One Month

So I have been in Chile for one month, and I can not think of a single thing to say fully and to discuss.

Thus, I have decided to list a brief recollection of what I learned in Chile

Week one: I tried to keep a little notebook to take with me to write down new Spanish words. In the first 2 weeks, I wrote down lots of words. Now however, the notebook is simply filled with people I Facebook friend who I don't really know very well. The words I wrote in the first two days were: sopapilla (a type of bread), maraqueta (a type of bread), hallula (another type of bread), tortolo (mourning dove) y livano (light).

I had 3 types of bread written down because Chileans love bread. They eat bread with every meal.

To demonstrate how much bread I eat, a typical day of meals for me is this:

Breakfast -- toasted maraqueta with palta (avocado), cheese, membrillo (this sweet jelly block made from quince) or butter, a kiwi, a banana with honey and tea

Lunch -- more toasted maraqueta or hallula, tea, and a main dish like soup or meat and carbs with some side veggies

Dinner -- Usually Chileans do not eat a proper, big dinner. They eat an "once" which is like nighttime breakfast usually consisting of tea with sweets. They will also eat a light dinner-- a little bit of meat, wine and bread. But I am super lucky and my host mom feeds me dinner dinner. So I usually have toasted maraqueta, a main dish and then tea with a sweet.

It's a really good thing I love maraqueta otherwise I would not want to eat more bread.

Tortola was for the birds that like to nest outside my window.

Liviano was to describe how not light my sheets were.

Week 2: I learned a few names of drinks-- pisco, pisco sour, piscola, terremoto, chicha... I also learned that Chilean drinks are strong, and there is both a Viking themed bar and a Viking themed restaurant within a 5 block radius of where I live.

Week 3: Because it was so cold when I arrived in Chile, I kept thinking that Christmas was around the corner. I've been conditioned by my Northern Hemisphere. However there is no Christmas, and Día del Niño is the closest thing in August. Though it is only for children, I still get to eat cake which makes me happy.

Also, I began to understand that Olga speaks very slowly. Once I started proper classes with Chileans, I realized that I could not understand anyone besides the gringos and the professor.

Another fact I was sad to know was that mourning doves abandon their eggs when they see someone (me) looking at them.

Week 4: I watched the movie Machuca with CIEE which only reinforced how different and distinct the class boundaries are in Chile. Later, I learned that drinking 2 terremotos in one night is not something I can handle. And that I should not ask for more pineapple ice cream in my drink no matter how delicious it is.

Somewhere within the mix of time, I've realized that I am very robotic in Spanish. I can't salsa; I can't talk, and I can't rely on witty comebacks for friends. I hope that there will be a point where I will soon bounce back and find some other way to make friends...

It is so hard to believe I am a fifth of the way through my semester abroad. I feel like I haven't done anything at all and have such little time to complete everything.