ANYWAY, On A Less Weird Note,

Valparaiso:
ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CITIES I HAVE EVER BEEN TO.

You are right to love it, Mommy.

I was just telling my friend, Mayella, how I loved Chile and would love to visit again but couldnt ever really see myself living here.

Then I went to Valparaiso. I could see myself living there. Not forever. But for a year or two, maybe.

It reminded me a little of San Francisco, but probably that was just the bay, the crowdedness, and the hills (Valpo also has straight-upward streets and sidewalks that are really just stairs).

It's a super poverty-ridden town but, oh my goodness, it's beautiful.

I was only there for one night, and i spent a good amount of time apartment-shopping, apartment-cleaning, and in Viña del Mar (also beautiful. But wayyyy more upper-class. And touristy.) So I didn't get to see as much as I wanted to. But I know I will be going back at least two more times this year. So no worries.

love, Gracie

p.s. Mom, sorry I didn't get that picture you wanted of me on thw beach with all the houses rising above me. I didnt actually get to the beach, and all my pictures were taken from the car. See my excuse above^^ :D But i'll get it eventually.

In his defence, i'm pretty sure it wasn't my host grandpa's idea to put lingerie in the pinata. i

So. Tuesday night I switched families. My new family is really sweet. My favorite things are that I have a bathroom that I don't share with four boys and thus is not incredibly disgusting, I have wifi that is good enough that videos dont take four hours to load and it works all over the house, it doesn't take me an hour and a half to get into town AND my new family eats more vegetables. Nice!

Things I miss: having a yard; having brothers; The fact that the sink is always empty (if theres nothing in the sink it's easy to wash your own dishes! Who knew?); having a practically live-in nanny who washes my clothes so that, if someone else is washing my underwear, at least it's somebody I know...

That last one... Immediately after I moved into my new house, I went with my host mom to Valparaiso for one night to help my host sister move out of her apartment, leaving my half-unpacked suitcases on the floor and my (folded) clothes all over the place. When I came back, the maid (who I haven't met yet) had finished unpacking all of my things, which means she went through all of my stuff including the sexy lingerie I was forcibly given (by well-meaning host aunts) from the pinata at my host-grandpa's 80th birthday party and had since forgotten about...

...awkward...

... I'm still a little shocked that those words made that sentence.. and came out of my mouth...

obviously i have WAAAYYYYY too much time on my hands

This has absolutely nothing to do with being in Chile, at all, but if you'd like to read it anyway, you'd probably be better prepared for the end of the world. Just saying.

It's summer. Minus eating time, I've spent every waking hour of the last two weeks outside.

And now I'm covered in bug/spider bites. Way, way too many to count, and some of them are of the incredibly painful keep-you-up-at-night variety. The weird thing is, they are all symmetrical. For every single bug bite I have on my left side, there's one in the exact same spot on my right side.

Coincidence? I think not.

I have decided that this can be taken as none other than a warning from the insect/arachnid population...

TWO WORDS: INSECT. APOCALYPSE. 

And as if I wasnt already terrified of the approaching doom, I coincidentally happened upon this link today.

ITS NOT THE INSECTS WE NEED TO WORRY ABOUT. ITS THE ZOMBIES. 

Now I'm gonna go hide in a cave.

y prospero año y felizidad

well, christmas was missing most of the things that make christmas so christmas-y (mostly, family) although if i had to spend christmas away from home im glad i was with these people.

but, on the other hand, new years promises to be much more... well, new-years-y than my new years of the past. normally nora and i would spend new years eve at home with a a friend or two over while our parents were out partying. we made a tradition of watching really bad tv and toasting with sparkly juice and whipped cream at midnight. and it was good, because it was our tradition, but it wasnt really exciting.

this year, im doing new years eve up right! everyone i know, and everyone who knows everyone i know, and everyone who knows them, EVERYONE, is going to this huuuge new years party, called amnesia.

i dont really know too much about it... but its supposed to be big, and im excited.

CHRISTMAS

these are the moments that make the christmas season so magical:

-baking and decorating christmas cookies with friends while wearing santa hats and drinking hot chocolate with candy canes in it.
-when it snows in humboldt and even though of course it doesnt stick, you are so excited that it actually snowed that you run outside barefoot and twirl and dance around and try to catch the snowflakes on your tongue and go back inside two minutes later because you are truly a california girl and cannot stand the cold.
-when dad brings the christmas things down from the attic and you get out all of the christmas cds and play them in the old cd player that is ONLY used once a year during christmas, and sing along while you decorate the christmas tree.
-driving around at night looking at christmas lights.
-finding that perfect gift for someone, and being more excited to see their face when they open it then to open your own presents.
-coming up with clever hiding spots for your presents.
-locking yourself upstairs and saying nobody can bother you because you are "on official elf-business"
-waking up at 6:30 in the morning christmas day because you have an internal clock that knows its christmas and wont let you sleep late. and then waking up your sister and getting too worked up to sleep but having to wait two excruciating hours until your parents wake up before you can open presents.
-christmas parties with all your relatives.
-the fact that its cold outside and cozy inside!
-and probably more that i cant think of now.

none of those things happened in my chilean christmas. (except i DID find the perfect christmas present for nora. she just has to wait until june to open it)

this is what did happen:
-went swimming with the whole family christmas eve, as it was 95 degrees outside.
-had a christmas eve bbq with the family and anita.
-watched the santa tracker online. sebastian and domingo got pissed because santa went to argentina, then uruguay, then brazil, then... greenland.
-at midnight went outside to look at the sky, and everybody saw 'it' except me, and i suspect there was really nothing there. 
-ran back inside to find presents everywhere. all over the house.
-opened presents. i wasnt expecting any, and started crying, because i got just as much as all the other brothers.
-went home and i skyped my family, and they skyped emilio.
-woke up LATE christmas morning (..so much for my awesome internal clock).

then i spent the morning playing electronic monopoly (courtesy of santa claus) with all the brothers and four cousins. later the whole family came over for a christmas bbq, and we had barbequed chicken for lunch. and then i watched everyone exchange presents, and then we had a white elephant, where i was SO close to getting one of those portable coffee mugs that looks like a paper starbucks cup or whatever ( but not from starbucks) but ended up getting a mickey mouse t-shirt. oh, the irony. 
and then i skyped with my family.
and now i'm watching twenty chilean 'cousins' play soccer, 

its nice and im having fun. but it doesnt feel like christmas at all.

happy holidays...

Some Christmas Eve Stories (Which didnt actually happen on christmas eve)

(yes i realize its christmas day. but i did write this yesterday, i swear)

its christmas eve today, and im not really homesick, i know this because on thanksgiving i WAS homesick and im not even close to as depressed as i was then... and im actually having a really good night: we went swimming this evening, all of us in the pool at 8 o clock at night, and now we are having a bbq in the new house, the first meal ever here (theres not even windows yet, so its a little picnic-y), and im happy right now, i really am...
but i just miss you all so darn much right now...
i was telling claudia how right now  mom and dad and nora are decorating our christmas tree and then i started thinking about my skeeziks ornament and how nora is missing her own gingerbread man, and now im blinking away tears. it doesnt help that michael buble's "all i want for christmas is you" is playing, and while it shows how awesome that guy is, that he can make even christmas music enjoyable, its a little sad and not helping the matter.

it really is weird though, this feeling, because impossibly enough, im sad and happy all in one. its just... weird.

anyway, to cheer myself up, im gonna tell you all funny stories. im sorry if i repeat things that i've already told you. its not on purpose.

alrighty, here goes:

story numero uno: i was eating dinner with my brothers, and it happened to be sopa (soup). i took a huuuge bite of it, not realizing it had just come off of the stove. a huge burning bite of soup. now, if i was at home, i would just spit it back out, but, of course, i wasnt at home, and i didnt want anyone to think americans are any more disgusting than they already do. so i (very painfully) swallowed it, and ended up choking really badly, it took me a full five mintues (at least) to recover. while my brothers are staring wide-eyed at me, wondering what the heck is wrong with the crazy american. and not even two seconds after i regained my composure, franco takes a huge bite of the still-burning-hot sopa, and just spits it back out into his bowl. yeah.

story numero two: i was in the computer lab at school, writing in my blog, and decided to look at my blog's "stats" (my blog has had views from russians! i dont know any russians! how cool is that?). anyway, it showed the ways people reached my blog, you know, google searching 'graciegoestochile' or going straight to the website or... google searching 'horse sex'... WAIT, WHAT? so then, of course i had to google search it myself. and two things happened. first, i found   out that my blog is the THIRD website that comes up when you type 'horse sex' into google... right after two wikipedia pages. try it... but not at work. because the second thing that happened was a classmate walked by, and of course it just HAPPENED to be one of the few who speak english, and he says to me "you know grace, animal porn isnt really school-appropriate" and then tells the whole class that i was looking at animal porn. and then i had to explain myself with my limited spanish, while my friend AND my english teacher just about died laughing at me. lesson: never ever google search anything sex relaed in school or work even if you have a COMPLETELY innocent reason for it. 

story number tres: being blond and foreign-looking, us exchange students get a LOT of attention in public places. its not unusual to get stares, and by now we can tell when people are talking about us. people often shout things like "hello" "how are you?" "where are you from?" and "will you marry me?" in english and/or spanish, and we also get things like "sexy" or "you are making me excited" in spanish when we are in not-so-nice parts of town. catcalls and waves are a daily routine, and when we are safe (in broad daylight in public places and not by ourselves), usually we'll wave back (which absolutely FREAKS out chileans: "GRACE! YOU ARE GONNA GET RAPED!" no, i'm not.) anyway, one day taylor and i were eating lunch together in a cheap, scuzzy restaurant (we later both ended up with food poisoning, but not badly, and, at the time, the food was delicious) and we noticed that the three men behind us were talking about us, or, more specifically, trying to get up the courage to come talk to us. in fact, they were practicing their limited english on the waiter. taylor and i were not at all in a social mood (i know, we werent exactly being great exchange students, but you cant always be perfect) so we decided that if they started talking english to us, we were gonna pretend to be german (sometimes its annoying how people ALWAYS assume(know) we are americans). so they came up to us, and we launched into a rapid conversation in "german" using all the german words the two of us knew. it went like this:
"my name is grace"
"im 17 years old"
"i love you"
"im going to cheat on my boyfriend"
"thanks, and you?"
"i have squinty eyes"
and then, when we used up our "german" knowledge, we began speaking in pig latin with a strong german accent. and it worked! because the men reached our table, paused, gave us a WEIRD look (because obviously they had heard us speaking english earlier) and walked away. and then, the waiter who they'd been practicing comes up and says "where are you from?" "alemania (germany)" "oh, cool, i speak a little german, i lived there for a year." taylor and i: "oh, sheisse."

