Alianza

These are pictures from Sunday afternoon. I can only tell you that we went to a river, a mountain, and a lake. Spanish names are very hard to understand when mixed into Spanish sentences...

Every school in Chile has an "Alianza" every year to celebrate their school's anniversary. For Colegio Ingles, it's this week! We've been meeting everyday after school until about 9 o'clock for the past two weeks to get ready for everything. The school is split into 2 different groups, Alianza Roja and Alianza Blanca. Each group has to prepare sketches, dances, races, games, songs, videos, etc., and pick a King and Queen and it's basically an all out event. Seriously: All out. Tomorrow is the first day of it, beginning with the Presentation of the King and Queen. And somehow, they got me to be a part of the dance for that. So, tomorrow at 8 pm, I will be dancing in front of our entire school and their parents/friends. Boooooo! If I wasn't a clumsy, uncoordinated, SHYSHYSHY girl with stage fright and zero grace, this would be great. However....

And on Friday, I get to be part of a fashion show. I volunteered on this one, but I'm regretting it. It's a fashion show for the 7 Deadly Sins. Guess which one I got stuck with. Glutony! I get to wear a dress made of candy/chip wrappers and walk down the runway eating french fries with a crazed/hungry look on my face. Again, Boooooo.

Also, anyone reading this?

ropa!

I just got back from the centro with my friend Toto. Oh my goodness. I feel sooo overwhelmed. Her mom works at Ripley's which is like the Nordstroms of Chile. Which was good because we got a very nice discount. BUT! I cannot wear Chilean styles. They like extremely tight skinny jeans with zippers and bleach lines and flourescent color shirts and wedge shoes and just generally loud clothes- none of which look good on me. I feel like a weirdo. Anyways, because her mom works there everyone was like throwing clothes at me and telling me which ones were the best and telling me I needed smaller sizes even though they were skin tight. It was ridiculous... But I got a dress and two shirts and a sweater and a pair of jeans. I love the dress and the sweater, because they're my type of dress and sweater. But the shirts are BRIGHT and one has....a zipper. And the jeans. Oh my. They are about as tight as physically possible and dark dark dark blue and stretchy (but stretched to full capacity hence the tightness) and have three little buttons at the bottom. I was obviously talked into buying them and if I ever wear them will feel like a silly white girl trying to be Latino. Overall, a very sucessful shopping experience. I just can't gain any weight.

I did talk to Luis about a bicycle because I really want to go out for like 4 hours every day and just ride around and take pictures. I don't know if he'll let me though because he doesn't think it's safe but he is starting to complain about me not doing anything active. Especially at lunch/dinner because then he can tell me how fatty the foods I'm eating are and then tell me that I'm going to go home and my dad will say "Oh, what a gordita!" And Miriam was talking to him and saying that I needed to find something I liked then I just laughed and muttered "hahaha deportes" and then they made fun of me for being lazy.

Oh, and I feel soooo bad because when I left to go shopping, Miriam was gone picking up Sofia and she said she would be back in half an hour but was gone for like an hour so my friend was getting mad for waiting, so I left Javier at the house. And then when I got home, I was lectured for leaving a nine year old home alone. To my defense, it's the middle of the day and he was only alone for like 10 minutes and the house is gated with two dogs. However, apparently he is very scared of being home alone and Miriam found him in her room with a baseball bat, a phone and a radio, away from all windows and doors.

muy fome

It's the weekend finally, and I'm sooo excited. School is getting to be extremely boring just because I can't understand a lot of what goes on and it's mostly just me sitting in a desk doodling in my notebooks. And it's not just like casual doodling. It's intense doodling...And then when I get home I just sit on my bed and either read, sleep, or doodle. Therefore, I look forward to being with kids outside of school. Verrrry much...Plus, that's when I learn the most Spanish.

