Tengo una abuelita chilena

I have a Chilean "abuelita" (grandmother) ahora! Dice "Por la nueva hijita, ¡Bienvenidos a Chile!" which translates to "For the new daughter, welcome to Chile!" It's now been about more than a month since I've been in Chile. ¡Qué maravillosa! No puedo creerlo. A lot has happened since my last post (sorry, my goal was to post something every week and I fail, I'm not really good at this) Here's some things that have happened since my last post:

• Friends and I traveled al norte en La Serena
• El 13th cumpleaños de mi hermano, Estéban.
  
• Have all my classes now, finally! I'm taking a Spanish stylistics class, medical spanish, health internship, and natural disasters of Chile class at La Universidad de Chile. The La Chile class es un poco dificil porque I'm the only extranjera (aka non-chilean student) there, the professor talks really fast and slurs all his words together. Dios mio.
• Just completed the seminar portion of my health internship two weeks ago at Universidad Diego Portales. In addition, last week I started my clinical rotations at Dipreca Hospital. I started in la Unidad de tratamientos intensivos (UTI = intensive care unit) and will be continuing that this week. We'll do these rotations for 6 weeks, rotating through surgeries, neurologia, unidad coronaria, emergency room, and then one of my free choice during the last week. Here in Chile, they have public and private hospitals. After the 6 weeks, we'll switch to a public hospital and observe the differences there.
• I've learned how to take the metro system to ANYWHERE in Santiago (big big accomplishment!)
• I've started exploring Santiago a little on my own. Last weekend I wandered around cerro Santa Lucia and the artisan fair/centro (fíjate en my word choice of "wandered" around Cerro Santa Lucia. I actually didn't get to climb it because I talked to this guy at the foot of the hill). He collects coins/money from all the world which was really cool. Then we talked about random stuff, his life, life in general, and then his thoughts on problemas in Chile. He believes that too many people are having babies and that the gov't needs to implement some law that limits how many kids you can have. He was saying that young kids were just having a lot of sex (in Chile, condoms are very scarce, not many women are on the pill, and abortions are illegal). Entonces, his idea of pop. control was somehow eliminating all of these accidental babies. The conversation kind of got ugly towards the end because I said that to sustain a positive change, the gov't should put money towards educating the public (i.e. safe sex, abstinence, the like..), but he was persistent in saying education won't do anything -- "we need to decrease the population. There are too many of us." We argued this for about seriously an hour and a half in broken Spanish/English. Therefore I never got to climb el cerro Santa Lucia.
  
• FOUND BILBIOTECAS (libraries), which are my favorite places EVER. Plus, Alison Nelson, if you're reading this, I found a biblioteca called "Café literario" that has all the natural light I'd ever want. It's located in the middle of a park, with a BEAUTIFUL fountain/wading pool in the front. Plus, get this. The whole building is made of glass windows. Did you hear that, WINDOWS!! So whilst studying, I get to look out at mere natural beauty. And if I'm there early enough, I get to see one of the homeless guys take his daily bath there.
  

• I've started walking to more places than using the metro/bus because a) my transportation costs have been adding up and b) the weather has been god AWESOME! Average this week was about 75 degrees (got to 82 on Wednesday. However, as many of you all know, shorts weather for me starts at about 40 degrees. Even though ahora is PRIME shorts weather, chileans find it muy awkward para las mujeres to wear shorts, although it's more appropriate to wear short mini skirts. Anyway, I'm dying because I LOVE wearing shorts but I can't. Nonetheless, it's been mucho fun walking everywhere. I've been venturing into lots of random shops, museums, centers, business places (if a company earns enough money, they are required by the government to have some sort of public museum/art gallery to educate el público de los artes y cultura chilena), etc and have been meeting a lot of new random people. One person I met this week was taking advantage that I didn't understand Spanish well. I asked him what he did for a living and he told me that he puts a pistol to people's head and robs them once a month down south. I told him 10 times that I don't think I'm understanding him correctly, but turns out he was just messing with me. He was fun.
  
• Last Wednesday I started teaching English at "Rincón Inglés" at the library. Fue muy divertido! Also, next week I'll start working as a TA for an english class at Universidad de Diego Portales.
  
• Went bowling with my family last sunday. Turns out they love to bowl. ¡Qué divertido! So awesome since I'll be missing out on bowling club this semester.
  

Today I got my dose of chemistry because I'll admit it, I'm a nerd and I miss doing chemistry. I got to help Estéban memorize the periodic table....IN SPANISH. Oh how I miss it so! But I'm learning all the elements in spanish. suh-weet!

