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Published: February 13th 2009
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Underground..
Creeping around in mines hi everyone! Thanks for checking in on my blog; here's what's up...
This semester I am studying abroad in Chile! I arrived here on February 25 after a long time of just excitedly/anxiously waiting around to go. IFSA-butler, the program I'm using to attend the Univeristy of Valparaiso, collected us from the airport and sent our group of 33 to Olmue, a suburb of the area for our orientation. One of the fun things we did was hike through one of Chile's many national parks. Something that particularly interested me was going into one of the mines; Chile is the world's number one exporter of copper and mining is thus a huge part of the economy here.
My host family picked me up from orientation and brought me to a festive family reunion where I met tons of relatives. That really started off my homestay with a bang. Then they brought me home to Vina del Mar where they live in an area called Recreo which is way up in the hills. The streets go every which way and houses are stacked upon one another with fantastic views overlooking the ocean. Vina del Mar is also called "the garden
Good Morning Chile!
Watching the sun rise from the balcony city" and it is absolutely gorgeous here in the summer (the seasons are reversed because it's below the equator); the town I live in is (relatively speaking) a wealthier, resort place with beautiful beaches and lots of malls and night clubs. While it isn't too enormous, I do a ton of walking here to get into town; however to get to school in the big city (Valparaiso), I take the metro. Valparaiso is one of Chile's larger cities and it is very urban, modern and busy but simultaneously has Latin American charm like flea markets; I'm excited to explore more of it. It is here that one can see traces of Chile's huge problem with income inequality.
I live with a 60 year-old couple who have been hosting foreign exchange students for years. They are very sweet and extremely patient with me. Chilean spanish is particularly difficult for "gringos" to understand because they tend to drop endings of words and use a lot of "chilenismos" (slang), but my parents know to speak slowly to me. That being said, sometimes when the conversation gets going between the family, things start flying over my head and I get lost. If I
can figure out how to master this, by the time I come home, I can only assume I'll be able to handle any sort of Spanish!
Also residing with us is the couple's 30 year-old daughter, and her 4 year-old daughter. On the bottom level of the house is a cousin and her husband, plus their one year old daughter. It can be a lot of commotion, but I've been able to see how important family is to Chileans. Chileans also looooove babies and kids; I've never seen people delight so much over little kids before. There are always at least two or three tots scampering about the house (my host family takes care of other people's kids too). Fortunately, I get a room to myself!
I have no complaints about Chilean cuisine so far; everything has been very good. Meat seems to be incorporated into every meal, with lunch being the most elaborate and emphasized during the day. My family doesn't eat lunch until 3 or so, and then not again until 9 or 10 pm which is diner. It's been hard getting used to the timing but now it only seems natural! We eat tons of bread,
and there is always, without fail, a jar of mayonnaise on the table. Chileans put mayo on everything! We also eat a lot of fruit, because it's so easy to get here.
Classes start this coming week. I'm really excited because I'm directly enrolling into the large university here so my classes (with the exception of one) will be with Chilean students and taught in Spanish. I can only imagine they are going to be hard, especially at first; I'm taking a marketing class and a human resourse management class which wouldn't necessarily be easy for me if I took them back home!
The weather so far has been practically perfect. It's never uncomfortably hot or cold, and the sun usually shines. It's kind of humid (being right by the ocean) and always really breezy. In the morning I get up and go for a run on the boardwalk along the coast; it's fabulous. Even when it's only 60 degrees, the sun is still really powerful. Today we went to the beach and got fried, it was great!
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