well... i had other funny stories, but its present opening time, so vamos!

feliz navidad!

vacation!!!

school's officially out for the summer! friday was my last day of school, although i didnt actually go... on accident. i spent thursday night at taylor's house and accidentally slept in way too late... i ended up arriving at school two minutes before it was over. oops.

after saying goodbye to all my classmates, i went home for lunch, and then i took the bus into talca for the first time by myself which was a pretty big deal. when i go with franco, he always switches buses halfway there. being a broke exchange student, i decided not to do that, because the second bus would cost me another dollar, and the bus i was on said it was going to talca too, so eventually i'd get there, right? the bus started going to the industrial part of town, and i started second guessing myself. i was afraid the bus would go farther into the country and awayfrom the center, where i needed to go. so i got off the bus, even though i didnt know where exactly i was. and immediately after i got off the bus, it turned and started going to the center. shoot. so i was stuck in the industrial part of town, (aka the sketchy, ghetto part of town) not knowing where i was. i started walking towards the center, and all the construction workers and car repair men were whistling and catcalling at me and at one point one followed me for a few blocks, and it was absolutely terrifying. but i wasnt as far away as i had originally thought, and after awhile i recognized where i was, so it was alright in the end.

then i met up with taylor, and we took the bus to johanna's house in the country for her 18th birthday party. her dad picked us and kelly up from the bus terminal, but there were four of us and only two seats in the front of the car, so taylor and i had to sit in the back/trunk of the truck, which had no windows and was pitch black and it felt like we were being willingly kidnapped. so that was an adventure.

at johanna's birthday party, she wanted to go swimming because her birthday is in december, and normally its freezing.

so all four of us exchange students immediately stripped to our swimsuits and jumped in, even though it wasnt that hot that day and kinda foggy.

and then we laughed because all of the exchange students were swimming in the cold pool with just our bikinis on and our extra exchange-student-fat (its not a myth, everyone gains weight on exchange), while meanwhile all the chileans were sitting fully clothed at the tables with their perfect chilean bodies (all chileans are absurdly skinny).  it was ironic. but we had fun.

after the party ended, taylor and kelly and i were going to taylors house to bake for a bakesale we were gonna have the next day. we were on the bus from johannas house, and right as we decided that we should go to the distribution center to get cheaper desert ingridients, i go "oh this is the stop" and kelly and taylor were like "are you positive?" but we got off and i led them the three blocks straight to the distribution center, even though i had only been there once before, coming from the opposite direction. it was completely awesome and totally made up for getting lost the day before.

and then we spent the rest of the night cooking and skyping with friends from home, and ended up not going to bed until 5 in the morning.

and then we had our lemonade stand/bakesale, but it was kind of a failure, especially since all of our american deserts had pretty much.. well, lets just say every one of them tasted horrible.

we did, however get to talk to a lot of people, including one man who paid two dollars for a cup of water to dump on his head, took a picture with us, and then asked us to watch porn with him. and then when we declined, he took away the two dollars, gave us 25 cents, and left. all to the extreme amusement of the thirty thirteen-year-old girls holding a justin beiber fan club meeting on the other side of the fountain.

taylor and i even went around holding brownies and a sign that said gringas while shouting "comida de los estados unidos; 500 pesos" which got the whole plaza laughing at us, but didnt really get anyone to buy anything. 

we did discover, however, that next time we could have a lemonade stand with no deserts or a camera and a sign that said "take a photo with a gringa!" and we could probably make money from that.

after that, i took the bus from talca to pelarco for the first time, which was super scary because its a little more difficult than taking the bus the other way: instead of just waiting at the bus stop in front of my house i actually had to go to te bus terminal and ask somebody which bus to get on, and i kept worrying that i was on the wrong bus. but everything went okay, and i sucessfully told the bus driver to stop where i needed him to (the buses here dont have 'stops' they have 'routes'. they wont stop at a bus stop unless someone on the bus asks to get off/pushes the button or someone on the street waves them down. so you have to be kinda assertive. the other difference about buses here is that if you are on a long trip, the buses will provide you with food, and if you are on a short trip, there might be people selling food or playing music for tips.)

then, yesterday, claudia and i went to have lunch at the paseo of max's class, which is like an end of the year pool party, and the class spent the weekend camping at a villa in the country (which actually was close to my house) and all the parents and siblings went to have lunch on the last day. its funny, because i went and all of max's classmates were like "hi grace! how have you been?" and i was like "umm, i actually dont know any of you". but i hung out with the girls from max's class and it was nice because they were really sweet and they reminded me of nora and her friends because they were the same age. so it was good. 

and.. thats how my summer break began! 

theres one week left until christmas, which is weird... 
my family is doing a gift exchange with all the cousins, and so i just have to buy one gift for either a girl or a boy, and after stressing out about what to get, i decided to buy a pan and cook brownies in it the night before. or chocolate chip cookies maybe. i think it will go over well.

and then, three days after christmas, i switch host families! and my new family is taking me to valapariso right away to visit my new host sister who's in unibersity there. so i'm excited!

well, thats all for now! chaoo

Long Weeeeeeekendddddddd

this weekend was a little crazy. we had four days off of school, making it a six day weekend. thursday and friday were holidays for day of the virgen, and i have no clue why today (monday) and tomorrow are holidays, but they are. not complaining. wednesday night i spent the night at taylors house, and thursday we called up a bunch of friends and hung out at the plaza. it ended up being me, taylor, kelly, my friend pancho, and taylor's friend felipe, although robin and johanna came for a little while and my friends alvaro and jota came for little while too. so taylor and i were pretty proud of ourselves for hanging out with a lot of chileans, because sometimes thats hard to do. and we had a really good time and were able to converse mostly in spanish so it was all good. 

friday i spent at home in a lazy day. i went swimming for awhile, went on a walk, and wen it got cooler went for a run. and just hung out in the sun a lot. saturday i was supposed to go to an end-of-year celebation of my class, but, my classmates told me that it was at the house of Nacha, which i assumed meant her house... they didnt give me the detail that it was at her LAKE house, two hours away... so i couldnt get there. but it was alright. instead taylor came over, and we cooked brownies for my brothers, swam, and then watched scary movies with my brothers in the guest house. and then she stayed the night the next night too, and we did pretty much the same thing only franco had a friend over so we hung out with the two of them too. oh, and, after a lot of experimenting, we were finally able to make eggs CLOSE to the way her host dad makes them, and toast CLOSE to the way my nana makes them. they were delicious and almost as good as the real thing :)

and then today, the four of us (franco, felipe, taylor and me) took a collectivo into talca and taylor and i went shopping and hung out  and now im here sitting at the mall waiting for claudia to pick me up and writing this for my blog. so. 

oh, also, just now i took a collectivo for the first time ever by myself! because i was at the plaza and claudia wanted to pick me up at the mall. (although im not sure why, its been twenty minutes since she was supposed to pick me up, i might as well have just stayed at the plaza. oh well. chileans are always late). but anyway, i was very proud of myself. 

what else do i need to say..? my dad says everybody wants to know about random things like food, and that i should write about those boring (to me) things when i have time... so, here we go

food: for the most part, i eat similar things here as i did in the united states. what i mean by that is, we eat the same meals (fir example, spaghetti, chicken and rice, tuna noodle casserole, meatloaf, fish, soup, etc.) BUT, it tastes different. its a little blander, and, in my opinion, not as good as food in the U.S. (although i like chicken a lot more here, so there are afew exceptions). then, there's traditional chilean food. this includes completos (hot dogs, i've mentioned them before. delicious!),  carne (and A LOT of it), papas (fried bread with cheese  or carne/veggies inside... kind of), empanadas ( i think you know what those are. they are better in chile), choriso and choripan (sausage and sausage in bread), sopaipilla (a fried bread thing), churascos (another bread thing. the only churasco i've tried was not that good, but everyone else said that they have had good ones before, so i dont know) and.... i cant think of anything else. everyday for breakfast, i eat toast with butter and hot chocolate. lunch is the food mentioned above, and so is dinner, but we dont always eat dinner, sometimes you just have once (onsay? i dont know how its spelled.) instead, which is like supper, and consists of toast with butter and cold chocolate milk.  
to drink you have juice (usually from a powder and not to exciting, but when chileans do make real juice, itsthe best thing in the world. i've had raspberry juice and kiwi juice that was to die for) or soda (coca cola or fanta or chilean soda, pap) or water. i've never had any milk that wasnt chocolate milk. 

Okay, well, time to go. Hopefully you found that interesting. :)

summer

dear blog
i have absolutely no desire to write in you today. i didnt want to write in you yesterday either, or the day before, and i dont suppose i will want to upate you tomorrow either.

its too hot to do ANYTHING other than swim in the pool, or lay in the sun in my swimsuit. 

blogging doesnt seem to fall into either of those catagories...

...but, i suppose i should blog anyway, because you all are probably anxious, and otherwise i might forget things...

