A Package, Dinner, and a Movie

Well my week started off very awesome when I got home from school Monday. A package was sitting on the coffee table in the living room and Brent exclaimed as I walked in, “You got a package.” I was excited even though I thought for sure it was my contact lenses that my grandma had sent me. When I got closer, the package seemed a little big for contacts so I examined the return address. It was from my friend Kim. Actually it was from Kim M, Briana, Aubri, Kim B, Jessi, and Mary Margaret. My friends had sent me a package of my favorite things. That includes ranch dressing, garlic salt, a package of brownie batter, bisquick batter, a Spiderman activity book (which they all colored a picture inside), notes, and some stickers. It made my day. My friends are really the best friends in the world. That was pretty much my Monday excitement. Tuesday when I got home from school, Brent asked if I wanted to go see Spiderman with him and his girlfriend. He knows that I love Spiderman and haven’t seen it yet. He told me they would go see it in English so I definitely wanted to then. An El Oasis student went too, his name is Edison. Don’t worry, the pronunciation is nothing like the guy who invented electricity. So we went and it was really good. I was happy I finally got to watch a movie I’ve been dying to see in a language that I understand. My Spanish is getting better however. I can understand a lot more than when I first got here though. Speaking it is still a challenge. I rely a lot on hand motions. Oh is also got below freezing that night, 29F to be exact. Yesterday (Wednesday) I asked a couple of Chilean students to have dinner with Katie and I a few days before and we were meeting up to do that. They took us to this salad place that was really good, especially the chicken in it. The only strange part was that the salad dressing here is mayonnaise mixed with garlic. I like mayonnaise on my chicken sandwich and you can put garlic on just about anything and I will eat it. However, the combination used as a salad dressing on a food that’s supposed to be healthy for you is just a tad fattening. The students paid for us though, which was the sweetest thing ever. So with that being said, I ate the majority of it, mayonnaise and all. We told them we would buy them Starbucks or ice cream later one…no matter how cold it is here people are still eating ice cream. That is my kind of country. After that we went to this park that from what I gathered using my Spanish skills, was a park dedicated to their Air Force. There was a huge statue of a plane too so I have to be somewhat close. It was really pretty though. There was a huge fountain with pretty colors, and it had an awesome view of Cerro San Cristobol, which is the hill the Virgin­­ Mary sits on. Today (Thursday) has been pretty uneventful. I used the stove for the first time. You have to light it with a match so it was kind of scary because I’ve never had to do that before and I didn’t want to blow the house up on my third week here. I made eggs that I bought at the market, I love the market, except when they tell me my total purchase price I have no idea what they’re saying to me. Tonight I’m going to help Katie study and watch some Criminal Minds on Netflix because it works here and there’s not much to do right now. They told me I should enjoy the peace and quiet because it won’t last forever. Terrifying, right? 