Tonight I'm going to a party and tomorrow I'm hopefully going shopping! I have this random urge to buy clothes... Ever since the first day here I've wanted to go to the centro and go shopping, but I haven't been able to. Soooo, tomorrow might be my lucky day!

I really have nothing to write here because as you can see from my busy daily routine, nothing happens on weekdays. I just thought I'd tell you all that. But that isn't to say I'm not having a good time. Because when I actually do stuff, I LOVE CHILE. However, times like these, it's not so special...

Que loca! Un mes?

I've been in Chile for over a month now. It's crazy how fast it's gone, but at the same time it feels like I've been here forever already. I think I've finally become acostomed to all the small things and at this point I don't even feel like I'm in a different country- I feel like I'm in Spanish class all day long. I'm still pretty awful at speaking, but sometimes it comes a little more naturally. The other day we were driving to Rancagua and there was a cow in a field and I looked at it and the first word that came to me was "vaca", not cow. And today a group of Sofia's friends were asking me to speak in English to them and they kept holding up their fingers and asking me to count, and at first I kept saying Spanish numbers instead of English! It was really weird, but it made me feel good to know that at least I was somewhere in the right mindset. It's just hard to stay away from English because all of my friends speak it so fluently and I forget that it's their second language or that I'm trying to learn Spanish. I'm trying not to use English, though!

I went to a birthday party on Monday after school for the girl on the right, Pancha.

18 de septiembre

Friday was the big independence day for Chile. I was a little bummed out because I didn't have anything exciting to do, plus I was sick. I went with Luis and Javier to Rancagua for La Copa Davis which is a tennis tournament. It was against Austria. I felt out of place because the second I saw the players, I instantly hated "Nico" (the Chilean one) and I loved the Austrian one. So, the entire time I cringed when Chile scored and got excited when Austria did. Nico was really full of himself and it annoyed me. But Chile one in the end! However, I didn't know this before going, but there were supposed to be two or three games. The first game lasted four hours and half way through I asked Luis what time we would get home and he told me very casually, "Oh, like two or three". After the first game was over, I went to the car and slept. Tennis is boring after awhile...

On Saturday, Luis's family was over. I really have no idea who was related to who, but there was an aunt and an uncle, two girls that were at the University, and an old woman. I do not know any of their names and barely talked to them. I'm so friendly... We went to a Rodeo, though, and it was sooo cool. Well, kind of. It was cool because of the fact that the people there were wearing traditional Chilean outfits (aka the cape, the boots, the hat) and they were riding horses and their was Chilean music. But it wasn't cool because they were chasing cows around a pit and slamming them into the walls! After that we drove up this big hill that overlooks the entire city. Because it was the 18th, about eight billion people were camped up there and there were booths and tents and cars and people EVERYWHERE. And all the people were flying kits because that's part of the holiday and it was so pretty because it was on these really pretty hills that were green and perfect and there were kites all over and it just looked so happy with all the people. We didn't stop and get out though. That made me saddd.

We went home after that and I got to Skype with Dad, Andrew, and Daniel for like ten minutes. It was really good, but after, for the first time since I've been here, I got homesick. So for the rest of the day, which actually was really fun, I had this awful urge to cry. I think I just didn't like that I was doing this with a new family and I wanted my actual family to be here.

Anyways, we made shish kabobs and had a big barbeque outside and it was really fun because there was classic Chilean music and everyone was happy and we were flying kites and eating bread...Ah, I don't know.

After the barbeque (asado) we were all just hanging out and Sofia was riding her bike around the patio and she kept making us look at her and nobody was paying any attention and then all of the sudden we heard a crash. She had ran into a pipe next to the house and broke it and water was seriously gushing at her like a fire hose and she couldn't move. So one of the cousins helped her but the entire time I could NOT stop laughing! And she was bawling for like an hour.

