Week 17 in Chile

Another fun week in Chile! I included some observations at the bottom, but they aren't all that organized. I'll write a better blog post with some more concrete thoughts and observations about Chile and Chilean culture in a few weeks. For now, enjoy my day to day life updates of mi vida chilena!

Monday, September 23, 2013

-Woke up early to go to the extranjeria and international police to get my visa (finally!) and to register it; really long process... like everything in Chile; met really nice Peruvian man in line who helped me along with the process and chatted with me for a while; always practicing my spanish nowadays! I'm getting a lot better which is making me really happy!
-Went home and had a great lunch with Nora and we talked for a while about her husband and family and about my relationship and life in general.. all in spanish! I was so happy about that because I could express myself and my ideas in Spanish. Finally!
-Had my CIEE Derechos Humanos class for the first time in two weeks and the first class after the holiday week, so it was great to see all my friends and hear about all the fun things that they had been doing during Fiestas Patrias; after class I went and grabbed sushi with some friends to catch up some more; Met up later in the night in Plaza Nunoa with some other friends to catch up some more; Kind of felt like coming back from spring break or something in the US and catching up with all those friends

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

-Class all day at San Joaquin; classic Tuesday in Santiago
-Chilling with Cecile and Arlette, my new Chilena friends; relationship talks (common theme of my life); all girls my age feel the same way and are going through similar crap with trying to figure out who they are and where significant others can fit into their lives and who is a good partner and stuff like that; basically girls and boys are the same no matter what country you live in or what language you speak and we are all struggling trying to figure out who we are and how our lives should be, etc.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

-Class all day and then phone shopping at the mall cause my friends phone got stolen last week, but she's super lucky cause she had her iPhone, passport and a lot of money on her and all that was stolen was her crappy Chilean phone; fortunately I haven't had anything stolen from me except for that time I lost my coat and my scarf (knock on wood)
-Later met up at Bar California with some friends; gringo bar and free drinks on Wednesday and then met up with my new friends form Pichilemu at Miercoles Po

Thursday, September 26, 2013

-Class all day and kind of just spent the day relaxing and catching up some work and sleep and other things
-Happy 18th Birthday shout out to my sister Haley!

Friday, September 27, 2013

-Met up with a friend at Costanera Center for a sorely needed mani/pedi and some retail therapy and some sushi; later that night I met up with a Chilean friend to go to out to dinner and to a jazz club; super nice night practicing my Spanish and learning some interesting things about various different barrios of Santiago and what it was like growing up there

Saturday, September 28, 2013

-Met up with some friends to do some homework at Starbucks and then went to my soccer game and we lost :(

Sunday, September 29, 2013

-Working on homework all day; it's midterm season so I have a lot of stuff due soon and I also have another CIEE trip next week, so I need to get a lot of stuff done before the trip
-Nora's friends Tom and Pati came over for lunch and Tom taught me how to make pebre, so I can bring it back to the USA and show my friends and family one of my favorite condiments in Chile

Some observations about Chile per my mother's request:
-Chileans love a lot of weird things like mayonnaise, sushi, cream cheese, avocados (palta), hot dogs, straws, salt on everything, instant coffee, not eating dinner, staying out until 5am, excessive national holidays, thinking things are incredibly spicy when they are super mild, and thinking that the winter here is cold even though its like 40 degrees at the coldest.
-Chile is a very classist country. You can judge someone based on where they live in Santiago and the color of their skin. You'll almost always know whether or not they are a cuico/a (wealthy person) or flaite (gangster person) by these two things. Within the class system here, the politics are very divided. Wealthy people love Pinochet for his economic policies and how he helped the economy while the poorer people don't like him because he and his regime committed most of their crimes against humanity against this group of people.
-People do everything slowly, except for talking. They walk slow; lines are slow; customer service is slow. In the beginning all the slowness and the lateness really bugged me, but now that I am more used to it I appreciate it more. Chileans just have a different way of doing things and they seem to enjoy things more because they are taking it slow, whereas Americans are simply rushing through life most of the time. Although sometimes, I think the slowness here has a negative impact on the country's development, but I only really think that when I am frustrated with slow lines at government offices and such.
-Soccer is a big deal and no one cares about American sports. This is a very obvious observation.
-Those little fake flip flop things at pedicures cost extra and aren't included. Getting your hair washed and then cut costs extra, so if you come to the salon with your hair already wet it's cheaper.