i live on the 6th floor of an apartment building Viña del Mar in a neighborhood called Agua Santa. it has the most spectacular view in the whole wide world. when it is clear, you can see the ocean and Valparaíso quite easily. my room is spacious and i even have my own bathroom (the first in my whole life!) i absolutely adore my family. i live with a mother, Andrea, (a teacher of students with disabilities), a 23 year old girl ,Paulette, (a student at the design school in Viña), and an 11 year old girl, Camille. we have an older brother who lives with his father in Santiago who is studying law at the University of Santiago (very prestigious). we have a maid/nana (VERY common here) named Faviola. everyone is really nice and accomodating. i am really loving the time i get to spend with them, but it can be EXTREMELY frustrating. i feel like i am not able to express myself a lot of the time and am absolutely exhausted by the end of the day trying to live in a different language. it is different from any class i have ever taken because when i don't know a word...i can't just say: como se dice ____. instead, i try to describe it with hand motions and everything which ends of being even more confusing. i know things will get easier, but right now it is pretty hard. for the most part, i enjoy the challenge. but sometimes i just want to explode.
some things i have learned:
1. raitails are the shit here, as are mullets
2. you are NOBODY if you don't have a fanny pack (called a banano)
3. chilean spanish is not spanish at all. it is its own language. luckily, Paulette and her friends are helping to compile a dictionary of Chilenismos for me so i can start to be able to understand what people are saying.
4. Panaderías smell so freaking good. Paulette can't comprehend the fact that we do not have such a thing.
5. it is rude to call ourselves Americans because Chileans feel that South America is America too. we come from the United States and are norteamericanos.
6. my ass will be nicely sculpted by the end of my 6 months here due to the incredible amount of cerros (hills). although Valpo is worse, Viña has its fair share of cerros.
7. Pablo Neruda had a strange sense of interior design...very poetic i guess you could say. however, his house in Valpo, La Sebastiana, had an incredible view of the city.
8. acensores, giant elevators to help you navigate the tremendous cerros in Valpo, are TONS of fun. they are so steep it is like a mini-roller coaster.
9. don't go through the effort of catching 2 micros (because you missed your stop by 2 stops) to get to the Casa Central in Valpo because chances are, you will get right back in a bus only to be dropped off LITERALLY at the end of your street in Viña. unbelievable.
10. el almuerzo is the most important meal of the day here. it is a little silly because everyone leaves work, school, whatever and travels all the way home just for an hour or so to eat together. it is nice...but sometimes inconvenient.
11. once happens everyday. it is like tea time. i really like it, i wish there was tea time in the US
12. people go out too late here. they start at one place and don't get to the real carretes until like 2am and stay out until 6 or so. it is crazy and my body is having a hard time adjusting.
. Pepes has happy hour until 11pm!
14. Café Journal is super overpriced and has too many extranjeros. Café Juglar is WAY superior. their vino con fruta is the best.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I love that you have once, we have elevenses! Once is a much more concise way of putting it. Kelloggs makes a nutragrain bar here called elevenses, which is actually pretty good.
ReplyDelete