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
You can always be the scrum half (Tevis played that position). Isn't it hard to go from summer to winter overnight? I have only taken off my layers once since I got here. And you came from Arcata, which is not exactly hot in the summer. Love your posts.
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