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Published: March 3rd 2008
Hola a todos! Hey everyone!
So I am finally here here in Valparaiso, Chile!! I arrived last monday with a group of 26 students from all over the United States. From Monday until Saturday we all stayed in a small hotel in Vina del Mar, which is the small, touristy, summer vacation city that is right next to Valparaiso. While at the hotel we met our academic directors and a couple professors and sat through hours of orientation material, but not to worry, they made sure to keep it fun and mix it up a bit...plus, they all seem really nice, intelligent, and very well organized. Just yesterday (Saturday), after MUCH anticipation, we all met our host families. These are the people that we will be living with for the next 7 weeks. I absolutely LOVE mine! I live with my 'mom' Aracelli and one of my brothers, Juan Pablo, who is 25 yrs old. My other brother who is 30 was recently married and so has moved out to live with his new wife in another part of the city. I am told also that one set of grandparents and a few aunts, uncles, and cousins all live very close
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She wouldn't let me go, we had to call for the jaws of lifeby so I will probably be meeting them all very soon.
Where we live is very hard to explain because there is almost no where else like it. Valparaiso is a very old, unique port city. The majority of the houses are built on 'cerros', which are like hills or steep cliffs that all lead down to the sea. Right before the water it flattens out a bit and there is where the center of the city is located. Also there are many different 'ascensores' or elevators or lifts that carry people from the center to the top of the cerros. The streets are extremely winding and some are almost vertical they're so steep!! I am always amazed and a bit terrified when i ride with my brother in his car; I have no idea how people can drive around here, especially using standard! Our house is waaaay up high, almost at the very top of one cerro (there are 46 cerros that make up the city, and every cerro is like its own neighborhood, but everthing is so smooshed together, I still have yet to figure out where one cerro ends and the next begins!) Needless to say
the view from my bedroom windown is absolutely BREATHTAKING. I tried to capture the scene in pictures, but that barely do it justice.
Tomorrow we begin classes and the very first thing to do tomorrow is our 30 min-long oral examen in spanish, which will determine which of the 4 levels we will be studying in. In other words, all of us students will be learning the same material concerning Culture, Development, and Social Justice (which is the title and theme of this study abroad program), but those classes aren't until the afternoons. First, we will be split into our 4 levels of spanish classes for 4 hours every morning, minus fridays. My spanish is slowly, but surely coming back to me, but i have to work hard to lose my Argentine accent, because there is a pretty strong rivalry between Argentina and Chile and my family keeps picking on me for it!! haha Also, every morning i have to slather myself with sunblock because someone forgot to mention to me that Chile is located right under the hole in the ozone layer! So 15 minutes in the sun here is the same, if not worse than if you
were somewhere right on the equator!
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Fay
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Thanks
Erika, Thanks for doing this blog. It is neat to see where your at. I am struck with graditude to think where you were last year at this time. Now you are looking out over the Pacific. You go girl. Dad