Advertisement
Published: August 23rd 2009
Video Playlist: 1:
24 secs
1 additional video(s) currently being processed 
Photo 1
Catie, Karl, and IThursday night was pretty dull. I walked to the panaderia that is right by our house. It is called Hansel and Gretel. Pan is the word for bread, so Panaderias are where you buy bread and pastries. You can also buy lots of other things such as meat, cheese, and wine. Bread is a main part of every meal and it is not preserved like it is here so most people go to the panaderia every day. Later, I rode with my host mom and her friend to pick up some school papers for Sebastian. We drove for probably 30 or 45 minutes to get there. Then we made copies of the papers, went to a panaderia and then took the papers back and went home. We drove by the university on the way home. When we got home I went on skype and talked to my mom and dad. It was still light out there and it seemed strange because it was very dark here. I also talked to Becca on skype.
Friday I went to work with my host mom at 7:30. We drove around the university. It looks very nice. I went up to her office with her
Photo 2
Adrein, Brenna's host mom and Brenna and waited for my meeting which started was at 8:45. It was nice to see everyone again. Omar talked to us for a while and then we got in a circle, of course. Everyone told about their host families and their experiences so far. We got student planners and our schedules. We don't have any class on Friday! We talked about H1N1. Triana talked with the disease control people and they said that if anyone is sick when it is time to leave, the person has to stay here until they are better. yikes!
When we flew in on Wednesday it was Brad's birthday and also Triana's birthday so she bought a cake to share with everyone on Friday. It was delicious. After all that it was about 11 or 12 and we went on a tour of the campus with a couple students. We got to see the cafeterias, the library, the track :D, and lots of other buildings. There are a lot of stray dogs everywhere in Chile and campus is no exception. We got a lot of stares as we walked around campus. One guy came up and wanted to talk about bible study. It was raining
Photo 3
We love Chile! on and off all day, like usual. I swear it will never end.
At 1:30 Jessica and I left with my host mom to go home and eat lunch. We dropped Jessica off at her house. Nana made us fish, rice, and some vegetable stuff.. like spinach loaf I guess? Before we ate we had salad with this amazing stuff on it, It looked like tuna but less chunky but it was chicken. yum! My host mom and dad went back to work and I took a shower and a nap before my host brothers came home.
At 8 o'clock my host mom drove me to Colon 9000 and I met up with Karl and Trevor. We went to Catie's house to meet her. Triana and Omar were there because they had just moved Adrien to a new house. After we left Catie's we went to Adrien's (There are 7 students who live very close together in Colon 9000). We talked with Adrien's new parents while she finished unpacking and took a shower. The dog at the house was soo cute! It kicks around its tennis ball like its playing soccer and it has to have another ball in its
Photo 4
Karl and Catie mouth at the same time. Adrien's host dad walked us to Brenna's. On the way we stopped at a little store and got cerveza.
We stayed at Brenna's until it was time to go to the discotheque with Brenna's host sister, Alejandra. The discotheques don't open until midnight. We went to one called "Knockout". We took a taxi there. It was a lot of fun. Brenna's mom picked us up at 4. She dropped me off at home. My key wouldn't work in the gate so I had to buzz in. Que Lastima!
I slept until 11. The rest of the family went to Cristobal's soccer games. I wanted to go but I was too tired to get up and go. They came back around 1:30 and we ate empanadas for lunch. There were some with meat and some with cheese. They were very good. Nana doesn't come on the weekends but my parents don't cook much so they buy everything already made. They also said that the house gets very messy on the weekends. haha.
It is still cold here but it didn't rain for once today! Today I got to see the ocean with my host mom and
Photo 5
Catie, Karl and I again my host brother, Cristobal. It was very windy. We walked down the beach. The place we went is close to ships that work on the ocean so you aren't allowed to swim there because the water is very dirty. We stopped at some little stands that were around on the street. Eric, another person from St Cloud was also at the beach with his family. There was a random trampoline on the beach that you could pay to jump on. Also, there was a cow across the road swimming in the swamp, just like back home. I didn't see any fences to keep the cow from going wherever it wanted to though.
On the way to and from the beach we passed the Coca-Cola factory. There were stack and stacks of crates of Coca-Cola drinks. I was surprised they don't keep them in a warehouse. Just inside the fence waiting to be taken to stores. I suppose since it doesn't freeze or snow there, they can do that. On the way back we passed a cemetery. It was really big and it was mostly stone vaults. Most of the graves had flowers on them. I haven't noticed any other cemeteries
Photo 6
Catie, Karl and Trevor so they must all be similar. This one was really big, probably 10 acres? I'm not sure if they bury people in the ground like we do here or if it is more common to put people in family vaults.
On the way back we went through Talcahuano (this is the city next to Concepcion) to see the sea lions. They are much bigger than I expected and they are very ugly. There were a lot on pelicans around, which were also a lot bigger than I expected. They went crazy when they would dump food in the water. There were probably 100 pelicans flying around and 15 or so sea lions. We stopped at a panaderia on the way home.
Marcelas brother was at our house when we got back and so was the repairman that was fixing the bathroom. We had tea around 7:30 and ate cake that Marcela bought at the panaderia. We also had little hot ham and cheese sandwiches. Delicious!
Tomorrow is Sunday. I'm not sure what we are doing tomorrow. I don't know if the family goes to church or not, they haven't said anything. I have class at 11 on Monday. We don't
have class Tuesday or Wednesday because it is a student forum or something. I never have class on Friday so this week I only have class 2 days. Marcela and Jorge were telling me about a little town that is about an hour from here by bus that has nice markets and I would like to go there one of the days that we don't have class. Otherwise, I'm sure there is lots to do and explore in Concepcion.
Note to everyone: In case you were wondering, Hannah Montana has taken over the world. I see Hannah Montana stuff everywhere here and it is all in English, they same things that you would see in the United States. Crazy! Most the shows on t.v. are from the U.S. and a lot of them, especially sports is in English. I guess I expected it to be a lot more distinct. No wonder other countries don't like the U.S., we are everywhere!?
Advertisement
Tot: 0.103s; Tpl: 0.018s; cc: 8; qc: 52; dbt: 0.0495s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
