Slowly But Surely Posting

Hola! I've been in Chile for 6 full days, and it is freezing! The climate is not so temperate in the foothills of the Andes, where Santiago lies, more or less.

Sunday, 16 agosto 2009, was pretty calm. I explored Bellavista and withdrew some Chilean pesos, but on Sunday, everything was closed except for the ATM. I headed to Casa Ecela, aka the student residence or "La Casa Loca," somewhere between 11 and noon. After meeting some of the students, I ran to the grocery store and began my quest for a power adaptor. After grocery shopping, I returned to the house to meet another student from the US who was moving into Casa Ecela as well. Since no one else was around, we decided to explore the city and learned that it is pretty dead on Sunday evenings. Everything closes at 4pm, except for the bars in Bellavista, of course. After another unsuccessful search for an adaptor in Providencia, we ended up back in Bellavista to share our first beers in Chile. From what I've seen, there are not many beers made here in Chile, but we did try two, Escudo and Austral. Beer is served by the liter, so it is incredibly common to order a beer with several glasses. You really don't need pitchers, the beers are big enough to share already. We tried some of the local bar food - a mountain of french fries, topped with beef, egg, onion, and Vienna sausages?? It was so good, but talk about heart attack on a plate. It was also my first experience with Vienna sausages...you know, since canned, processed meat isn't really my thing. We returned to the house and met some more people, then to bed to prepare for our 8am placement exam.

The house is nothing to rave about accomodation wise, but it is a safe and very inexpensive place to stay. If you know me well enough, you know I really could care less as long as it is clean. However, in Chile, central heat only exists in very new buildings. Although I'd planned and paid to share a room, I've hit the program in the middle of a slower season and have a room for three all to myself. The house is old and cannot handle electric space heaters, but three beds equals 3 beds worth of blankets to bury myself in each night. Getting up is pretty difficult though.

On Monday, we arrived at the school, which is less than three blocks from Casa Ecela. In our placement exam, there were also students from Germany and Switzerland. The class I have been assigned to is very diverse - me, an older lady from the states, a girl from Japan, and the two guys in our exam, from Germany and Switzerland. There is a lot of German spoken in the house and in the school, so that has been somewhat difficult. Most of them speak English incredibly well though, just prefer German among themselves. As for class level, they started me at the beginning, probably because I forgot some conjugation of some basic verbs. It could have been easily cured with more study prior to coming here. Eh, what are you going to do? So most of the material is very new to others but a review for me. However, it is very helpful because my spoken Spanish is not very good. I can understand the bulk of conversations, but I have always been very timid when speaking. Even just in the past three days, I have become more confident in my skills. I will need to continue to study, either in classes in BA or on my own when I get there.

More to come, including our trip to the hill overlooking Santiago (cerra San Cristobal)and our first trip up to the mountains... but mucha tarea (homework) to do now.