Las primeras dias en Viña

El reloj de flores, a landmark of Vina. All of the numbers, background, etc are made entirely of flowers. AND the clock is accurate, to boot!



Happy Friday, all!

On Wednesday, my host family came to the hosteleria to bring me back to their house (our house? hmm...) en Viña del Mar. I absolutely love everyone that I'm living with. The mom is a social worker, and we get along really well. The teenagers have become my lifelines, and they're always willing to bring me places or to help me get to a different part of the city(ies). I met the nine year old for the first time last night, and he's absolutely adorable. He reminds me a lot of Matthew - - - a quick-witted child who should probably hold his tongue more, but you can't get mad at because he's just too cute. There's also a nanny in the house, who works during the days while the mom works her jobs, and she's fantastic. She cooks SO WELL. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day in Chile, and I'm so lucky that she's the one who makes it for me!

We've just been doing more CIEE orientation things this week, and we start some class-type things next week; we also register for classes at PUCV. Then, on August 5, classes at PUCV officially start.... and all this free time goes down the drain. Honestly, though, I'm so glad. Anyone who knows me knows that I can't deal with down time. It drives me insane.

So I've been fielding lots of random questions that I probably haven't responded to, so below is a list of the funniest things that have happened, or just things that I've learned (complete with a few pictures):

1.Chileans have the hardest accent to understand in the world
Honestly. This is not an opinion. This is pure fact. I googled it, so it must be real. They make up billions of words that don't make sense, and they just drop off the letters that they don't feel like using. If you think a Boston accent is weird because they drop the R, try understanding someone who drops the Rs... and the Ss... and the Ts... and the other consonants. It's vowel soup, Chile is.

I'm definitely struggling with the Spanish. BUT! I did just have a conversation of about an hour and a half with my host mom, which was great. She says that I have a decent command of the language, and I love that she corrects me when I make mistakes. I'm getting by, but it's pretty hard.


Otra foto de Olmue


2. Being nice doesn't help you here.
Within the first few minutes, a whole group of us was cheated out of a few dollars when a man who was loading our suitcases onto the bus came up and said "Your tip is my salary." And we believed him. And smiled. And gave him money. And he laughed. Then the program director came and informed us that CIEE covers tips. Q bueno.


3. Gringa CAN be a term of endearment!!
My host mom calls me gringita CONSTANTLY, and she truly doesn't mean anything bad by it. If you have light skin, light hair, or light eyes, you're automatically a gringa. Guess who has the trifecta....
But honestly, people are more curious than malevolent about us being from the EEUU. It was awkward, though, today when we were walking on the beach and a man came up to take pictures with the girls who are super-blonde, because it's so uncommon to see here.



The view from my street. Everything is set up high, in neighborhoods called "cerros", which means hill. My cerro is on the border of Vina y Valpo, with an incredible view of the Pacific
4. South America can be FREEZING
I kid you not. It's the winter, and granted, it's not cold by Boston's (or even Nashville's) standards, but I've been sleeping with two pairs of sweatpants, multiple shirts, billions of blankets.... Once the sun goes down the sea breeze hits you, it's horrible. Central heating is an entirely foreign concept. BUT! I have an electric blanket that's my favorite thing here. I'm not kidding.


5. Grammar is important, kids
I always kind of studied for Spanish grammar exams with the understanding that I just had to pass the test, but not retain any of the rules. I mean, who uses correct grammar? Everyone. . .
In hindsight, I should have made sure that I was comfortable with preterite and imperfect (and even subjunctive), because right now I'm stuck with awkward sentences and lots of circumlocution to avoid horrendous verb conjugation.


6. Everything happens SO LATE
My mom here goes to be about midnight, gets up at 8, works at 10.... It's insane. Bars don't get full until 2 or 3 (at the earliest). Dinner is at 9 or 10, if it even happens at all. Bizarre, but it's growing on me.

That was a lie. It's hard to get used to


A cloudy sunset view of the Vina side of the bay

7. My name will never be the same
The first vowel sound in my name sounds like an "a." But it's a sound that's entirely foreign in the Spanish language. So my name comes out more like Cooo-leen than Caw-leen. I'm bad with phonetics...

And the double L is it's own letter and sound in Spanish which is normally pronounced like a Y, but some people from South America pronounce it like a J. So I've heard Coo-yeeen, and Cooo-jeen. I never know when anyone is talking to me, because everyone says my name differently. And none the way that I pronounce it. Tengo que acostombrarme....



All in all, I think everything is going well. My city is so beautiful, I can't even explain it. I wouldn't consider myself a well-traveled or well-cultured person, but I've honestly never never seen a city this incredible. My pictures do NOT do it justice. Images.google has much more-- I suggest doing this.


A view of the Valpo side of the bay


I don't want to bore you any more than I have with useless updates and the like. But I haven't been TOO busy as of late, so send me an email or leave me a comment if you have more questions!

Besos,
Colleen