Later we went to a Fonda in the town which was just a bunch of booths and food and dancing but it was in the sketchy part of town so Luis was super stressed. He gave us like a walking order and was like code talking to Matias to make sure that nothing happened to anyone. It was really annoying. And we didn't stop and look at anything. We just marched in a straight line through the entire thing and I was mad. And the people there weren't even scary. They were happy and minding their own business. I don't like how he takes me places to see Chile but it's only to walk by or quickly see and go. I'm excited for when I can speak more Spanish and go out on my own.

I'm getting a double chin. It makes me very sad. Whenever I take pictures, I always look fat. And I told Matias and now he points it out all the time. And he even asked me the other day if I used to be fat when I was a baby because I have one. And today Sofia made one and then laughed and said "Emily tiene" which means Emily has one. Ahhhh.

estoy enferma!

So, the week I have off of school, I'm sick. UGH! It's been nice though. I slept all yesterday and just relaxed. Actually, more like TRIED to relax. Sofia and Javier were in my room the entire time using my itouch. They were watching videos of people getting scared so it was scream after scream and the volume was up the whole time. Or they would play games (with volume, might I add) and when they beat their high scores they would scream "MIRA! MIRA!" and wake me up. And Sofia likes to pretend she is a cat so she crawls into my bed and purrs in my ear. I do not like having little brothers and sisters.

Luis's mom came to stay with us and she is really nice. She lives in Santiago and is here until Sunday. Friday I'm probably going with Luis and Javier to Rancagua (2 hours north)to watch a professional tennis match. I kind of don't want to go because it's like the big "18 de septiembre" and that just sounds kind of boring... Saturday though we're going to take a train to Concepcion which is close to the ocean. That should be fun. But we have to be at the train station at 7am!

Today was one of my friends birthday so I went to her house and hung out with people. I think my Spanish is improving. I can understand sooooo much more so I don't just sit there and have the most boring time everr.

Ayyyyy

Leave comments, por favor. I feel like no one reads this.





(^Rio Claro)

aburridaaaaaa

Apparently there have been some complaints that I haven't been keeping my blog up. Well boo. It's very difficult to sit down and write out days worth of events to a computer. Especially when I'm tired 24/7. Luckilly, I'm bored... Friday was a half day of sorts because we had a festival/celebration type thing for the 18th. It was really cool. They had an assembly in the gymnasium and it was really pretty and every grade danced or read poems or something chilean. Then afterwards it was like a fair, minus the rides. There was a bunch of food and a stage where people were singing. I ate an empanada again, finally. They are sooooo delicious. They're bread with meat and onions and olives and egg and deilicousness inside.

After school, Matias and Luis and I went carting which was basically like sykart but outside and of course, crappier. It was fun though. Then we went to Luis's soccor game but Matias and I just walked around looking for empanadas, which were no where to be found. I got a completo instead which is code name for hot-dog. They loooove hot-dogs here. Except they put mayonaise, avocado, tomatoes, and nasty stuff on them instead of my beloved ketchup. They all think I'm crazy that I only eat them with ketchup. Saturday we went to Curicó for the day. They were having a festival there for the 18th and it was just a bunch of booths and a stage with dancers. I ate cotton candy (algodon de azucar) and soooo much delicious junk food. Afterwards we went to the mall there and Luis, Matias, Javier and I went bowling! I won because I'm pro. Then we went grocery shopping for like 38453945 hours and didn't get home until like 11:30.

Sunday we went to a barbeque. It was at the house of a boy I go to school with and he didn't say more than "Hola" to me the entire time. It was very lonely. I hung out with Matias the entire time. And it was outside so it was pretty cold. And it was a barbeque so the food was all meat. It gave me a chance to emphasize my disgust for most every type of meat though, so now I'm pretty much excused from it at dinner. SCORE. I think I pulled a muscle in my leg last weekend when we took the spinning class because Matias and I were playing soccer and I kicked the ball and basically wanted to cry. Whenever I run, my leg dies. I'm not sure how this is going to turn out with my new eating habits now that I can't exercise! Ahhh.