Anyway, saturday i went to a really fun party with Mayella and Taylor, one with a real band and everything, and then the three of us slept over at mayella's house (which, by the way, i found out yesterday that it will be my new house on the 28th. eep! but more on that later). 

i havent been doing much else lately besides swimming pooling and hanging out in the sun, as stated earlier, so i dont have much else to update you on.

right now im on my way to a end of school festival in which i am dancing withe the rest of my class to elvis presley. max is doing michael jackson with his class. im super excited for this!

this morning we had mass in school, and i read aloud one of the psalm-thingies! in front of the whole school! my friends said i had a bad american accent, but my english teacher and everyone else was super proud of me and said i did really good. yesterday i was copying down the passage so i could practice reading it later, and some of my classmates ewere like "what? you're reading that? but you cant read spanish" and then i read it for them, and they were supee surprised. oh, she CAN read spanish. yeah, thats right. haha. it was a good moment.

today is the day of the virgen and there is a big traditional celebration where practically every man in the city and a few girls too dress traditional chileno and ride horses up to a point in the mountains where the virgen is supposed to appear. franco participated, and i was supposed to until i realized it was the same day as the aforementioned school festival. i was glad i had already committed to the festival, my decision was made for me, otherwise i'd have had to choose one activity or the other and that wouldve been hard. i did get to see a little bit of the procession and get my picture taken on a horse, so that was cool. it was crazy, the horses were going down the main road out of the city, and there were horses as far up the road as you could see, there were so many of them. it was impressive.

i found out who my new family is! i've stayed the night at their house a few times and so i know them a little already and i know what my room is like and which collectivos to take and all that good stuff. and they are super nice. im gonna miss my family, especially seba and domingo and anita, my nanny, but there are a lot of things i cant do because of my location, and with my new family, those problems will be solved! yay! so im pretty excited for the move. 

thats about it. sorry for the lack of apostrophes and capitalization, i wrote this on my ipod on the way to the festival tonight.

Love, Gracie

PATAGONIA; EL FIN DEL MUNDO

Patagonia…
One week spent forming incredible lifelong friendships, learning new things, meeting new people, conversing with strangers in a foreign language, adventuring, exploring, and making mischief, all in one of the most beautiful places in the entire world. It was an experience I will never ever forget; the experience of a lifetime. I am so blessed.

Thank you Rotary, my family, and everyone else who made this possible for me.

Day 1:
The six of us arrived at the terminal de buses at 5:45pm, said goodbye to our families, and begun our adventure. It was a three hour drive to Santiago, unexpectedly extended by 25 minutes because of a flat tire. I think it might've been the best time I have ever spent on a bus; the six of us became really close in those three and a half hours. We g
Arrived at the Santiago airport around 10, and spent the three hours before our flight left tiredly re-meeting all the other exchange students. Kelly and I did happen to find the one open dunkin doughnuts in the whole building, and nearly died of happiness.

Day 2: slept on the airplane, then spent the rest of the day on the bus, sleeping on and off and enjoying the scenery. We stopped a few times to take pictures. We arrived at the Refugio that evening, and as soon as we figured out our rooms, we all took naps. Brigid, Kelly and I woke up and decided to explore, and ended up being chased off of a mountain by a VERY ANGRY wild horse who apParently did not like the idea of foreigners looking at his glacial mountain stream. We ate dinner at the Refugio, and it was some of the best food I have ever eaten.

Day 3: we woke up early, ate the best oatmeal I have ever had, and got ready for our 18 km day hike up to the Torres del Paine. After walking for about 30 minutes, someone realized that Alex from Germany was missing (because our three counselors, as amazing as they were, were not good with headcounts). So Taylor, Zach from Kansas, and Mathieu from France volunteered to go back and search for him. Personally, I was hoping that he was ABOUT to be attacked by a puma so that I could go fight it off, but it turns out he had decided to go on a walk after breakfast and we had left without him. It was nice though, just walking with the five of us and not all 42, an it turns out our rescue group BOOKED IT up the mountain, because, even though we were an hour behind everyone else, we got the the halfway point five minutes after everyone else did. So we felt pretty proud of ourselves. And to make it even better, our counselor, Ernesto, told Alex that he had to buy us all a beer when we got to Puente Arenas for our trouble. :) We got to the base of the Torres, ate lunch, took pictures, watched a few crazy boys strip and swim in the lake, and then hiked the rest of the way back down.

Day 4: got up, packed our backpacks, and hiked 11 km to the next Refugio. We stayed right on the lake, and it was super pretty, it wa probably my favorite campsite. When we arrived it was raining and we had to set up our tents in the rain. It rained all night and was freezing cold, but thankfully it was the only night I had to sleep in a tent.

Day 5: a day hike was planned, but the weather was pretty bad, everyone had blisters or other pains, and the only two trails were the one we ame in on and the one we were gonna leave on, so we just stayed in instead. Kelly and Casey and I learned Tai Chi from Arturo, our counselor, and we did Tai Chi by the side of the lake. It was super peaceful. Then I hung out with Taylor and Constantin from Germany in the counselor's room which was awesome (it had three-story bunkbeds and was super cozy and cabin-y) and we had a massage exchange and then a dance party. And then about half of the exchange students stripped to their underwear and swam in the icy lake, and I'm glad I didn't do that but it was fun watching them.

Day 6: thanksgiving! We hiked 13 km to the last Refugio, and it was probably the prettiest hike and also the flatest, which was a godsend, because I had four terrible huge painful blisters which I am still recovering from now. While on the trail, I met a man from Orange County who was studying at HSU, and even though I didn't get to talk to him from very long, it was still super exciting. We ate lunch at the Refugio, and it was pretty bad (but the food at every other Refugio was delicious, so I can't complain too much). Then we spent the rest of the day just hanging out.

Day 7: we were supposed to go on a day hike to see a glacier, which would've been amazing, but it was raining hard and there were 70 mph winds, so that plan was cancelled. Instead our counselors gave us the whole day to make up a skit which would be performed before dinner. My group came up with a skit entitled "the true story of where Alex was" or "la verdad historia de donde estan Alex" which entitled the five other group members hiking and complaining about the weight of their backpacks and commenting on the views and wondering where Alex is, and at the end of the skit, they turn around, and I am riding in Santiago's backpack carrying a sign that says "hi, my name is Alex". Alex found it hilarious. And yes, apparently I AM small enough to fit in a hiking backpack. Who knew. Afterwards, we got a talk from some rangers, ate dinner, and then about a dozen of us braved the wind and rain to climb the mountain that was right next to the Refugio. We pretty much had to scramble up on our hands and feet, and I nearly got blown off anyway. Taylor, Constantin, and I stayed long enough to take some pictures with flags and then got the heck outta there.

Day 8: we got up and took the boat across the lake, and then took the bus back to Puente Arenas. We had an hour to walk around the city, so Taylor, Mayella, Kelly and I walked to the plaza and bought alpaca sweaters. Then we accidentally found this pub that had a secret entrance under a building we were taking pictures of, so we took pictures with the waiters. Then we went to dinner with everyone else. Then we hung out in the hotel and I got to use the wifi to skype my parents.

Day 9: we had a bus tour of Puente Arenas and visited the cemetery which was super cool because Chilean cemetaries are NOT like American ones. They are super colorful and each grave has a little garden with lots of flowers and some of them are so crazy looking they look like advertisements for a circus. Many of them have little window boxes with pictures of people who died. It was really interesting. It was also cool because only about half of the tombstones were written in Spanish; there was a lot of English and German and Croatian. We had lunch together an then had a free afternoon. A dozen of us decided to take a collectivo to the Zona de Franca, the tax free zone, which didn't end up being that exciting because it was Sunday and most of the stores were closed. But it was fun anyway 'cause we crammed a ton of people into one collectivo and had interesting discussions with the taxi drivers. And a few of us bought Austral (the most southern region of chile) flags and later got everyone to sign them. Then we walked around for awhile, watched firefighters in a relay race on the plaza, and then Kelly, Taylor, Zach, Alex, and I broke off from the rest of the group because we wanted churros, and we couldn't find any open because it was Sunday, but we did run into Brigid and Olivia and Briana, so the eight of us found a pub to eat dinner at. We watched soccer and throughly confused the waitress with our complicated sandwich orders, but it was delicious and the waitress was really nice, and we ha a lot of fun. Then we met everyone back up at the hotel and got our backpacks and took the bus to the airport. We got back to Santiago around 3 in the morning and there were a lot of sad goodbyes.

Day 10: the six of us Talcans went to Alex's house where we had breakfast and slept for an hour, and then Arturo and Ernesto took us to the bus terminal where we took the 6 o clock bus back to Talca. I got home around 10 am, fell immediately asleep and woke up at 7pm, only because the boys got home and were loud, of course.

Day 11: I slept in long, uploaded my pictures to facebook, got pissed at the computer, and am now lying in the grass in the sun listening to Calle 13 and writing in my blog. And it is nice!

Tomorrow back at school!

Mountains and Aniversario and Rodeos and some other things

So, the mountains. Pretty much we didn't do much except hang around in the sun and talk, although all day Sunday we went to the carrera, the horse races, which was really exciting and fun, especially because Cami's horse raced and so did Roberto's horse, Banana. Banana won and Roberto made $30 betting on him, which he promptly lost half of betting on Cami's horse. Oh, and there was this beautiful horse called Don Simón, and normally I can barely tell one horse apart from another, but this horse was really the prettiest horse I have ever seen. And he was huuuugge! He raced the last race of the day, against this horse who was also gigantic (but less beautiful) and half of the audience said Don Simón won and the other half thought it was a tie, and I still don't know what the actual outcome was, but it was awesome to watch.
The other especially cool thing we did was visit the compound where all the goats are kept, and there was like a hundred of them, and about half were tiny tiny baby goats. And we found one that didn't have a mother, so it would come right up to us and try to suck our fingers. It was really cute. And none of the other mommy goats would let it have their milk, so Roberto started tackling them and holding them down so the baby goat could feed, and it was adorable and really funny too.

The other things we did were celebrate Cami's dad's birthday, walk around the mountains, play soccer, and just hang out. It was really really hot, so we were really really lazy. But it was fun! 

And Cami's family was super nice and they invited me to come with them again sometime and also to go to the beach with them this summer, and actually, they invited me to live with them, and I kinda wish I could but of course Rotary would say no. Not that I don't like my current family, because I do, but we just live so far away!

