the people consider it art

So...my converter blew up

Yes, my converter blew up. I was skyping with the fam and there was a loud pop sound and smoke coming from the socket and my family kept yelling que paso? que paso? It was smoking and about a million degrees hot for 15 minutes and its was a disaster. My madre was yelling because she thought i blew up my brother´s computer. but no, everythign was fine. but let´s just say im terrified to plug anything in at my house ever again. never ever happening. So with that being said, the battery in my laptop is completely drained therefore i won´t be posting any pictures until i can buy a new adaptor.


Let´s get caught up on life shall we?
I saw Pablo neruda´s second house the other day and I liked it so much more than the one in Santiago. This one was much more homey and the tour was in english so i actually understood what was going on. Not to mention the view of the ocean from his office was breathtaking and my friend Dan blocked the doorway to Pablo´s bathroom so I got to stand in his bathtub where he showered. In hind sight this is kinda creepy but I still think its pretty cool. Then we saw an öpen air museum¨which was a bunch of murals painted on the walls that were supposed to have something with a revolution i think? But let´s be honest, i was incredibly sick of being herded around like cattle at that point so i stopped listening and started day dreaming while appreciating the pictures that meant absolutely nothing to me. Is it bad to say that I appreciate ordinary street graffiti more that i liked the murals in this ¨museum¨? There was also a museum of natural history that included the body of a 20 year old Mapuche girl who was found perfectly preserved in the Atacama Desert from 2000 years ago. And there was a 2 headed stuffed goat. Super cool! Oh and a ton of nasty bugs and spiders on display. it was like a car wreck, it was absolutely grossing me out to look at them but i couldn´t turn away. Hmmm what else have we done???  Oh! we went as a huge group to Reñaca which is a super cute beach town about 20 minutes away by bus. The water was freezing but some of us rolled up our pant legs and walked in teh water a little bit anyways. We also trooped over to some really neat rocks to perch on and i looked at some really creepy looking sea creatures. My friend scott and i ended up returning to Reñaca on saturday so he could body surf and i could just stare at the ocean. i will never get tired of the view here. while i was sitting there two chileanos sat down and talked with me for a little bit and thankfully they knew some english. they were really nice and just wanted to know what i was doing here in chile and asked what i liked about it so far. my conversation with them was pretty good but an attempted conversation with an older woman about her dogs just a few minutes later was an absolute fail. i´m not quite sure why but the trend seems to be that i can´t talk with the older people here but the younger generation is far easier to talk to. i suppose it helps that many of them have studied english in school but i think they also understand that they need to slow down when they talk and only ask one questin at a time. the women here will spurt out an entire paragraph at light speed and expect me to respond as if chilean spanish is my first language. i just want to ask them if theyre kidding me, because that just insane. but in typical kait fashion, i dont know the words necessary to produce even that simple phrase. but yesterday i did successfully ask a man for directions to the metro. i was rather impressed with myself and how easily the words just came out of my mouth without me even ralizing what i was saying. i think if i learn to let go a little more the spanish will come easier to me. who knows? but it wil get better `un poco un poco` as my RD, Lizette says. little by little the spanish will come more naturally.

Things Here Are Strange...

Things here are weird. I don’t understand but I feel like I should share them with you.

-You can’t flush the toilet paper. It has to go in a trash can or the toilet will get mad and flood

-But first you have to get the toilet paper. It isn’t in each stall, they have one TP roll dispenser on the wall by the sinks. So you have to grab your TP before you go in and hope that you grabbed enough…I’m just gunna say right now that here will more than likely be at least one toilet paper shortage disaster in my future

-Everyone here has showers YAY! But you have to turn on the hot water heater and wait for 5 minutes while it heats up. So dishes and hand washing is always done with cold water here.

-There is no central heating so if you’re lucky the bedroom has an estufa (little space heater) and if not you get a bag that you fill up with hot water and put by your feet while you sleep

-So its cold here. And the people complain that its cold, yet they don’t feel the need to close the window that is open right next to them

-Because it’s cold, when you are in the house you wear slippers at ALL TIMES. And don’t you dare bring your shoes onto the carpet! Its instant shame

-People on the metro will get up and sing or play music as they go wherever they are going and collect tips at the end of the song

-At the stoplights people will do cheerleading stunting, juggling, and break dancing while the light is red and then go from car window to car window collecting tips.

-The baggers at grocery stores aren’t paid, you also have to tip them.

-My family feels the need to put every item of food in some kind of basket or on some little plate. I want a piece of bread? I get a baby plate with a slice of bread on it. In the states I would have just grabbed it with my hand or with a paper towel. But no, there is another plate I have to wash…without a dishwasher

-People here make out EVERYWHERE. It doesn’t matter if you’re 12, 20, or 35, if you have a pololo or polola (boyfriend or girlfriend) and you are with them you are kissing them.