this was my package from my friends

this is how I dress when I go outside, it helps slightly

My Week

Sorry not much has happened here for me to post every day this week, but I will do a recap. Tuesday I went to school, came home, and watched tv in Spanish with a few Chileans…that was my entire day. Wednesday I went to school and then helped Eli clean out our refrigerator, which was really disgusting so I’m glad we did it. We ended up cleaning the whole kitchen which I was fine with because I hate dirty kitchens. That night we went to the movie theater because it’s cheap to see movies on Wednesdays. We saw Brave (Valiente) in Spanish so I have no idea what they were saying, the cartoons were cute though. Thursday was pretty cool, I had to clean and organize the El Oasis library which they named Starbooks. It was a lot of work but I found some books I can’t wait to read. Eli had some of her friends come over and made them dinner so we got to hang out with them and got free dinner which was awesome. Eli actually made two batches so we’ve been eating off of it ever since. It was some pasta and ham and cheese thing, it is delicious. Katie doesn’t eat meat so she picks out all the ham and gives it to me, which I am ok with. Friday we had another movie night at El Oasis which was really fun, there were a lot more kids this time. We watched 127 hours, well I went downstairs when the blood started coming out, I can’t handle that. After the movie, some of the girls wanted to go out dancing. So we went to a dance club but one of the girls couldn’t get in because she didn’t have her license so we had to leave. Which I was completely ok with, that’s not really my scene. We went back to the El Oasis house and we had our own dance party which was a lot of fun. I taught the girls how to do the Wobble which was very entertaining. They do it so much better than I do because I can’t move my hips like that. We ended up staying up until 4am, I was exhausted. It was really great though. Saturday, I took a day trip with Kari who is an exchange teacher from Minnesota and Liz and we went to Pomaire. It’s Kari’s last week in Chile so she wanted to go on one more little excursion. Pomaire is a little town known for their traditional ceramics. We took a bus about an hour out of Santiago. On the way there, the bus dropped us off in this random location so we had to walk like a mile until we actually got into the town. There were so many cute little shops with cute little things for sale. I bought a few things for people, but I didn’t go crazy. It was so fun though. We stayed there for about three hours because the last bus going back to Santiago was at 17:15 (5:15) and we didn’t want to miss it. Before we left though we ate at this little restaurant and I got a pastel de choclo which is a traditional Chilean dish. I probably won’t be ordering it again, but I wanted to try it. It was a casserole with a puree of sweet corn on top that made a crust, then a chicken leg still on the bone, with weird meat stuff, olives, onions, and eggs. It was pretty disgusting. The chicken was good though so I picked that out. After that we hopped on the bus and went back into the city. As soon as I got home, Katie told me about Seth’s going away party at his apartment. Seth is the exchange student at El Oasis from last semester. He spent a few weeks traveling and is leaving today. So we walked to his apartment and hung out with him and a few Chileans. It was fun, we left around midnight though because we were both exhausted. Now for today (Sunday), I went to an English speaking church with Kari. It was a super traditional Protestant church. Everyone was nice, but I like my contemporary style better. It was fun though. I’m currently sitting in the living room, one of my Chilean friends is about to come over and hang out. I’m probably going to read a little too. I’m completely exhausted though so I’m not really doing much today. I really like it here. 

spiderpig!

pastel de choclo

it was cute

sunset over the mountains

Good Days

Day Eight- Today a Chilean student asked me to go to church with her, so of course I jumped on that opportunity. It appeared to be a small church in a shopping center, but once we got in there it was HUGE! We sat on the second level to watch the service. The music lasted about an hour and I loved it. I could recognize some of the music because they sing a lot of translated typical Christian songs. They were all very into it though. It was awesome to be able to watch them worship. The sermon lasted about an hour too, I had no idea what the guy was saying though. He spoke kind of slow so I’m sure when I learn Spanish I will be able to understand it. After church I came back to the house to meet up with Katie for lunch. She is Catholic so she went to a church nearby that she loved. We realized that almost every store is closed on Sunday here so we walked around for like an hour looking for food. Eventually we found this sandwich shop thing that was kind of like a fast food restaurant. It was a little expensive but the food was good. And it was big enough for me to eat it for lunch and dinner. Katie and I went for a 30 minute run around the park which was pretty fun, it always feels good to be outside when the highs are in the 60’s and the sun is shining. After we go back, we cleaned the bathrooms here because they were pretty freaking dirty. So then I showered and unpacked and we rearranged our room. I put my pictures and things from my friends on the wall. I feel so relieved to have my own space now and not live out of a suitcase. I love my room! Well our room, which is weird to say because I’ve never shared a room with someone for longer than about a week.

my bed, I have the top bunk and decked it out with pictures of family and friends, and also cute things my friends gave or made me before I left

my part of the book/shoe shelf

Day Nine- Today was a holiday in Chile called something I can’t remember, but it was for Virgen del Carmen, which meant we were out of school and a lot of places were closed. A Chilean friend of Phil’s named Betzabet decided she wanted to take us out for the day and we decided that we wanted to climb Cerro Santa Lucía. Her friend Liz came too but she is in a wheelchair so she went to Starbucks to use the internet, which is the reason she came anyways, we weren’t excluding her. It was probably about 1/3 of a climb as Cerro San Cristóbal. The views were still really pretty though and it was basically a castle that we got to climb to the top of. After that we met back up with Liz to find lunch. On the way we ran into a parade celebrating Virgen del Carmen. It was so colorful, expressive, and just really cool to watch. They were dancing and playing instruments, I liked it a whole lot. After that we went to the most chaotic place ever to eat lunch. And of course it was a seafood place, the one thing here I don’t eat. So I got two baby cheese empanadas which was kind of disappointing. We passed so many cool places that I would have much rather eaten at. It was ok though, I am not going to complain because I got to eat. After that we walked back to the house and I bought a 2 liter of un-carbonated water because the tap water here, although it’s safe, is not very good. Now I’m sitting here, about to do some homework and cook some dinner and then go to bed. 