Then, last week was Aniversario, the anniversary of my school, which is pretty much like homecoming week. 
There's activities all week long and the school is divided up into two alliances, red and white (villains and heroes) and whoever gets the most points from the activities and such wins. There were races, soccer, basketball, volleyball, dances, mission impossibles, and beauty pagent-ish competitions. And some thee things that are harder to explain. I'm pretty sure my team (villains) lost but I'm not exactly positive because different people have been telling me different things so who knows. 

It was pretty fun, except that watching the teams play basketball was like torture. When you watch Chileans play soccer it's like "oh my god, these guys could be pros" and you just sit there kinda dumbfounded at how amazing they are. It's impressive. And then, you watch them play basketball... And you are a little embarrassed.. In their defense, they weren't playing on actual teams that had practiced together before or anything, and the high school boys team was actually decent (decent!) but the other three teams (high school girls, middle school boys, and middle school girls) well, it was hard to watch. especially the middle school girls, who went around like "oops, I dropped the ball and the other team grabbed it, oh well". It made me mad.

What else? Yesterday my family took me to the rodeo. It was quite an experience. What happens is two men on horses (there was only one woman in the whole rodeo, but i was excited to see even one) chase around a cow in a circle, until it gets really scared and crazy, and then they let it out into a bigger circle, in which they have to heard it to a section of the wall and then slam it up against the wall. You get points for doing it really fast and for slamming the cow the right way, and lose points if you go past the wall without slamming the cow or if you lose control of the cow. And if you can make yourself stop feeling sorry for the cow, it's actually kind of fun to watch. I was excited, because I was able to understand most of what the announcer said, so I could actually figure out what was going on. 

I'm sorry that I haven't been posting so much lately. The internet at my house has been terrible, and I haven't had any internet at all the past few days.

Dinner Table Manners

Today I was eating dinner with your host family, and I take a huge bite of burning hot soup, like, kill-a-persom hot,  but instead of just spitting it out like I would have at home, I forced myself to swallow it because I dont want my host family to think Americans are any more disgusting then they probably already do. So I ended up not only burning my mouth and throat but also choking so badly that Emilio had to give me the heimlich manuever. And not even two minutes later, Franco took a bite of burning hot soup and just spit it out. All over my face.

 Now go ahead and laugh. I know you want to.

Bipolar exchange students

Exchange students are very bipolar creatures. I am constantly going from normal happy to incredibly happy to extremely sad or grumpy (but mostly I'm normal happy, just so you know). Like today for instance. I was a little grumpy because I got in trouble with rotary (not badly, but apparently I sleep too much in class. Which is probably true. They weren't really mad, but I felt bad) and then, I was incredibly happy because I had five emails from you all back home, and then I was upset because it was raining super hard (partly because I always thought rain is a little saddening, and partly because Chilean houses do NOT have legitimate heating. By which I mean the heater is the stove) and then I was thrilled because we were having lentils for dinner and keke (pretty much a mix between yellow cake and cornbread) for desert, and I love both of those things so much, and then I was sad because apparently not only does rain mean cold, it also means that us country folks have absolutely no power, and then I was happy again, because the lentils were extra delicious, and then I was super excited because I understood a whole conversation in Spanish. And all of that happened in about two hours.

And right now, I'm happy that the powers back on, but mostly this terrible weather is making me kinda depressed. So I'll tell you all about the mountains when the rain goes away.

Photos

So. Some of you may know that I spent the whole weekend in the mountains with my friend, Cami. Actually, you probably don't know that, because I didn't metnion it, I don't think. And I'll tell you all about it, but first, I just need to rant a bit. Because flickr is muy muy muy estupido!! So stupid. I tried to be a very awesome blogger, and upload the bajillion photos that I took this weekend (seriously, I think there were like 200 of them or something, so much in fact, that I only have photos from Saturday, because after that, I completely wore out my camera battery, and of course, I remembered my charger, but, the one thing that I forgot was my Chile-U.S.A converter. So sorry about that). Anyway, I tried to upload the pictures to flickr, and it was like "You are exceeding your monthly limit. Get rid of half of the pictures, or pay for a premium account." and I was like "WHAT THE HELL??!! The pictures I took in one day are all I can post for the rest of the month??!!!!"

So, that's a problem. My short term solution is that I posted my favorite pictures to facebook, so you can look at them there (and if you aren't friends with me, if you read my blog AND I actually know you, you might as well be friends with me) and I will think of a longterm solution when I have more time to fiddle with things (I only have 30 minutes of computer on weekdays, because I got in trouble for using the computer too much). If anyone knows of a good picture sharing website, let me know.

Anyway, I spent the whole weekend with my friend Camila and her family at her home in the mountains. It was really really fun and super super hot weather. And.. I think I have to tell you more about it later, because my computer time was up.. about 10 minutes ago. Ooops.

Sorry! Love to you all!

How to make friends

Bring a jar of nutella to school, and everybody will magically become your best friend (except Francisco, who will hate you forever and not talk to you for the whole rest of the day). But Especially if you happen to be in a country (like Chile, for instance--imagine that) where half the population has never tried nutella. Poof, magic friends.

I could make an infomercial for nutella, I think. 

Oh that's something else! South American infomercials are even funnier/worse than infomercials in the U.S! I couldn't believe it, but it's true... They have me on the ground laughing at how bad they are.

Speaking of tv, today I watched 'one tree hill' for the first time in my life, because it was the only thing on tv that was in English with Spanish subtitles, as opposed to solo in Spanish, which of course I don't understand. I didn't understand MUCH of what happened in it, because I only saw the second half of the episode, and I'm not exactly sure WHAT the show is about, or why it's called one tree hill. But, this is what I thought: One, the boys weren't especially hot, but the girls all looked like movie stars. This is not realistic, and someone needs to fix it. Two, NOTHING happened that wasn't either sad or happily sad, and sad music played throughout the WHOLE episode. It was waayyyyy depressing. Three, not once did I ever see a tree on a hill. Four, all the parents look way way way to young to have kids that old. Unless there's a storyline I don't know about where every parent in the whole cast of characters got knocked up at sixteen.... Wait, maybe that happened. Yes, that's probably what's up. 

And you just witnessed my how my train of thought goes... On a good day. Usually it's a LOT more random than that, seeing as I'm normally scatterbrained and then add the fact that I'm trying to speak a new language and that I don't understand ANYTHING around me, and I make absolutely no sense at all. But that's okay.

Love Gracie <3

homesick

So, yesterday, for the first time since I've been in Chile, I was extremely homesick. I literally FELT sick, and I thought I was gonna die. But, even still, I didn't really want to go home... I just wanted my mommy :)

I think it mostly stemmed from the fact that one, I did absolutely nothing on Halloween, while all my friends from home (all you people) were out trick-or-treating and haunted housing, etc. And then I did absolutely nothing yesterday (no school) so I just had lots of time to think about how sad I was. And, two,  I started talking with other exchangers about how sad we collectively were, and all the things that bothered us about our families (usually I love my family to death, but when you are homesick, everything feels terrible), and while it was comforting to know I wasn't alone, it made my homesickness worse.

BUT, TODAY IS A NEW DAY.
It's the second day of November! Which means I have been in Chile for two months! And, I have a jar of nutella (which is making me extremely popular at school, I've had it open for five minutes and it's halfway gone) and it's sunny and I feel so much better.

So yeah. That's all. Besos y abrazos to you all, and extra special besos y abrazos to my lovely mother for being her awesome mommy self.
Love, Gracie

HEY, LOOK!

PHOTOS!!! RIGHT HERE! ^^^^
CLICK ON THE LINK AND LOOK AT THEM!!!

And here's where I left off...

So, again, summary of the last few days for you:

Thursday, Rotary meeting. Of course I happened to be incredibly sick, and so it wasn't fun for me at all. Then I spent the night at Eduardo's house.

Friday, I went to school and then went home for lunch at Eduardo's. After a really long and much needed nap, Carolina took me to the river, where we walked around, played foosball, ate churros (my favorite!) and I tried  mote con huesillos, which is a typical Chilean drink that consists of syrupy water with corn and dried peaches in it.
Then the two of us went home and made empanadas for dinner, which were delicious. And then, we took Robin and Taylor and some of Carolina's friends to a 'club'. But we couldn't go to a real club, because none of us foreign kids were 18/had a fake I.D., so we went to this sketchy place where we knew they wouldn't card us. It was... interesting. There was a lot of drinking, a lot of drugs, some really cool rapping, and some not-as-cool fire breathing (which mixed with the drinking and drugs was incredibly terrifying). But it was an experience.

Saturday I went to my abuelo's 80th birthday party. It lasted from 1pm to midnight, and was really tiring.

Sunday I hung out with Robin, and I bought myself a really nice camera, and as soon as I have a free moment, I will upload some pictures. Then we went to Mayella (from Holland)'s birthday. Taylor and I stayed the night at her house, and we didn't fall asleep until 7 in the morning. It was really nice to be at a slumber party and be able just to talk, you know? To be able to understand people is so nice.

Today is Halloween!! I slept until noon, came home for lunch and am now waiting very impatiently for Emilio to wake up, so that Claudia can ask him if I can get a ride into Talca, to spend the night at Taylor's. We decided we are either gonna try to go trick-or-treating or find a Halloween party to go to, because it wouldn't feel right if we didn't do anything...

So, yeah. I'm going to try really hard to be better at updating my blog, I think the posts are way more interesting when I only have a few things to write about, not a few days. I think that I'm getting way more used to Chilean life, I'm becoming busier and things are becomming more routine and less novelty. So it's a little harder to write about.

Anyway, I'm gonna mess around with my camera and figure out the best way to get these darn photos up. I'll let you know.

Love and hugs!
Gracie

yes, I have an excuse

GUYS!!! I'M SORRY!!

I've been a deadly combination of sick, tired and busy this past week, and I have either had no time to write or was just way too out of it to do anything that requires thinking.
These last few days, I have been starting posts and but not having enough time to finish them, because so much has happened in the last week that it takes so long to organize my thoughts, let alone actually write it all.
I went back and read all of my 'post beginnings' just now, and almost none of them actually made sense, because, like I said, I've been out of it.