So, Today finally! I went to "el centro" with Matthew and Ben, two other exchange students here. Ben has been here for seven months so he's really good at spanish and knows everything. He's from Australia! It was a lot of fun though. We went to McDonalds... And then we walked around for sooo long and then finally met up with a girl he knew here and all of her friends. We walked more and then went to go eat "the best completos en chile" which actually just tasted like any other hot-dog...Then we went to the Rio Claro which they all laughed at because it's really dirty now (claro means clear) and we played table soccer (fusball) for awhile. THENNNNN, I went to my friends house because our entire class was there to work on a project and basically just sat there and played games on my phone. I get bored a lott...

And now, I am going to a barbeque at 10 pm. So random...

una semana...

Well, it's been a week since I last posted anything, and instead of writing all about it, I'm just putting pictures. Some are from when I went to Santiago or the mountains or just to school.

Next week is Fiestas Patrias and we don't have school alllll week. :)

Primer Reunion de Rotary

Tonight we had our first Rotary meeting, which turned out very different than I thought. It was good to talk to the other exchange students. But at dinner, I had such a good time. I sat by these old men and they were the funniest people I've ever met! The entire time they were making jokes and I couldn't stop laughing. When this one guy was making a speech, the guy I was sitting next to (Sr. Felis) took out his cell phone and was going through it and then he set it down on the table. And then the guy across from us took out his phone and dialed Sr. Felis's number and it rang and he went to answer it and then just started laughing, meanwhile there was still a speech going on. So then for about the next fifteen minutes they called random people around the table and every single one of them rang. I could not stop laughing. And then Sr. Felis started taking pictures of everyone around the table with his phone and he would zoom in on them and it was so loud when he took the picture. At the end of the meeting they had to sing their Rotary song and they were singing the Happy Birthday song instead and one of them stood back and cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted the song so loud. Ahhhh. I love funny old Chilean men!

I have no school tomorrow because my grade has to take this test that has something to do with college. So I'm going to go get a cell phone with Miriam and I'm going to lunch with my new friends afterwards. I'm very excited. AND! My first Chilean fiesta tomorrow night!

La Cueca

I am soooo surprised that I haven't gotten sick yet. Not only is Javier sick, and that he insists on sneezing and coughing on my iTouch and Laptop, but they also don't have soap or hot water in most places. And it doesn't stop there! Nothing, besides cake of all things, is put in the fridge. It is so overwhelming to me to walk into the kitchen and see ham laying out in the open when we had it like 4 hours ago and then to eat ham for dinner and know that it is the same ham that was laying out. Thats the same with soup and meat and rice and noodles and fruit and salad. When I eat it, I already know that it has been in "the danger zone" (hahahah) for way too long, and it kind of scares me.... Granted, it could be worse....

On another note, I electrocuted myself the other morning! It was quite the shock, if you know what I mean... :)

I had school again today! I didn't go to first period because they were taking a test, so I went to the library and wrote a letter or two. It made me cry. It's a very good thing I'm not allowed to wear make-up... Today was pretty boring, as far as classes. At the end of the day, all the kids had to do this dance thing because it's the month of September, which is a big deal here. On the 18th, Chile got it's independence from Spain, and they like to celebrate! So anyways, they had to do this dance called "La Cueca" and it was soooo funny to watch! All the girls had on these dresses of bright colors and crazy flowers. They looked like maids. And the boys had to wear these poncho type things and dress shirts and boots and straw hats. They danced to the Chilean National Anthem. It was like this, but with 30 teenage kids!



After school I decided to stay after for Atletismo (Track) and it was pretty easy. Afterall, they don't run very much here! I probably stretched more than I ran! But afterwards, Miriam totally forgot about me and I waited for like 45 minutes until one of my friends offered me a ride home. When we got to the gate, she was getting in her car and she got out and said hi and told me that she was leaving to take Marisol home. And to think I almost didn't take the ride with my friend!