the very top of the hill

the view from the top

the parade

A Few More Days

Day Five- Today was pretty good. I went to my language school, but on the way to class my shoes started giving the back of my heel a blister so it was really painful to walk. After class I took the subway because my foot was hurting way too much to walk a mile back to the house. It was the first time I had taken the subway by myself. Once I got on I realized that I had no idea what the name of the subway stop I was supposed to get off’s name was. I just remember that it was the second stop.  So I went with that and I was right, thankfully. I then hobbled back to the house to find a band-aid. When I got there Katie was already at the house waiting for me to go to the church. So I slapped on a band-aid and we started the two mile walk to church. I was really hungry and heard about this good pizza place so I stopped and got a pizza. It was one of the best pizzas I’ve ever had. The place looked a little shady and it was about as small as a bedroom. The bread was made that day and was about an inch to an inch and a half thick. It had fresh mozzarella and tomatoes on top of it, and ham hidden under the cheese. We continued on to church as I ate. VBS was almost over again but we helped clean up and played with the kids for a few minutes. Some people at the church gave us fresh apples and mandarin oranges which were delicious. We played a makeshift volleyball game with some of the guys and it was really fun. It gets dark at about 6:00 here because it’s their winter so we left the church around 5:30. When we got back to the house I took a shower in that tiny little shower again, I didn’t want to get out because it was so warm and it’s so cold everywhere else. Katie and I couldn’t figure out how to turn the heater on, because it’s just a little portable gas powered thing and we were scared of blowing up the house. There wasn’t really anything to do and we were both tired so we went to bed at like 8. It’s still killing me that I’m living out of a suitcase. I’m hoping next week I will actually be able to settle in. It’s making me so anxious. 

Day Six- Today was pretty much the same as the last. I went to my language school and came back to the house to help Eli clean up a little bit. When Katie got home for school we ate lunch. A new staff member from the United States came today, his name is Brent. He bit his tongue so hard he couldn’t talk so they had to take him to the hospital. Not a good way to start off his trip, but he is here for 2 years though so I’m sure it’ll get better. We cleaned a whole lot because tonight some Chilean students came over to watch a movie. That was a blast! The students are so friendly even though we can’t really understand each other. They wanted me to ask them questions in English and then explain it to them. So that was fun, we watched the movie The Adjustment Bureau in English with Spanish subtitles which was fine by me. Then we played some game with dice in a cup that I have no idea what the name of it was. It was fun though. The students are really great. It was the latest Katie and I have stayed up since we got here, we went to bed at 1:30am! It was a really great day though. 

Day Seven- Today was a blast. Katie and I woke up and went to the market which is about ½ a mile from our house and it’s there every Wednesday and Saturday. I bought a bunch of fruit that I can’t wait to eat, and it was all fresh and cheap. After the market we helped Eli move into her new room which I was thrilled about because now I can unpack my suitcase! Eli thinks I’m really strong because I moved her bed by myself. After that we ate lunch and waited for some friends to come over so we could hike Cerro San Cristóbal again, and this time make it all the way to the top. It was Katie, Mary (an exchange student we met from Virginia), Eli, and a Chilean student named Ruth who is really a cool person to be around. We had to walk to the hill before we could walk up it and that was about a mile walk. Climbing the hill was ridiculous. The whole climb had to have been at least a 45 degree angle the entire way up. It was worth it though. We made it to the Virgin Mary and the view of the city was phenomenal. You could see Santiago in every direction you looked! It was kind of crowded up there because it’s everyone’s vacation time here, their Winter break. It was ok though, it was so pretty! We stayed up there for about 30 minutes. It was getting dark though so we decided to start heading down the hill. The climb down seemed almost as hard as the climb up, it killed my knees. On the way home we decided to stop in this little store to grab some empanadas for dinner and I bought a coke to share with my friends. It was fun, we all ate dinner together and watched P.S I Love You. It was in Spanish, good thing I had already seen it. Most of the television shows here are in English and have Spanish subtitles, so I was surprised that P.S I Love You was in Spanish. Oh and I accidentally flushed a piece a toilet paper. You can’t do that here, woops. I just forgot for a split second and it was too late by then. Eli is now moving her clothes into her room so hopefully I can set my room up tomorrow. I’m ready for it to feel like home. I do love it here though. Oh and the alarm to our house just went off because Eli opened a window so the Police are coming. It's really funny, all three of us are cracking up. Good to know we are very safe here!! 