I'm feeling a tiny bit better, and I think I have some time now, because Carolina is dead asleep in the next room (I'll explain later) so I'm gonna quick sum up where I last left off:

Friday night, my parents took me to Linares with Franco for a cousin's conception. I was kind of upset about having to go, because I missed a party, but ended up having a lot of fun. The actual ceremony didn't last too long, and afterward we went to a celabratory party that was really awkward at first because I didn't know anybody, but turned out to be really fun.

Saturday, I did my usual Saturday thing, which involved completos and shopping and hanging out in the center with the other exchange students. Pretty much, my favorite thing to do :)

Sunday, I went to church with the family, and then was told by Claudia that I needed a 'lazy day' which meant no computer or going into the center or hanging out with friends, which was a little sad, because thats exactly what I wanted to do, but it was sunny so I just layed outside in the sun and listened to music and slept. So it was alright.

Monday... I feel like something interesting might've happened on Monday? Shoot, I can't remember..? It was a school day, so... Oh! No, nevermind, I didn't do anything on Monday except go to school. Sorry for getting your hopes up.

Tuesday!!! Festival de Ingles! Dirty dancing!
Despite my extreme lack of practice, everything went.. well, as smooth as I could've hoped for. I feel like Chileans are really casual about things like that, what I mean, is, we didn't have a dress rehearsal or anything, and not really that much practice scheduled practices, either.

The dance went fine, except for three things. One, the performance before us consisted of my brother Franco riding a bicycle around the stage, for the Chilean movie Machuca. Because there were no dress rehearsals, we weren't told where to exit or enter the stage, and he exited right where we were supposed to enter, and blocked our way with his bicycle. So we were a little late, and didn't match the movie on the screen behind us. Two, I was the tinsiest bit late putting my arm up. But not that much. Three, I was soooo excited when it was over, that it was done, and almost perfect, that I did a little hopping/skipping thing off the stage which looks completely unprofessional, but probably I got away with it because everybody thinks I'm cute.

There will be a video!!! Once I get it.

Okay, that's it for this post I think, because Carolina's awake now.

(I'm spending yesterday and today with my Rotary counselor, Eduardo, and his daughter, Carolina, who went on exchange a few years ago to Windsor, CA. The two of us are going to go to something this afternoon, so I was writing this while I waited for her to wake up.)

Lazy Thursday

Today I had a very lazy day, it was fantastic. Claudia let me stay home from school to catch up on sleep (which I really needed, yesterday I slept during EVERY class, a new record). I slept until noonish, ate breakfast, went for a run (which turned out to be a bad idea, it was sooo hot that I almost died... Usually I run at night, after school, so it's not a problem), ate lunch, and spent the rest of the day lying in the sun with Tonka, my puppy, and listening to music. I just finished dinner, and am now watching synchronized swimming with Max on tv while i drink my tea. Ohmygoodness, I feel so grown up and fancy writing "while I drink my tea"... I could go have tea with the queen and fit right in. Pinkies up, folks!

Anyway, this is what I really want to know:
Do these girls have things to help them breathe underwater, because, if not, they are mutants. And if they do, then how the heck can this be considered a sport? If I didn't have to breathe, like, if I was a zombie or something, I could synchronized swim too. It doesnt look that hard... Why does anyone like watching this? Half of the time, all you can see is their feet... They could be picking their noses under water, and you would NEVER know... AND, they are NEVER perfectly synchronized either. Whats up with that?
Now, what I think would be waaayy more interesting is if they did the whole dance completely under water and you could watch from behind a glass wall, like how it is at aquariums. This blog post is gonna revolutionize the world of synchronized swimming, just you wait and see...

Oh, by the way, Mommy, earlier Seba was watching with us, and he was telling me, in Spanglish, how stupid he thought "baile de piscina" is. And I thought of you and your swimming pool photos and started cracking up.

That's all, really. Sorry my day wasn't more exciting...
Love you all! --Gracie

Fiesta!

So, today, I did absolutley nothing. Really, I haven't done anything. I think the highlight of my day was that I had cereal for breakfast, and even that wasn't that exciting, because apparently NOBODY in this country has regular milk, and I had to eat my cereal with yogurt.

But you don't really want to hear about my breakfast. What you probably DO want to hear about is Ice Alive, the party that my class in school threw last night....

I suppose I should start from the very beginning, though. Yesterday afternoon, I met up with Robin and Mayella and Hanna in Talca... and we really did nothing exept hang out and talk, but it was really fun anyway. And later, Kelly came and joined us, but Taylor couldn't, because she had got in a huge fight with her host mom. But, then she called us to say that her host dad, who she was on good terms with, said that maybe it would be better if she left the house for a few hours, so the five of us walked the 11 blocks to Taylor's house to pick her up. And Kelly and I picked flowers and put them in an empty sprite bottle (yes, technically, the flpeers were stolen from people's yards, but it was for a good cause, I swear) and all the Eurpoeans called Kelly and I silly for picking flowers, but when we did get to Taylit's house, she was crying and our sprite-bottle flowers cheered her up. :)

*Taylor and her host parents are meeting with Rotary today to get things straightened out, because Taylor and her host mom really do not get along... I think because they just have very different personalities. But anyway..*

Oh! And then we decided to take a collectivo (taxi) back to the center of town, because everyone was complaining that their feet hurt, and the six of us shared one taxi (even though the limit is 4 passengers) and that was absolutely crazy and exciting, because taxi drivers ere drive like they do in New York (actually, every driver here drives insanely, not just the taxis)... The taxi driver was super nice though; probably he never had six passengers who were all foreign and 4 of whom were blonde in his taxi at one time before... I'm sure we spiced up his day :D

And then we spent the evening hanging out and eating dinner and cheering up Taylor (pretty successfully, I'd say) and then everyone went home except Taylor and I, who went to Robin's house to hang out before Ice Alive started.

So we got ready (which pretty much entailed convincing Kelly's dad to let her come, too, and talking to people on Robin's Facebook, because none of us had brought with us any clothes or anything to actually get ready with) and then picked up Kelly, and the four of us went to the party.

So we stood outside for a long time, and talked to some of my school friends who I'm pretty sure were trying to sell the last of their tickets, and I think I was supposed to be doing that, too, but, whatever, I'm playing the foreign kid card.. Anyway, we stood outside talking to Francisco and Vicente for a long time, and then we went inside, and continued to talk to Francisco and Vicente for a long time, and then we started dancing. Francisco danced with Kelly, who could actually dance pretty well, and I dances with Vicente in what I imagine was probably really stupid/crazy looking, (but whatever, I was having fun) and you could say Taylor and Robin danced together, but really what they did was stand next to eachother and wave their hands around.

Later I danced with some other boys in my class, and Robin and Taylor left to go sit upstairs and talk.

And then, Kelly and I decided that we should go all out and not care what anyone thinks and just be crazy gringas together, because why not? So the two of us grabbed hands and ran through the crowd, screaming and cheering and fist-pumping, and every few minutes we would stop and do the stupidest American dances we could think of... And were just generally crazy. Everytime we stopped to dance, all of the people dancing around us would stop dancing and just stare at us.. It was really funny. And apparently this made us really, really popular, because then at least two dozen guys asked the two of us to dance, and sometimes we'd say yes, and dance with them for awhile, and then go off and be crazy again. And it was really fun. Taylor and Robin were really embarrassed by the two of us, but I'm pretty sure that Kelly and I started a new trend... At the next dance, I think everyone will be dancing just like us :)

The party was over at three, but our ride came at 2:30, and I really didn't want to go. Kelly and I are looking forward to the next party, soooo much.

Te amo! Love, Gracie

Dirty Dancing

So... You know how I said that I was going to dance as Sandy from Grease for my schools English film festival? Well, that's not happening... Instead I get to be Baby from dirty dancing. I think I like this better, because I get to wear a floaty dress instead of leather (although I was totally planning on using grease as an excuse to buy a leather jacket)... But, if anyone has zumba-ed with me before.. You know how much I just loooove to salsa. And, by that, I mean I'm horrible at it. Jorge and I practiced for the first time today. Pretty much I just did everything wrong over and over again and the five other kids watching us would try to tell me what to do, but, of course, none of them could say it in English, so I had no clue what I was supposed to be doing the whole time. The only thing I understood was when they'd say "Grace, look more sexy!" and I imagine what they wanted to say was "Grace, you look constipated!". Because I'm sure I looked very awkward and silly, and I'm sure everyone watching found it hilarious.

Yeah, I definitely, actually had something else to write about, but now I'm thinking about Dirty Dancing and have "the time of my life" stuck in my head and I honestly can't remember... Oh well.

Hello again

Hello again :)

I had a very good day today, actually. I got an email from Elaine (emails rock, guys. Email me and I'll love you forever) and Taylor wrote me a hilarious letter and delivered via my bewildered grandpa, which made it even more special and funny. And my Spanish is actually getting better I think. Everyone speaks so fast that it's sooo hard to understand, but when I write notes with my friends I can understand most things, and I can talk a little more. Everyday it gets a little better I think, but I still have those days where I feel like I speak no Spanish and am the stupidest person on earth... Quite often I feel like that, actually.

Let's see, today I got another history lesson about Pinochet and Allende from my school friends. It was intense, as usual. I thought everybody hated Pinochet before I got here, but it turns out Chileans are actually very split. You either hate him or love him (and love Allende or hate Allende) depending on who your family is. And it makes everyone quite crazy, apparently. "He's lying!! Let me tell you the real story!!". And here I am thinking "you guys both told me theexact same thing"

Mmm... On Monday we had no school for Columbus Day, I believe, and I went shopping with Robin and Taylor (and Kelly and Johanna, but they weren't there for this particular event). Anyway, Taylor accidentally bought eyeshadow that she thought was 3.000 pesos but really was 30.000 pesos (which is like $6 v. $60, AKA, BIG difference) and because she bought it with a credit card, she didn't realize until too late. Long story short, things got complicated, and it would've been useful if we knew more Spanish. So, the three of us spent like 45 minutes doing everything wrong and going to the wrong places to fix things, and this adorable clerk who spoke a teeny bit of English kept having to correct us over and over again. And I found this whole thing hilarious, because Robin and Taylor kept making things worse and I was an innocent bystander. So of course I had to tease them mercilessly the whole time. So the last time that we went to the wrong register I said "Ahh, we're just stupid Americans!" and the clerk turns around and says "No, of course not! Don't think that!" and I didn't even know that he could understand me, but it really made my day. It was cute.