-But stretching in public? Oh no! That is not ok. And don’t you even think about yawning in public without covering your mouth

-They never turn on the lights. Last night I walked into the apartment and it was pitch black. I asked my brother where mom was and he said, oh she’s in the bedroom. It was kinda creepy

-No one here drinks water. Ever. I don’t understand

-The juice here is straight sugar. Every juice has sugar as the second ingredient and its crazy

-They don’t cook with spices. The food here never tastes like anything but salt or sugar or bread

I’m sure there are more but this is what comes to mind right now. I thought everything would have become normal to me by now but still, some things catch me off guard. 

My First Days At Home

                                   WARNING: I`m typing on a wiredo Chileano keyboard right
                                     now so my grammar and spelling are going to be a little off

Can I just start by saying that I am so blessed to have the family that I do? They are incredible! My big Brother Mauro is my saving grace. He speaks pretty good english and we decided that I will help him with his english and he will help me with my spanish. My madre, Ketty doesn´t have much patience for my lack of spanish but she makes my food and makes my bed ( What????!!!!! ) She`s only around at meal times and as soon as she`s done eating she dissapears and cleans while Mauro and I talk. Oh, and did I mention that they are Protestants?? It`s the best! Last night me and Mauro talked from 8 until midnight about religion (like calvinism vs. arminianism and missions and theology) and the meaning of our last names and where our parents are from. Oh and we spent a good while telling each other words that are difficult to pronounce and teachign the other to say the word correctly. Lets just say that my new favorite chileno phrase is ``esta bastante bien`` (its close enough). We already have plans to watch Gladiator and Troy and all those kinds of movies is spanish with english subtitles.I have never had so much fun learning in my whole life!  This morning I taught Mauro what a Lisa Special is. Why would we be talking about this at breakfast? Because they eat hot ham and cheese or cold ham and cheese sandwiches for breakfast! Its super strange but I`m learning to roll with it.

Lets review what I have eaten so far:
*Comida (dinner) was thick slices of bread with smeared avocado on on (I`m talking a half inch of avocado) with a heaping shake of salt on top. Then we had the most amazing cake I have ever had in my entire life. It was vanilla cake with a vanilla cream inside and a chocolate top. HOLY COW! Oh yeah, and how could I forget the tea? (they drink tea all the time!!)
*Desayuno (breakfast) was a ham and cheese sandwich (they put butter on their ham and cheese and I would also liek to point out that this was my first ham and cheese ever!) with chocolate cereal and tea of course
*Almuerzo (lunch) was carne (meat) and rice and ensalada (Mom I would like to point out at this time that I am not the only one who thinks a salad should simply be iceberg lettuce! They literally have chopped lettuce and a slice of lemon or little tomatoes or some olives. No salad dressing) I also had my first orange ever and some jello. I loved the jello
*Once (late afternoon snack) by this point I was actually craving tea! So I had a nice little break with tea and some music from home. (I was really stressed and wanted to give up on my spanish at about this time so I really needed the boost)
*Comida anoche (last night) was the same as my lunch with limon jello
*Desayuno today was the same as yesterday only Mauro ate with me and offered me some leftover cake from teh other night. I looke at him like he was crazy and said for breakfast?! and he just shrugged at me and put it back in the fridge.

Its hillarious how they do their meals here. I swear that all they eat is carbs. I think I alone have already eaten at least 2 loaves of bread. And although my mom makes my bed I make sure to do my own dishes. The first night I was here we all washed the dishes together. It was easily the best experience I`ve had becasue it has been one of the few things here that I actually know how to do properly. And naturally, I feel most comfortable in the kitchen.

But never the less I love my family and going home actually feels like going home. I just love it! I will take pictures later and post them. I haven´t even had enough time to unpack so the pictures wil have to wait.

HACE FRIO

So 65 degrees isn’t cold right? WRONG SIR! You are so wrong. 65 degrees isn’t  cold in The States because we have central heating. So its 65 outside, no big deal but its also 65 inside. You can’t escape the chill here. The only solution is to bundle up but here’s the problem: I didn’t bring a lot of warm clothes. I have 2 long sleeved shirts and one coat. That’s it. But it gets better. I brought no close toed shoes. I've been wearing Sacos (essentially socks with sandals) to go out to bars. Classy, I am one good looking gringa. But it gets even better. In Chile you have a space heater for your bedroom! Sounds great doesn’t it?! And you run this space heater all night? Oh no! No, that would be too easy. Instead you have to turn it on for 15 minutes and then turn it off, crawl into bed with at least 3 layers of clothes on and then in the middle of the night when you wake up freezing you have to turn the space heater on again for another 15 minutes and then turn it off so you can go back to sleep without turning into a popsicle. So like I said…hace frio

Hoy

Today....heres the short of it. 