one of the views from the top of the hill

the statue of Jesus

the Virgin Mary statue, it was beautiful

Grey, this means "I am the Immaculate Conception", it's at the base of the Virgin Mary

our climbing group: Ruth, me, Eli, Mary, and Katie!

Next Couple of Days

Day Three- Today I woke up and Phi land I walked to a language school to see if I could take a language class for a few weeks. I got to sit in on the class for an hour to see if I liked it, which I did. There are only three other people in the class, two Koreans (Kim, they follow me everywhere haha) and a pretty intimidating Russian guy. So after an hour Phil came back and I had to fill out an application and everything but it wasn’t really hard. After that Phil showed me this little pastry shop and I got some breakfast which was delicious and very cheap. I found out how to tell if the water is carbonated or not before you buy it. After that Phil and I met up with some Chileans and we went to the World Press Photo exhibit at the Telefónica Building (which is a building in Santiago that is shaped like a cell phone.) After that we went to a little corner store and bought lunch for like $1.20 or 600 pesos. 500 Chilean pesos equals about $1 US. I love how cheap everything is here. After that we went back to the house and waited for Katie to get out of her language class to eat lunch. I got to hang out with my other roommate Eli who is the El Oasis intern. I love her, she is the best. We are teaching each other the other language. Katie got back and we ate lunch. After lunch we had another exchange student meeting for about an hour and a half and talked about John 14 and about what to do while Phil is gone. Phil is going to the United States for a couple of weeks for Frizz’s (Chilean El Oasis staff member) wedding and to visit family for a little bit before the semester starts, which will be August 6^th. After the meeting Phil took me to the Chilean Walmart, it’s a Walmart, I bought Great Value stuff, and it was weird. Also they don’t refrigerate milk, strange. I got my own set of keys to the house and I got a cell phone, which weighs about an ounce and is the most basic little phone ever. When I got back to the El Oasis house Eli, Katie and I made some banana bread, cute roommate bonding time. Still haven’t got my room set up, but I’m hoping it will be at some point this week. 

this is where I'm taking my language

my classroom for the next four weeks, 70 hours

Day Four- I walked to class this morning by myself, it’s about a 25-30 minute walk, and it’s really beautiful. There’s a subway I could take but it costs money every day so I will only take it when it rains. Class was pretty good though, it’s from 9-12:30 every day for four weeks so hopefully I will be semi conversational in Spanish after that. I had to stay after class till 2 o’clock today because I missed Monday’s class, but the lady was nice so it wasn’t that bad. After class I had to meet Katie because we are helping out at a church’s VBS thing till four in the afternoon. We got really really really lost though and probably walked over two miles. We eventually found it after four different search parties went out looking for us. We got to see a lot of the city though and I still can’t take my eyes off of the mountains that are always in the background. There was only 20 minutes left of VBS when we got there so we didn’t really do much, we met a lot of Chileans though. After that, Eli took me and Katie to the Walmart (Lider) again because Katie and Eli didn’t go yesterday with Phil and I. It was still just as weird. I bought bread for about a quarter though so that was pretty cool. We decided to take a Taxi home because it was only about $2 a piece for us to ride and it was a lot faster than the bus. I made a sandwich for dinner and started my homework for my language class. I kind of started missing some people back home, but I have to remember that I’m here with a purpose and my time is fleeting. God is good, I will be ok.