And yesterday was the huge Peru v. Chile soccer game, and I watched it with my family and am discovering that I really like watching soccer. And I'm sure I will like it even more when I can actually understand what the announcers are saying. And Chile won, by the way, in case you were wondering.

Thats all for now!
Grace

Not your grandma's bingo

So yesterday, Claudia tells me "Grace, you and Taylor are going to bingo tonight. Call her right now and tell her." I kinda felt like I was being thrown out of the house, but later realized that the rest of the family was going to a cousin's birthday party and didn't want me to be bored. Because the last cousin's birthday party I went to, I was definitely bored and I think the family knew it. So I ended up going to bingo night at De La Salle (Taylor and Kelly's school) with the two of them, and a few of their school friends.

I was expecting some little thing, with not that many people, maybe in a classroom or something. But when Franco and I arrived (Franco used to go to De La Salle and has his own friends there) he told me "Call Taylor and find out where they are" and I replied "They're at bingo". "Yes, Grace, butn bingo is big."

Big was an understatement. The whole gym was filled with people, and not just the tables, but the bleachers too. There must have been at least 500 people there, probably more. When we walked in, the bingo host was wearing a sparkly silver tuxedo and singing a song to applausal and catcalls from the audience. It was intense.

Ahhhh, Max just turned off all the lights to "save money" and now I cant see the keyboard. Which is not good, because this is a Spanish keyboard. I dont know where the apostrophe key is.  If my typing gets really bad, its not my fault, i swear. ç

Anyway, the craziest part of kbingo night was during the halftime show. Yes, this bingo was so intense that it had its own halftime show. The bingo host sang some more songs, and some "dancers" came on stage that looked anylod danced like prositutes. The host invited some people from the audience to dance with them, too, and at one point they started ripping one mans jacket off.... Thankfully, everyone stayed mostly clothed....

Meanwhile Kelly and Taylor and I are staring in shock and going "IS THIS NORMAL?!!". This was at a Catholic school for goodness sakes. Crazy. But, it was really fun.


Yeah, so that was my adventure...
--Grace

P.S.

Today was jeans day at school, AKA for-only-300-pesos-you-don't-have-to-wear-your-uniform-and-somehow-the-seniors-think-they-will-make-money-off-of-this-day. And I felt really uncomfortable not wearing my uniform... Really. And it wasnt like my clothes were bad or anything, because everybody kept complimenting me... It just, I don't know, felt wrong.

But seriously, when I come home, and don't have to wear a uniform again, I might actually die. Or I might just wear my Chilean uniform to school and start a new fashion statement. Who knows.

rugby, guitars, biology and OHMYGOD!! I WAS MISTAKEN FOR A LOCAL!!!

Yes!! I got asked for directions today from a random stranger. As I was sitting on a bench outside my school, waiting to get picked up (school had finished an hour ago, but my host parents are generally late; thankfully, they only pick me up from school on Fridays) two women came up to me an started speaking in Spanish, and I was like noooooooooo! and was just opening my mouth to say "no hablo mucho español" and then I realized, wait, I actually understand what she said. she wants to know where uno norte is... I know where that is... and I was soooo surprised, that I dumbly pointed in the right direction, while making a very stupid face. And then, they ended up going in the wrong way (I don't know how you can misunderstand a freaking point!) but oh well, my directions were right and they probably found it in the end, because Talca has the easiest street system ever. The four streets surrounding the outside plaza are uno norte, uno sur, uno poniente, and uno oriente. (north, south, west and east). And as they go away from the square, they become dos norte, tres norte, etc. until you get to the outskirts of town. It's convenient...

It's raining right now, and the house is super cold... I miss you, central heating.
IM WEARING MY SNOW JACKET AND TWO BLANKETS, AND I FEEL LIKE IM GONNA DIE!!!!

And now it's thundering too. A lot of thundering. Muchas truenos. At first, I just thought it was a car going down the street, but a dozen Chileans on Facebook were like "Ahhh truenos!!" Ahh facebook. The otter day, when Steve Jobs died, I only knew about it because of Facebook. In fact, my Facebook had a whole section: "So and so and 32 other friends posted about Steve Jobs" thank you, Facebook, for becoming my news site :P

In school, my friend Luis is teaching me how to play the guitar. I'm really really excited by this... I wish I had a guitar here at home to practice on, right now I just use te school's. When I get back, I am stealing yours, Rachel, for sure. :) I can now play a little bit of 'I want to hold your hand' (Luis knows lots of Beatles songs... I taught him how to sing the words to 'I've just seen a face' the other day, for anyone here from orchestra). Our school doesn't have enough money for toilet paper or soap in the bathrooms, but our class has it's own guitar... I don't get it.
Guitar lessons are pretty much the only thing interesting happening at school. Otherwise, it's hours and hours of boringness. Today, we had to do biology work in partners, and while my partner answered all the questions, I translated the questions into English. I kinda feel like I gypped him a little... Sorry, Jorge, that you got stuck with the foreign girl... Maybe the biology teacher will give us extra credit for my awesome Spanish skills?

On second thought, Jorge chose to be my partner... I totally don't feel guilty anymore.

Oh, also, my friend taught me how to throw a rugby ball. And I was actually good at it. And for two seconds I was like "I could play rugby" and then I came back to reality. In which I am barely 5'2" and have hands to small to play pool, and would absolutely get trampled by ferocious girl rugby players... Yeah... Maybe not.

Yep. Okay. That's all. Really.
-Grace

mi amigas de intercambio son el mejor-est :)

Soooo, I feel like I haven't posted in forever, even though I'm pretty sure it's only been like three days. I have absolutely no perception of time here, which I guess is sorta okay, because it's SUCH a Chilean thing, to not know the time. They never know what time it is or care, and are late to everything. I don't think there is a single working clock in my house....

Nothing THAT interesting has happened....

I've been hanging out with my exchange friends a lot lately... which is awesome because they are crazy and amazing and I have the best times with them. Rotary would not be so happy, but I am becomming closer with my friends at school too, so thats good. :)

Lets see, on Monday, Robin, Franco, Taylor, Mayella and I went to go see Rise of the Planet of the Apes at the cinema, because they were having a special once-a-month deal where the movie was only 1,000 pesos, the equivalent of two dollars. But, it was all sold out. So we didn't see Planet of the Apes after all. But, we did go eat completos, (can i just say again how freaking awesome these Chilean hot dogs are?) and have a really good time anyway.

Today and tomorrow, the third year students are taking the Chilean equivalent of the SATs, so Robin and I don't have school. Today the two of us went shopping for an hour or so, and then met up with Kelly and Taylor and just hung out on the plaza. And laughed a lot. I have so much fun with those three. In fact, we laughed so much, that a random old man came up to us, and although he was really hard to understand, he told us something along the lines of "please calm down. when you laugh so hard I can't think anymore". But then he started talking to the air and asking random strangers if they wanted some of his churro, so we didn't take him too seriously...

Oh, and I bought new shoes! And they are awesome. :) And Robin bought a plain white t-shirt, and apparently he needs a gray sweater to go with it, (and I am in desparate need of some shirts) so we are going shopping again tomorrow with Taylor and Kelly.  Really, Robin is the most fashionable guy I have ever met. And, he has a batman shirt, and when he wore it the first time, he was like "Look, it's batman and Robin!". Ahhh, this kid is awesome.

By the way, you can buy the BEST churros here. There's this truck that makes them fresh and sells them, and by now, the churro guys recognize us so we don't even have to speak good spanish to order some. And they always give us extra churros because they are awesomely amazing. And because we are blonde. :)

Best Day :)

I just had the best day yesterday. And now, I am in a semi-awake state of pumped/exhausted. Finally, all of us Talca exchangers were able to get together and hang out, and, oh my goodness, not only is it so awesome to be with people who speak the same language as you, but, also, I am living in the same city as some awesome people. 

First, I met up with Mayella from Holland, and Robin from Germany on the plaza in downtown Talca, and my host brother Franco happened to see us and join us, which was cool because he is also good friends with Robin and it is nice to have someone fluent in Spanish with you. So the four of us bought some soda and chips and stuff, and snacked in the park and listened to music and talked about exchange life, and it was soo nice. 

And then, Kelly and Taylor, from Oklahoma and Illinois, met up with us, an we went shopping at all the big department stores, which was cool just to see them, but Taylor and I decided that everything was way to expensive for our lowly exchanger budgets, and went off on our own to find cheap hopping, which we did. And I'm pretty sure none of the Chileans that I know would have approved at me shopping at those places, because it was rows of street vendors, and little shops that were barely nicer than street vendors, and Chileans are just kind of like that, I think. But, to me and Taylor, it was awesome. And I definitely need to go back there, because I don't have very much clothes here, and it was soo cheap. I went in to one shop, and pretty much bought everything I liked (but some of it was gifts, so I am not completely selfish) and I only spent four dollars. It was shopping heaven...

Then the six of us met back up, and went to get completos for lunch. Completos are Chilean hot dogs, and they are way better than American hot dogs, and really traditional Chilean. And we discovered, that while we were out adventuring in the street market, Franco and Robin had bought all of us these little charms that said our names on them and 'Chile' and they had to get them specially made because obviously our names are not common in Chile. And Franco and Robin, who are best friends, made one that said 'Franco + Robin' and all of us girls just about started crying it was sooo adorable. They are seriously the sweetest couple of guys that I have ever known, and I could write a book about all the cute and funny things the two of them did yesterday, but I won't. 