Chao chao.

ps. I saw a Chilean with a "Kentucky Horse Park" shirt the other day. ¡Que rico!

Spanish lessons:
bocina = horn
mascota = pet
colita = butt

Jay Manuel in Spanish

It's already the weekend again! At the moment I'm watching Jay Manuel's fashion makeover in spanish and it just hit me. I know Spanish. I'm not even paying attention to the tv and I can understand everything Jay Manuel is saying! Granted, he's not saying anything educated, but nonetheless, I'm understanding it all! Dios mio. Now after learning all this Spanish, maybe I can start working on my Vietnamese!

Anyhow, I absolutely love my family. My younger sister and I have so much fun together. And my parents are just so loving and supportive. This past week has been a bit stressful for me. I'm trying to figure out my class schedule, which is really stressful because not only do I have to figure out what classes to take, but I have to take into account how long it will take on the metro to get to a class and if the credits for that class will even transfer. And for those who already know how stressful pre-registration at Grinnell is for me, having to add this little things into the "picking my classes" ordeal makes it almost 10x as bad. Dios mio! In addition, I've been having a little trouble handling the "racism" here. The diversidad in Chile is quite different than in the United States. I'm generally a very happy person and kind of oblivious to when people are attacking/making fun of me. But being a gringo in Chile makes me stick out like a thumb. However, in addition to being a gringo, I'm the asian-gringo. The worst was the other night at the bus stop. I was sitting at the bus stop, waiting for the bus and all these chilenos started yelling and screaming at me "China, China, China! (pronunced chee-na. The word for asian in Chile is "china" because apparently all asians look chinese...)" They were very rowdy (I think they were un poco borracho because there was a fútbol game that night) and when the bus stopped, they got off yelling and started running around the bus, close to me as I was sitting at the bus stop. Luckily I was with a friend of mine, but I'd never felt so scared and discriminated before. It was enough that they were screaming towards me, but I seriously felt that they were going to come up to my face and yell at me because I was "china." The last time I had felt like the minority was in elementary school, me, the only Asian one surrounded by only white American friends. But the great thing about the united states is that people are so fascinated by different cultures. Maybe I've taken for granted the the openess and embracement of different colored/looking/acting people in the united states. Diversity is NOT común in Chile. They absolutely hate the Peruvians (which now the black-asian mixture in Peruvian blood adds to their despise of Asians). Anyhow, despite all of this, I can only keep my head up high and try not to let it bother me. One way is by spending a lot of time with my family. I haven't told them about what's going on, but I just feel so loved by them. Every time I come home, my sister runs to give me the biggest 20 second hug, then proceeds to tickle me to death. Sometimes I wonder if they ever feel a bit embarrassed to be housing a "china-gringo" in their house. But when they take me out in public, I know it's not true. My sister, Panchy holds my hand every time we're out on the street and my brother Esteban plays/jokes with me like a normal brother.

I can't say it enough, I LOVE my family. And their love they give me reminds me why I try to be nice to everyone, always. I may have no idea what another person may be going through, but hopefully by just being super happy and friendly, I can make that little difference for that person by being caring and happy. Mr. Foster did that for me in highschool. By just being himself, full-spirited, and just an awesome man, it helped me not to dwell on the things that were bothering me.
I don't tell my chilean family what I'm going through because I don't want any pity from them. But because they have so much kindness, love, and support to offer, it helps me to get my mind off things and feel so genuinely accepted in their presence. I smile and laugh with them SO much. Mi guatita (stomach) hurts so much when I'm with them. Me encanta.

The other night I tried to teach them how to say the word "refrigerator." It was so cute. Esteban caught on rather quickly, but it was so funny listening to mi papa trying to do it. But nonetheless, maybe like a day later, he got it! :) We decided we're going to start writing English words of the day and Spanish words of the day on the kitchen wall so both of us can learn. Also, my sister has started flaunting her spanish skills by speaking "trabalenguas" (tounge twsiters). It's fun. My favorite that I can do is:

Yo compré pocas copas,
pocas copas yo compré.
Y como compré pocas copas,
pocas copas yo pagué.

