One week later...

Here I am again on a Sunday night updated my blog. Maybe this will become a sort of ritual, because, lets face it, I have nothing else to do on my Sunday nights. I don´t have to do any last minute homework, which is pretty nice! Anyways, about my week...

School is pretty boring (I know you´re shocked by this profound statement). For the most part, I only understand what´s going on when the teacher directly is talking to me. After the first minute of class, I just begin to tune everything out (so I guess Chilean school isn´t too different after all!). I understand more and more every day, but it is much harder than I expected to pick up the language. Then again, I´ve only been here for two weeks. I´ll get it eventually!

This weekend was a lot of fun! On Friday night I went over to a classmate´s house along with some other kids from my curso. On Saturday morning I visited La Cruz de Coquimbo (see pictures below) with my family, and then later that evening I went to the birthday party of another exchange student in La Serena from Czech Republic. After the birthday party, I experienced my first "discoteca" with my host brother and some of his friends. Today (Sunday), I slept in and then just hung out with my host family until around 4pm, when I went out with my cousin to learn how to surf!! Although I never quite got the hang of it, I had a lot of fun and I´m sure that in a year I´ll be much better if I stick with it (although sticking with things has never been my strong suit).

Anyways, I´m off to bed. I am having a great time here in Chile. Please enjoy the following photos! :)

A family photo before saying goodbye to Anto last weekend!

(The view of La Serena/Coquimbo from La Cruz)

La Cruz was built in 2000 to celebrate the 2000th birthday of Christ. It´s really REALLY tall.

First day of school!

Surfing!

 

Just a check in (to ease my family´s fear)

Tomorrow evening will mark one week since I´ve been here in my home in La Serena. I have had a great time this past week meeting so many new people. Last Tuesday, I visited my school (Colegio Santo Tomas) for the first time and met all of my classmates. There are 25 students in my class. Luckily, because I have a host sister (who is now on her own exchange in Illinois, USA) I got to meet her friends and now I am able to call them my friends as well. Everyone here is so nice and excited to meet me. On Friday morning, we left La Serena to drive for about 5 hours to Viña del Mar. There, we stayed at my host mom´s mother´s house so I got to meet my abuelos (grandparents), my tios (aunt and uncle), and my primo (cousin). I also got to spend more time with my host sister before we brought her to the Santiago airport on Saturday night so that she could begin her exchange. We spent most of today driving back to La Serena, and then this evening I went out to dinner with my host brother and a few of his friends. So far, the food here is not that different than what I eat back home. Lots of sushi, beef, chicken, and potatoes. I am definitely going to come home a little heavier! I am having so much fun here and I am excited to start school tomorrow so I can really start living life like a Chilena. The language barrier is definitely difficult, but my friends and family are all patient with me and I know enough to get by. I am learning LOTS of slang, which is a very big part of what makes Chilean one of the hardest dialects of Spanish.

Well, I should be going to bed right about now. I have a big day tomorrow! (Luckily, my first class is English.)

Adios!

Finally here!

The adventure has begun! I left Portland on Friday afternoon after saying goodbye to friends and family, and sat next to Amanda on a 4 hour flight toDallas, Texas. We had a very short (a little too short for comfort, perhaps) layover in Dallas before taking off just a few minutes past 9PM for an 11 hour flight to Santiago. The flight went very smoothly. I was seated next to a 20-something-year-old Chilean man who told me about all the best places to visit while I'm here. We arrived in Santiago around 8AM (5AM Portland time) and waiting in a long line for immigration and then customs (which all went smoothly aside from the confiscation of some beef jerky that I brought for my family). We were greeted by the Rotarians of District 4320 with hugs and kisses! We waited a few hours for the rest of the students to arrive (we were among the first few) and got a small snack (my first food in Chile: an 'ave con palta' or chicken and avocado sandwich. Eventually we left on a bu
s and drove to Viña del Mar, about 2 hours away. We arrived and after getting our room placements (I'm staying with a girl from Germany and another from Minnesota, USA) we began an orientation, which was all in English. Almost all of the students here are European, with the exception of 5 Americans. Everyone speaks English, but I am one of the few who speaks a little Spanish. There are about 25 of us, but apparently there are 10 more that will join later. We had a nice lunch and dinner and now I'm just laying in bed, extremely tired, waiting to take a shower. So far, Chile is great but I can't help but be anxious and excited for this weekend to be over so that I can go start my new life in La Serena!

The Final Supper

Wow!! I have not posted in WAY TOO LONG. If I can't even remember to post while I'm still here, how on earth am I going to remember while I'm down in Chile? (Actually, I'm guessing my mom will be sending me constant reminders...). SO much has happened since my last update! I have been receiving lots of emails from my host club in La Serena as well as my host district in Chile, 4320. Yesterday, I traveled to the Chilean consulate in San Francisco and received my student visa. Today I packed and tied up loose ends. And guess what... Tomorrow I leave!! (Yeah, I told you a lot has been happening.)

I guess since so much has happened, I'll just give a brief overview of everything important. In mid-June my family hosted a couple of exchange students (a girl from Chile and a girl from Argentina) for a weekend. It was a great experience, and I highly reccommend it to anyone going on exchange. A week later, I left for a family trip to Italy, and while I was there I was emailed for the first time by my district in Chile. They sent me my forms with my home address in La Serena (I promptly looked up the address on Google Earth, of course...) as well as all of the information about my future school and club. As you can imagine, I was pretty excited to receive this email because it told me what day I had to arrive in Santiago. At last, I had an official departure date (August 8th)! After I arrived home from Italy, I finished all of the necessary documents for my student visa (which, believe me, was NOT a small task). I waited for an appointment to be set with the Chilean consulate in San Francisco. During this time, I received multiple emails from different people in La Serena (my host club's counselor, my "godfather", etc..) and they all told me that they were excited to meet me. Things started to feel pretty real when I made an appointment to fly to San Francisco on August 6th to be issued my visa. I flew down with Amanda (the other outbound to Chile) and we met up with a travel agent. We both were issued our visas with no problems and we flew back that evening. Although it was last minute (only 2 days away from departure), it was surprisingly calm. Today is my final night here in Portland, and I fly out tomorrow at 2:20 PM. I have a fairly short layover in Dallas before my (11 hour!) flight to Santiago.

It's so weird saying goodbye to people. Like, no matter how many times I've said "see you in a year!", it still hasn't sunk in that I really won't see my friends and family for that long. You'd think it would at least sort of feel real by now, but it's all just surreal. From what I've heard, it doesn't hit you until you're on the plane. I guess we'll see if that's what happens with me.

I will try to keep the blog updated more once I arrive to my home in La Serena on the 11th (after my 3 day Rotary orientation in Santiago). 

Wish me luck! My life is about to change drastically.