Then Mayella told us that she and some friends from school were going to a discotheque that night, and as none of the rest of us had any plans, we made plans to go with her. But that didn't work out, because the rest of us were under 18 and our host parents said that they probably wouldn't let us in, even though thy probably would, just because we are foreign and blonde, but whatever. 

Franco and I had an invitation to go to a friends house from school, so we decided to do that instead, and Robin and Taylor were able to come.

It wasn't quite as exciting as we'd hoped, I think Taylor and I were really hoping to go dancing, but it was fun anyway, and it was nice to get to know some of the guys from school better, and to talk with Taylor and Robin who are both hilarious, Robin especially. Taylor and I spent the whole evening cracking up at everything Robin did, to the point of rolling on the ground laughing, and the Chileans pretty much thought we were insane, because obviously they didn't understand why it was funny. And I was taught how to play pool, which I am terrible at, but I blame it on the fact that my hands are tiny and don't fit around the pool stick. I'm serious. I cannot get my hands in the right position. And Taylor was barely better than me, so even though all of the boys were totally cheating for us, and pushing the balls in the right direction, we still both only get one ball in. And then, we were taught how to play soccer on the xbox, and we were even worse at that. We both scored on our own goals, it was pathetic. But very entertaining to everyone else, apparently. And afterwards, Franco and Taylor and I took the sketchy-est taxi home, because some girls who go to Taylor's school and are apparently way to cool for everyone else, stole our taxi, even though they knew it was ours. And Taylor and I were really scared that something bad was gonna happen, because it wasn't even really a taxi we were in, just a car with a radio and a driver, but, we got home okay, and it was only six dollars, which was awesome. 

And now, I'm waiting very patiently and quietly for Franco to wake up, because we slept at my Grandma's house in the city so that we wouldn't have to take the taxi all the way to Pelarco. And it's 11 o'clock and he's still sleeping, and not only is he sleeping, but he is talking in his sleep, and while its very entertaning, there is absolutely nothing to do, no internet or anything, and I am writing this on the notepad of my iPod. But I'm almost finished... And I kinda want to go find a drugstore, because I really need some deodorant and a new toothbrush, but I think if he woke up and I was gone, it would be really bad, and I don't know who to ask or how to ask because I don't have a dictionary on me, because of course, nobody told me I would be doing anything tonight after the party, so I have nothing except my iPod and my wallet... So probably I will stew on this dilemma a little more, and maybe I will find a solution...

Anyway, it was a really, really, good day, and I am friends with some awesome people, and we are planning to do this again next weekend, because Johanna from Germany couldn't come, but mostly cause we just had so much fun. :)

Chao! Grace

P.S. Also, it was awesome to be with exchange students, because pretty much every Chilean I know smokes and drinks (except one), and some of my exchange student friends don't smoke or drink either. So I'm not alone!  

P.P.S. He's awake!!! Yes!

P.P.P.S. In your third 'p.s.' do you add another 'p' or another 's'? 
Anyway, I just thought some of you would be interested to know that I just ate pecan pie for breakfast, because I was hungry, and that's what there was.

Ups and downs (and horse poo and crazy boys)

Today was a very bipolar day...

DOWN: I started crying during lunch... No real reason, just overwelmed, I guess. I had absolutely no clue what was going, even less than usual. Lunch was chicken and ham and cheese in breadcrumbs, and it was delicious, but of course, Sebastian and Domingo had to get into a fight about whether or not there was cheese in it, and proceeded to not only punch each other numerous times, but also to pick apart their food in order to prove their respective points, until it looked like a disgusting mess, and I was so confused and tired and annoyed that I actually started crying. Which you would think would've made them stop fighting, but no. Welcome to the life of an exchange student.

UP: I can now have basic conversations in Spanish (well, Spanglish, really, but more Spanish than English, which is the important point, and, still, it's something). Yesterday I had a full on Spanish conversation with Franco, and even though he had to repeat most of what he said at least three times for me, I actually comprehended it. I found out that he applied to go on exchange next year and is waiting to find out if he got excepted, and wants to go to the U.S., Germany or Italy. And I told him that he absolutely HAS to come to Arcata, because it is the best place in the entire world. (Although Talca comes in pretty close). I wonder if I have string-pulling capabilities? Hahaha. 

DOWN: I can now say things in Spanish! Yay! But every time I say anything, the response is "Aww, she's so cute when she speaks Spanish!" This isn't exactly confidence boosting, but, oh well, at least it's better than everyone laughing at me, which is what I sometimes do when Franco speaks English. :)

UP: I bought a candy bar from a convience store pretty much all by myself, with very little help from Domingo, who was standing RIGHT there the whole time and could've been a real help, but whatever, the little twerp. I managed to convey to the saleswoman that I was from the U.S. And didn't speak much Spanish and had only been in Chile a month, and she understood me(!) and was really nice about it, and wow, I felt awesome! :)

DOWN: I was home alone and decided that I wanted to go off on an adventure, but when I asked Anita, she made Alvaro accompany me. I don't need a guardian! Especially because Alvaro is younger than me..

UP: My adventure was not exactly what I wanted it to be, but I had a lot of fun with Alvaro anyway.

And, the rest of my day... Well, mas o menos, fue loco. Muy, muy, loco.

Nobody was home, except Domi, Seba, Alvaro, and myself, and the three of them decided that I needed to become 'accustomed' to the country. As if I'm not already--I barely even notice the smell of horse shit anymore. Alvaro's goal for my exchange is that, by the time I leave, I will love the carucho (this is what that crazy roller coaster horse-cart is called). Which means that I was pretty much forced to do this multiple times today.

Believe me, I put up a lot of resistance: "NOO! TU LOCO! Y TU LOCO, Y TU LOCO!!!"
I was assured that this time, Alvaro would NOT drive the horse crazily, which he didn't, but, just my luck, the horse went mental and started running all over the place, and into things, etc. Domingo and I jumped off, Sebastian managed to stay on but was jostled all over the place (although extremely proud of himself) and Alvaro was thrown off and dragged behind the horse, which, of course, I found extremely funny. Karma!!

After much, much protesting, they convinced me to ride it again, because if I didn't ride it, or a bike (I can't ride the bikes here, the gears are different and it messes with me) I would be left out. So I gave in.

And Alvaro and Domingo went insane. The horse is already at a gallop and here they are, going "YAH, YAH, RAPIDO, MUY RAPIDO!""
and here I am, going
"OH MY GOD, I'M GONNA DIE!!! AHHHH!!! YOU GUYS ARE FREAKING INSANE!!! I HATE YOU ALL!!! I'M GOING TO DIE!!"

Actually. Those were my exact words. And after that, I grew some brains and refused to do it again, and screamed at them a whole bunch more, because really, they are all crazy (but all in good fun, of course) and laughed a lot when the horse went loco again and they fell off.

Oh, and also, I am sure you will be very interested to know that my neighbor's pedophile beagle tried to rape my puppy, Tonka, right in frnot of me, and it was very scary. She is really, really, scary, and she is really little and only three months old (and yes, she is mine, I stole her from Alvaro and she follows me everywhere, and I am gonna smuggle her back to Humboldt with me in my suitcase, just so you know). And here is Domingo, encouraging this vile act ("Grace, they're in love!"). No, Domingo, obviously this is dog rape, she's only a puppy and doesn't know what she wants. But, seriously (en serio) what is with all this animal sex?! I never saw this in Humboldt, and now, it's like a daily occurrence. Like, have you seen your animal sex yet today?

Anyway, I'm gonna take a shower and wash off all this horse poo and mud, so Chao! Grace

This is why I like physics:

Best thing ever:
Today six boys from my class came in late to physics class... The teacher made them run around the classroom on piggy back and try to knock each other over as a punishment: the classroom version of chicken. Then another boy came in late and the teacher made him sing in front of everyone. Both events were hilarious! I just about died laughing. My physics teacher may look like a goat and have completely unlegible handwriting, but I think I may come to like this man. Hahahahaha.

Then, my history teacher showed us caricutures that he drew of all the other teachers... I barely know most of the teachers, but they were extremely accurate and extremely hilarious.

It totally made up for having three classes of math yesterday (yes, three!! Can you believe it?!) Four and a half hours of trigonometry in one day is completely wretched, in any language.

Chao for now (that rhymes!!) --Grace

Love Vegetables

For once, I went home during lunch (yes! Internet at lunchtime!) and food is on my mind....

Can I just start by saying how much I love carrots? I even have a list of reasons why:
Carrots are orange
Carrots are a vegetable
Carrots are not a starch
Carrots are not covered in salt
Carrots in espanol is zanahorias, and, c'mon, is that not fun to say?
Wow, I think I have some poem writing material right here.

I am beginning to grow a major sweet tooth. Not that I didn't have one before, but now it's a Chileanified sweet tooth. Which means I can now eat bananas covered in manjar or honey and actually enjoy it. It makes me wonder, when I come back home, will I be totally addicted to meat and potatoes, too, or will I never want to see another potato again? These are te questions that keep me up late at night... Not really.

I have been here three weeks already, and only this past weekend did I learn that in Chilean eating etiquette, you must keep both hands on the table. I am horrible at this. Pretty much at every meal, Claudia goes "Grace! Manos!" Thankfully, I am not the only one in the family who has trouble remembering this piece of etiquette, otherwise I would be really embarrassed.

Mmm.... That's about it for now...
Love, Grace

Chilean Education Stinks

Those are not my words, unfortunately. A classmate said that, but I have to agree with him. We go to school for such a long time, and learn absolutely nothing (I mean, not that I would learn anything anyway, but, nobody learns anything. We do no work). Today, I taught my classmates how to correctly pronounce the words to 'I'm Yours' by Jason Mraz and 'Dynamite' by Taio Cruz. I went to school for 8 hours today, and that is absolutely the only thing I accomplished. No, I didn't even really accomplish that: only one of my friends can sing either of hose songs without making me crack up from their horrible pronunciation.

