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.
Friday, December 30, 2011
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...
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...
Monday, December 26, 2011
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.
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.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
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.
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...
-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!
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!
Monday, December 19, 2011
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
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
Monday, December 12, 2011
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. :)
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. :)
Thursday, December 8, 2011
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
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
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