Also, my sister has been teaching me a lot of chilean spanish. They do a lot of things different here (with the language, that is). Instead of "cómo estás", it's "cómo estai." Also, they LOVE adding "-ito/a" to the ending of nouns. So while my sister deadly tickles me to death, we go over all the body parts she plans to attack, like my guatita, narita, orejita, manita, piernita, brazito, etc. In addition, mi mamá calls me her "niñita Angelita"

Anyway, the other day I climbed el cerro (hill) de San Cristóbal. It took about 2 hours to climb and about an hour to descend. It was GORGEOUS. The hill rises 880 m and about 300 m above the rest of Santiago; the peak is the second highest point in the city, after Cerro Renca. At the top of el cerro, there's a 22m statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We have a great view of the statue from my apartment. We're on the 21st floor and every night during dinner we get to look out at a magical view La Virgen at the top of the hill. With La Virgen so high above the city, she protects and looks over us in Santiago. ¡Que lindo!

View from top of Cerro San Cristóbal


La Virgen at the top of el cerro San Cristóbal





Shrine for La Virgen


La vista de las Andes Mountains y Santiago



Looking out upon the city from San Cristóbal

Also, I guess Louisville, KY had a big flood the other day? Guess how I found out. I watch the news with my parents every night. Recent stories have been about carbon monoxide deaths, smoggy weather, Chileno-stuff, etc. Well, out of nowhere, they start to show clips of la inundación (flood) in Louisville! They show clips of a gas station I know and our mayor, Jerry Abramson comes on the screen as well! ¡Qué extraño! Louisville, KY on the nightly news in Santiago, Chile. Wow, would have never thought.

Greetings from Chile!

I've arrived in Chile! My host family is so nice! They have one daughter who is 10 and a son who will be 13 by the end of August. Their names are Francisca and Esteban. However, we call Francisca by her nickname, "Panchy." Maria Cecilia is my host mother and Sergio is my host father.

They are the nicest people, EVER. I love my sister because I get to watch Hannah Montana with her (in spanish too btw). I get to craft with my mom. I made earrings yesterday! And she's going to teach me how to knit, crochet, cook, and make these cool wood art paintings. She's so crafty, I LOVE IT. The other day we also made these cool wire trees. Every night my dad shows me cool videos of Chile on youtube and tells me everywhere I must visit. And my little brother makes fun of me, just like a typical brother would. Perfecto!

It's been a week since I've been here. No puedo creerlo! The plane ride was long. However, I ended up sitting next to a man who is a professor at the Universidad de Chile (La Chile). His name is Pato and he's a professor of physics and was coming home from an astronomy conference in China! He was really nice and invited me to have dinner with him, his wife, and their 1 1/2 year old baby whenever I get settled in. He also drew me a map of Santiago and showed me the good pub areas (I didn't even ask for it, I guess he just assumed that I wanted to know?) Also, I might take a class at La Chile, so he said he would take me on a tour of the campus and show me the telescopes there (because apparently Chile has one of the best skies for studying astronomy). (To Joey: I'm glad you explained to me about the gamma rays and your research because after the physics professor guy told me about his stuff, I got to sound smart and explain to him the research that you're doing. He seemed pretty impressed that I had something intelligent to chime in.)

The past week was a whirlwind including language and cultural immersion classes and many viajes (trips) to different parts of Santiago. By the end of the last week, we also got to visit Isla Negra, Viña del Mar, y Valparaíso -- all which is about 1.5 hrs west of the city. I got to visit Pablo Neruda's house in Isla Negra. It was amazing! Here are some pictures of the trip.

Neruda was quite the collecionista! He had three houses in Chile, one in Santiago, Isla Negra, y Valparaíso, one house for every wife he had. He collected a lot of random things, like different type of bottles, butterflies, ship masts, etc. Algo interesante is that todas de sus houses are in the shape of a boat. I guess he really liked el mar (sea).

These pictures don't do the scenery here justice. I'm going to have to find another website where I can post my pictures. I'll try to set that up soon!

This past week we've been trying to get ready for classes. I had my first class today. It was pretty hard to understand but hopefully within a few weeks I will be able to understand the spanish better. They talk so fast! I'm taking a medical Spanish class, doing clinical observations at la universidad de Diego Portales with a seminar about medicine and healthcare, a spanish grammar class, and hopefully a physics class at La Chile so I can get one of my pre-med classes taken care of here. Also, I'm hoping to take a photo class so I can take beautiful pictures here and I hope to volunteer to teach english at la universidad as well!

Today after class I finally unpacked all my suitcases, organized my closet, and cleaned my room. My mom was making fun of me because I have been here for more than a week and was still living out of my suitcase. jaja. I guess Angela in Chile is still the same as Angela en los estados unidos

Chao!

Words I learned today:
piojo = lice (While watching the news on tv during lunch, turns out there's a big lice problem in Santiago right now)
hacer cosquilla = to tickle (because my brother and sister were tickling me all day)