Until today, the only class I was expected to actually work in was math, but, we have moved on from logarithms to sine and cosine, and now I don't even understand math (despite the fact that I took Precalculus last year; sorry, Mrs. Walsh, I remember absolutely nothing). Even my English teacher won't let me take the English tests, because she is afraid everyone will copy off of me (which they would have). Every once in awhile I take notes, but most of my teachers have a horrible habit of giving notes orally, and it's impossible to understand. I an quickly acquiring a large collection of doodles. And in most of my classes, no one does anything anyway, so I just talk to my friends.

My Spanish is slowly and painfully getting better.

Chao, Grace

P.S. I found out that that place I went to over the weekend was actually a bakery. I'm not exactly sure what made it a bakery, but the woman who owns it speaks some English, and was telling me something about baking and selling cakes (?). I guess there were some cakes there, among everything else. I'm still a bit confused, but, whatever.

[Creative title goes here]

Okay... It's been a couple days since I wrote anything and soooo much has happened since I last updated you all. It's been a crazy weekend!! So, I will now try really hard to remember everything that happened, and summarize it. Because I don't feel like writing a book today.

Friday night I went to a sleepover at a friends house with about six other girls from my class. And some of the guys from my class came over for a couple hours too. It was really really fun and it was super nice to get to know everybody more outside of school. And even though I still can't understand/talk much, I had a really good time. It was also really strange, because it was the first time I saw everybody in street clothes and not in school uniforms.

Claudia picked me up in the morning and the two of us went shopping together. It was really fun, and I got a pair of jeans (which I was in desperate need of), a shirt, and a couple pairs of tights for school. Afterwards we picked up Franco from his friend's house and then did some errands... And let me just say, I do not understand Chilean shops. The clothing store was weird enough, but I could figure it out because it was just clothes. But one of the places we went on Saturday... We were there for about an hour, and I spent the whole time trying to figure out what kin of place it was. It seemed to be a mix of a high-end boutique, a cafe, a coffee shop, somebody's house, an office, and a kinko's. And yet, not really any of those things. I don't know. It was confusing. That was the worst, but noneof the shops we went to that day really made complete sense to me. I suppose eventually I will figure it out.

After running errands, we came home and ate lunch, and then I slept for five hours, and probably would have slept until Sunday, had Claudia not waken me up around 7. After waking, I was immediately herded to a friends house for a BBQ, and as usual, I was not properly dressed because I had no clue where we were actually going.

The BBQ was pretty fun. Our friend, Diego, cooked a whole bunch of chorizo and beef and flatbread on the grill, and whenever a piece was done cooking he would cut it in to bite-sized pieces and we would all eat a few. We snacked like that pretty much all night, and it was delicious. Around 8 o'clock, the power went out through out all of Chile for about two hours. It was really scary, and I had no idea what was going on the whole time, although I don't think anyone really knew much anyway. So.. That was an adventure, to say the least.

Then the next morning I woke up incredibly early to get on the bus with the five other exchangers from Talca, to go to Santiago for our district orientation. I was not looking forward to it, because I was running on three hours of sleep, but it was sooo much fun. There are 69 other exchangers in my district, so it was kinda crazy. Unfortunately, instead of getting a whole weekend to get to know eachother, we had about 7 hours, and most of it was just going over the rules and stuff. But still, it was good. And it was really nice to be wih other kids who speak the same language as me, for once, but, also, it was really nice because when they (the kids who ctually were semi-fluent in spanish) were speaking in spanish, i could understand them way better than when Chileans speak spanish. And I discovered that I could actually understand a lot more than I thought I could! And, on the three hour by ride back to Talca, I had a lot of fun with the other kids from my club, and we are planning to meet up again soon, maybe this weekend.

So, yeah. That was my weekend. :)

Chao, Grace

Strikes and slumber parties

Today I actually saw evidence of the education strike... So far it hasn't really affected me, because only the public schools are closed, which I am thankful for, because as boring as school sometimes is, without it my Spanish would suffer. And I would not have any friends.
Anyway, today, as I was walking to lunch with my friends, the college students were marching around the plaza. And there were soldiers everywhere watching everything, it was a little intense. Vincente asked me if I was scared, and I was like "No, should I be?" and he gave me a really non-committal answer that freaked me out a little bit.

Also, I saw somebody get hit by a car today (non-related to the education stike, though) which was actually really scary. I think he was alive, because an ambulance came and took him away, but he was definitely unconscious. I witnessed the entire thing from the apartment window, and it was pretty intense.

On a happier note, tomorrow night I am attending a slumber party at a friends house and am really excited. And on Sunday I am going to Santiago for inbound orientation. And, at some point, I am going shopping with Claudia. So it should be a pretty good weekend.

Chao! Grace

3 Things That Made Me Say ´OH MY GOD´

1. I FOUND BROCCOLI!!! Yessssss!!!!!! I didn´t get to eat any... but now I have hope that broccoli does exist in Chile. There is an unspoken rule here in Chile, that if you don´t eat everything on your plate (or at least make it look like you ate everything on your plate), the host will be incredibly offended and think that you don´t like the food. At home, my family has learned by now that Grace has a small U.S.A. stomach, and I do not have to eat everything, thankfully. But, when I´m not with mi familia, I must eat everything on my plate before I can help myself to the not as important other foods, aka, broccoli. But I tend to get full before then! Hahaha. Oh well.

2. MY GRANDPA OWNS A SHOE STORE!!!!!!!!!! And he lives right above it!!! And I go to his house at least once every week for lunch! Ahhhh, this could get bad. But, mostly, this is freaking amazing. It's shoe heaven. Hahahaha.

3. This one is so confusing, even to me, that I cannot even capitalize it. There´s this English film festival thing for school, I really don´t know how to explain it... long story short: I get to be Sandy from Grease and dance "You´re the one that I want" during the halftime show. Please, please tell me that you are imagining me dancing this in leather and stilettos and rolling on the floor laughing. Because then somebody will be happy. Hahaha.

The funny thing is, Javier, who is going to be Danny, was picked because he has hair that looks sort of like John Travolta´s. I was picked because I have hair that looks abosolutely nothing like Olivia Newton-John´s, but is blonde. Being Sandy is one of the many, ummm, perks, that have come from being blonde in Latin America. I don´t even want to go into the others....

...I still have two days to say no to being Sandy...but I think I should say yes, because I´m a rotary exchanger, and we say yes to everything. Hahaha. This should be an adventure. Hopefullly someone films it!



I said 'hahaha'  way too many times in this post... I must be really tired...
Time for dormir,
Chao, Gracie

Thoughts...

--Rice is the best thing in the whole entire world. Rice, thank you for being so bland and unsalty. I really appreciate it.

--"Hombres Trabajando" sounds so much better than "Men Working"

--I'm afraid that my math teacher might disappear in the middle of a math lesson... I think he is slowly fading away, and that might be a good thing.. For some reason he hates me because I finished my math homework even though I can't speak Spanish...

--Precalculus is just as terrible and boring in Chile, and I'm so thankful that we are studying logarithms right now, because that is the only thing I remember from last year.

--Does anyone else find the fact that I had tuna noodle casserole for lunch hilarious?! Because I do. Tuna noodle casserole, in Chile! Yeah, that's weird.

--The Simpsons is not at all funny when you can't understand what is being said. However, the Chilean version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire is hilarious.

--The Chilean version of meatloaf is something that I like to call 'fishloaf'. It's just as strange.

--I can tell that my brothers think that I am part of the family now, because they progressively getting more obnoxious. On the other hand though, today Seba picked a bunch of flowers for me, and it was the cutest thing. By the way, the twins are 9, Max is 13, Franco is 15, and Alvaro (an honorary brother) is also 15.

--I could definitely get used to having desert twice a day... Haha.

--Inside jokes are bad enough when you understand what's being said but not why it's funny. They are worse when you don't even understand what is being said... They could be talking about you, and you wouldn't even know...

--Franco and Max both have girlfriends which they didn't tell me about (Max even went so far as to deny the existence of his girlfriend). It seems like everyone is dating somebody here or looking to date somebody, a fact which I cannot get used to. And I'm a little worried that Seba and Domi have girlfriends that they are not telling me about... I mean, where does it stop?!!

--I need some more chocolate, pronto!!

--- Chao! --Grace

Brothers, the bane of my existence (not really, though, most of the time they're adorable)

Wow. Living with boys is exhausting. Today we played hide and go seek in the yard. Then I got really fed up with boys cheating and being mean to each other and just being boys in general, so I spent an hour throwing dirt clods at Franco and Alvaro, and, wow. It was extremely satifying.

As I write this, I'm playing go fish in the grass with Alvaro and Franco and the twins, it's really sunny and the birds are singing, and except for the fact that I'm playing go fish with Alvaro and Franco and the twins, it's extremely relaxing.

Ahhhh, my hoard of chocolate is quickly disappearing.

Yep, I'm an exchange student

"You know you're an exchange student when you have a supply of some food that you are hoarding because you can't get it wherever you are"

In an ideal world, I would be hoarding broccoli and carrots... I miss vegetables so much! Because I stopped considering potatoes a vegetable long ago, the only veggies we eat here are tomatoes and salad. And both are covered in salt. Mealtimes, on the rare days when Anita isn't here to cook for us, go something like this:

--Are you hungry, Grace?
--Yes
--Do you want some carne y papas?
(Nooooo! I'll eat anything, but not more meat and potatoes!!!)
--Umm, sure.

So, instead, I have a hoard of chocolate in my room, as an incentive to finish all of my meat and potatoes, and I'll just have to hope that some broccoli and carrots find their way to me soon.

 "You know you are an exchange student when... you begin to think like you're 4 again, because you have no language...You begin to feel like you're 4 again, because everyone just leads you from place to place and you never know what's going on."

So true.
Chao for now, Gracie

Oh! Oh!
P.S. I saw some horses having sex again today! And I would really like to say that I was totally unfazed by it, like, 'yeah, I see horse sex all the time, whatever' but I found it totally hilarious and started laughing so hard I almost fell off the horse that I was riding at the time, which would have been terrible, because Alvaro and Domi would've laughed at me and my horse probably would've trampled me to death because he was a really mean horse. But, yeah, in the country, horse sex happens.