Went to an orientation (this one was useful) 
Then were were shuttled to El Mercado Central which was named one of the top markets in the world by National Geographic. It was super super cool but smaller than expected. But the fish, it was delicioso! It was easily my favorite food I've eaten so far. 

 I forgot what the fish is called but it was wonderful!

This was the restaurant we ate at inside El Mercado Central


Went to la plaza de armas (the plaza where they keep the weapons) It was super sick! They had a catholic church (which was sad to see all of the Chileanas looking so solemn while they were "spending time" with Christ, which should be a joyous thing!) I hate that its so legalistic but its been hard to explain that to people here who don't know much about religion or Christianity. But I did have a great discussion with a girl named Megan tonight about CCU so I got to throw in some of our belief systems that we all follow as a whole (at least to some extent). That was legitimately the first time I have ever felt like I was doing "mission work" or just talking to someone you barely know about Christ. It was awesome and I did it as we sipped pisco sours. And lets be honest, I totes felt "like Jesus" because so many of His stories involved drinking wine as He conversed with people about his ministry. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

                            The church in La Plaza de Armas

 A statue created to stand for all of the indigenous Chilenos that were robbed of their rights during the reign of the country's last dictator (I forget his name...it starts with a P...Pinochet!)

              Kami, Mary, and myself (we're all roommates at the hotel) on the steps in front of the church

This cop totally caught me taking his picture outside of the church...he doesn't look too happy about it

After La Plaza de Armas we went into the Presidential palace to get a tour and our Chilean IDs. This was super cool because I was not expecting this at all!

 Changing of the guard

 The orange garden inside the palace

 Standing at the same podium where the president of Chile gives his speeches at press conferences. I look like I was born to bark out some orders to the little people lol

 I made a new friend

The palace. But this really doesn't do it justice, there are fountains in front of these pools and there is a MASSIVE Chilean flag waving in the breeze in front of the fountains and pools. It just looks so much more royal than the white house


Then we went back for more orientation about safety and about communication with our families. 
Next we went out to dinner at a pizza place and we had cheese pizzas, pisco, and me and Megan had our legit convo. Then we went to a bar called California (none of us were happy about the name but we went inside anyways.) We had a ton of fun and we all did our best to speak to each other in spanish. But really it was spanglish with me saying a ton of "como se dice..."(which means "how do you say...") But overall I would say it was a wonderful evening of bonding, learning spanish, making friends, and doing as the romans do. Also, I was the one who asked our waiter for the bill (la quenta por favor) and I felt incredibly accomplished!

With Love From Santiago

So I’m here and I’m loving it!!!

Lets do a brief recap of the day, shall we…

Plane Ride: Sat next to 2 women who were hilarious on the way to Dallas. Then on my flight to Chile I sat next to a girl who has been EVERYWHERE in the world. I’m super envious but she gave me some travel tips (basically make friends that live in cool places so you can visit them and stay for free)

Arrival: I thought high school Spanish was sufficiently informative until I walked up to the customs line with the wrong paperwork filled out…. But lets put it this way: when you’re a blond haired blue eyed American who is trying to get chocolate chip cookies into the country all you have to do is smile at the male customs worker ; ) Oh and while we’re at it, I have been stared at more today alone than I have been in my entire life. One man turned around to continue looking at me as I passed by. You would think this is flattering but lets be honest, I feel like a zoo animal here.

People: My fellow students are great. I have already made friends and am super excited to get to know some of the girls better. We all knew that by the end of this thing we were going to be like family so almost everyone jumped in and started introducing themselves and picking out the people that they wanted to hang out with. Also, while we are here in Santiago we have to move in groups and I am the "hefa" of our four person group which means I am in charge of getting everyone up in the morning on time and making sure we all make it back where we need to be. But right now two of my three roommates are delayed in the states so my job has been easy thus far. 

Orientation: Eh, this was boring and only half informational because half of it was in Spanish

Lunch: Glass bottles of water and chicken with a wine sauce over rice. Hard to cut but not too bad. I took this to be a good omen from the food gods. May the mystery food be ever in my favor!