The First Couple of Days

Day One- We landed at the airport a little before 8, which was almost 45 minutes before we were supposed to. The airport was a little confusing since everything was in Spanish and my understanding of it is very limited. People were very helpful though, I wasn’t really expecting that. It cost me $160 to enter the country which I think is a tad bit outrageous. When getting my luggage I got a broken cart and didn’t realize it until people were behind me getting mad because I was holding up the customs line. Luckily, this Chilean airport employee helped me out and pushed the cart for me. After you go through the exit door there is mass chaos. Taxi drivers everywhere, people with signs of names, Spanish everywhere, it is just very crazy. I didn’t see Phil who is my El Oasis student coordinator so I decided to walk around. This lady approached me and unintentionally tried to kidnap me but it wasn’t here fault, all of us gringos look the same so it really was an honest mistake. She was looking for a girl named Blaire, at least she got three letters right. Another really nice Chilean airport employee approached me asking if I needed help in pretty good English. Of course I did and called the one number I had written down for El Oasis. No one answered. I was about to sit down and then out of the corner of my eye I saw this girl heading toward me and she looked familiar. Upon closer inspection I realized it was Katie, my fellow exchange student. Then I saw Phil and he hugged me and then I told them both my airport story. As soon as we stepped outside my body froze. I think it was about 36 degrees F. We headed back to the car and I saw the mountains for the first time, they were breath-taking. We drove back to the house and dropped my stuff off and then headed to church. The church was really awesome, it was their version of a non-denominational church but I can’t remember what they call it. I didn’t really understand the preacher because he talked so fast and it was in Spanish, but I did understand the music. After church we went on a picnic on Cerro San Cristóbal which is a big hill that overlooks the city. We didn’t get all the way to the top, but it was beautiful. Snow capped mountains everywhere you looked. There was also this awesome park somewhere on the hill but I didn’t play on it, I will next time though! We met a few Chilean friends of Phil and they were really nice. I went to a grocery store which was strange but they sell my favorite energy drink so that made me very excited. I found out that I will be sharing a room with Katie for the semester, I’ve never shared a room longer than a week, but it shouldn’t be too bad. I met the intern that’s living with us too, her name is Eli and she is really sweet. She doesn’t speak much English and I don’t speak much Spanish but its pretty fun trying to understand each other.

a picture Katie took of me when they got to the airport

the view from about 5/8 up the hill, also the sky scrapper being built will be the tallest in South America when it is finished, kind of ruins the picture a little, but those mountains are beautiful

Day Two- I rode the subway/marta like train system for the first time on the way to Katie’s class. Phil and I went with her because I was going to try to get in the class and I wanted to see the campus and all. We got up at like 7:00am which was a little early but it was ok. I ended up not being able to get in the class but they let me stay for the day. It’s from 8:30-1:07 every day for three weeks, kind of glad I didn’t get in. The other exchange students in the class were really friendly and nice though, I might miss them a little. Also everyone in the class was already really good at Spanish so my head was spinning. Well my head has been spinning since I got here with all of this foreign language. After class we went back to get on the subway and Katie tried to take the wrong one, she didn’t believe me. Eventually I got her to get on the right one. I have a good sense of direction, even if I’ve only been there once. These mountains are so beautiful. After we got back to the El Oasis house, Phil took us to lunch at this café style restaurant that is literally around the corner from the house. It was pretty good. I got rice and pork and a salad (really just a bowl of tomatoes, my choice) and dessert (which I didn’t get because it looked kind of gross) and a drink (that I found out the hard way you don’t get refills on) all for like $4 US dollars. I would explain Chilean money, but it’s complicated. After that we went back to the house and Phil, Katie, and I had our first exchange student meeting which was about two hours long. It was good though, and very informational. The sun didn’t come out today so it felt even colder than it actually was. After the meeting I took a shower for the first time here, tiny little shower but it felt so good. I’ve been sitting here blogging since I got out, listening to some Spanish show. I played Draw Something because I decided I wanted to keep that going, I don’t really think it’s a form of communication, it’s just a game that I like and want to play in my free time before bed. I’m trying not to really communicate with anyone at least until Saturday (July 14^th) to give myself some time to adjust. We go to bed really early because we are both exhausted.