first week of class

Well I realize it's been a while since I've written, and I'm sorry for that, but it's because I've been so busy! My classes started, and I have a pretty good schedule and mixture of classes. On mondays and Tuesdays I have a Spanish literature course with a professor with an extremely German name: Adolfo de Nordenflycht. I can barely understand him but I'm pretty sure he is a cool dude. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I have a Spanish Communicational and Chilean Culture class which is SO fun. My professor has lived in the US for over 15 years, just recently she got back from a year long stay in Portland teaching at Lewis and Clark College. She is super fun! On our second day of class we talked about slang and swear words that are particular to Chile. It's a fun space where we can talk about the differences between our home and Chile, and look at the reasons for these differences. For example,   here, PDA is a HUGE thing. On a ride in the metro the other day I saw a couple make out for the whooooooole ride. There was no shame whatsoever. I can't really wrap my mind around it yet, but in class we talked about how it happens because of the conservative culture in a lot of Chilean families. My other class is a Spanish grammar class which seems to be really helpful and very clear which is just what I need. On Wednesday I have a class called Modernity and Social Problems which I am not quite sure yet about but it sounds good. I then have a class taught by the program I am studying through, which is called CIEE. It is a history, literature, and movie class about Valparaiso and we will be doing a lot of excursions around the city which seems like it will be a lot of fun. And that, my friends, are the classes I will be taking this semester. It's a higher number of classes than I'm used to but less of a work demand in them than I'm used to so I don't think it will be too bad. The credits all worked out and I'm 98% sure I'll be able  to transfer them to K so that's really all I care about right now!

This week was the first time since being here that I felt a little lost and lonely. Mostly I think it's because I spent a lot of time alone as I would travel to and from school alone, be in class alone, and a lot of times I ate alone. My mom here is very busy too during the day so I usually ended up being here alone during the day time. I also felt a struggle between wanting to be friends with the gringo people in my program and make new Chilean friends. I had thought that I would be taking classes with Chilean students but because of students strikes they are all still in their first semester of the year, and we just started the second. I had been banking on having that access to Chilean young people to make friends, but with that out, I was feeling really frustrated since the only friends I could make were gringos. Which is great, but that wasn't really what I was looking for when I came here. I know that it's still early to have met all the people I think I will meet, but it feels like I've been here forever! Even though it's only been about two weeks, I feel like I have been here for months. Luckily the weekend came around and things turned around a little bit.

On Thursday night I went and played futbol with my friends host brother and "his crew". I am still very sore from this game, even though to them it was just a game for fun. If I even touched the ball it was pretty much a guarantee that I would mess up and kick it out of bounds, or lose it to a defender, however I still managed to have fun! Benito's crew is a bunch of young, poor students who live together in a three bedroom apartment above Benito's moms place. They live in bunk beds and spend hours jammin out together playing music, drinking cheap wine and just spending time together. If I ever had an image of what Chilean youth are like, it is this group of people. They are a great group of people and I'm realy grateful to have met them! Afterward futbol we went to a bar near my house and had terremotos, which is pineapple ice cream and wine. The sweetest most delicious drink ever. On Friday me and Kacey tried to make it out to Viña to have lunch and do some browsing of the stores but halfway through Kacey got sick and we had to go home! What a stressful situation. Riding a bus was surely going to make her sick again, but she could barely walk to where we needed to catch the metro because she was so feverish. It turned out to only be a 24 hour bug that she caught from her 6 year old sister here. Luckily I haven't gotten the bug, at least not yet!

It's been a good week I'd say, even with a little dip in the middle and I'm even more excited for next week's adventures.