Cerro San Cristobal: “cerro” means hill and that’s how the addresses are set up in Valpo and Vina (where I will go to school and live) So the address starts with the hill # and then gives the house #. Strange but cool. Anyways, San Cristobal is basically a huge huge huge hill (if we are going by Missouri standards its bigger then a mountain) So it’s a national park and has a zoo. We didn’t go to the zoo but we did walk around part of the park that has a ton of cool vendors and a massive statue of the Virgin Mary. And being a hill, it looked out over all of Santiago. But its not like you can see all of Santiago from one place, you have to move around San Cristobal to see all of Santiago because its so big. One third of Chile’s population live in this city. And its crazy because the upper class is completely segregated from the lower classes. All you have to do is look at the buildings and you know what half of the city is which economic class. After our free time at the vendors and statue we rode the Funicular down to the base of the hill. This thing is a rickety car pulley system that sends you straight down the hill. It’s frightening considering they opened the thing in 1925. So we walked/ rode the metro back to the hotel and finally got our room.
Things that made me laugh: 1) I saw a man wearing a BAZZINGA t shirt over his huge beer belly. 2) there was a Chilean dressed up as Tigger at San Cristobal. 3) A tv talk show where the background was constantly changing from scuba divers to jelly fish to people walking around and back to more sea creatures. We had no idea what was going on. 4) The flusher on our toilet is one that is on top that you pull up and well I guess I got a little excited and pulled the entire puller thingy right out of the toilet! 5) as a rule we are not allowed to bring strange men back to our hotel room...because yes, in my first night in a foreign country I definitely want to get with some strange man that will most likely give me a disease while my other 3 roommates are in the other room. NAST!

Roomie: My roomie is Mary and she’s super cool. She’s into photography, is a vegetarian, listens to good music and is incredibly laid back. Oh and she’s staying here for a whole year. We get along pretty well but she has this crying problem…not really. But the smog here has really been irritating her eyes so she will randomly get really watery eyes that makes her look like she’s crying. I think its hilarious but she’s a little embarrassed about it. 

Hotel: Our room is sick! It has a kitchen and a living room. Mom if you think your kitchen is small, think again. This thing is so cute and it looks like it was originally supposed to be a bathroom. Our room has two bedrooms and one bathroom and is perfect!

Dinner: Since we have a kitchen we decided to cook for ourselves. We walk into the super mercado and this place is weird. They don’t have liquid milk, its all powder, the eggs aren’t refrigerated, and there is no pasta sauce to be found. But we did find stuff to make quesadillas and some pre made queso empanadas. Those babies were HEAVEN!!! I’m talking so stinking good! But Mary had a crying attack so the people there thought she was weird and she couldn’t see so I had to pay for both of our groceries and the checker thought I was weird, and then two guys in the program didn’t weigh their vegetables so their checker lady was yelling at them. Overall this was an informational and entertaining venture.

I was nervous until I saw this view...and at that point I knew that I belong here

 The view from a hotel room where I had to temporarily store my bags

 The view of Santiago from San Cristobal. Note the smog...there is literally a brown cloud over this city

Yeah that's right, I'm so cool I just hang out with Jesus on mountains and stuff.

 My mangy new friend. I wanted to take him home cause is beard is so cute. But rule #1 with the dogs is don't touch them because ether have such bad fleas.

This is the funicular that was going up beside us as we were going down... this bad boy was STEEP!

Well that’s it for now. I’m exhausted and really really need to shower.

With love from Santiago!

Kaity, Kait, Kaitlin

3 Days

Today I did most of my packing and it was terribly stressful at first. I started off with toiletries (which was a bad idea) so there were about 20,000 things I needed to pack and I was terrified that I was going to forget something essential. But in the end I think I packed everything that I absolutely need and mommy dearest reassured me with the reminder that I can buy anything I forget while I'm down there. But lets be honest, there was definitely one thing I was not going to take a chance on: Qtips. I live and breathe by those things so I packed an entire box! But other than that I was pretty impressed with my restraint and willingness to leave behind a few things that I would normally bring with me. So yes, Stine and Elise, my bedtime rituals will be cut in half (so we will see whether or not I end up looking like a man without them). And then I moved onto my clothes...

I thought this was going to be quite difficult to narrow down but I ended up (without struggle) putting back some of the clothes that I had planned on taking. If Chileans can wear the same outfit twice in one week for months on end then so can I! Take that American materialism!! But lets be honest, I still have quite a few clothes...enough to fill a suitcase and a backpacking pack.

So thats that. Most of my things are ready to go. So tomorrow is pedicures with my mom, dinner with the Koch's and then heading to Chicago at 1:15 am on the bus so we can make it in time for my appointment. Things are coming to a close quickly here in The States but I couldn't be happier to leave!

My Family!!

I just found out about my family! There is a mom, an extended family member (I'm guessing a nephew?) who is 24 and a student at the university, and her daughter and her husband and their baby who will visit on weekends. I'm hoping that the 24 year "nephew" will be like a big brother for me while I'm there, it would be nice to have someone looking out for me and protecting me. So I will be living with mom and big brother in an apartment building that is in the residential area of Vina del Mar. It also says I have a view of the ocean from the apartment but I'm not sure how far away I will be from the ocean on foot. I'm just glad that I can see the ocean all the time. I hope my family is chill and forgiving of my lack of Spanish skills. But other than the language barrier and food I'm not scared of too much else. The family bio said they are an active family and like to bike so hopefully I'll be allowed to borrow the bike to cruise around town. I'm just sooooo excited!!!

10 days!