Week one in Santiago is just about finished – it’s been an exciting and exhausting week! We’ve spent the days learning about different academic and safety policies, getting to know Chilean culture and the Chilean variation of Spanish, and exploring the city on short adventures.
The walk to and from the study abroad center is really easy and through a nice part of the Providencia neighborhood. One of the other students, Louisa, lives in the same building as me so we’ve been able to walk together, which has been really nice! I’ve been settling into life in a very small room in someone else’s home, which has been weird at times but also really exciting. At first it was really hard for me to understand my host mom when she spoke because she speaks so fast, but I already feel like I can understand her a lot more. We haven’t talked very much so far because I’ve been so busy with orientation and exploring the city, but I hope that we’ll be able to bond more in the future. I’ve been adjusting to Chilean food (which is pretty bland…) and it’s been a bit difficult because my host mom isn’t used to cooking vegetarian, but there haven’t been too many problems so far. I purchased a basic cell phone to use to contact people, and it’s been nice to be disconnected from my iPhone for a lot of the time :) Each day we’ve had class with one of the Spanish teachers about culture and Spanish in Chile, which has been pretty interesting. Each Spanish-speaking country has its own variation of the language and it’s important to know the specifics of Chilean Spanish if we’re going to immerse ourselves in this culture. For example, it’s only customary to say “Hola, como esta?” or “Hi, how are you?” to someone that you know specifically, not to anyone you haven’t met before like a pharmacist. Apparently it’s very easy to spot foreigners because they’ll use phrases like this inappropriately!
The walk to and from the study abroad center is really easy and through a nice part of the Providencia neighborhood. One of the other students, Louisa, lives in the same building as me so we’ve been able to walk together, which has been really nice! I’ve been settling into life in a very small room in someone else’s home, which has been weird at times but also really exciting. At first it was really hard for me to understand my host mom when she spoke because she speaks so fast, but I already feel like I can understand her a lot more. We haven’t talked very much so far because I’ve been so busy with orientation and exploring the city, but I hope that we’ll be able to bond more in the future. I’ve been adjusting to Chilean food (which is pretty bland…) and it’s been a bit difficult because my host mom isn’t used to cooking vegetarian, but there haven’t been too many problems so far. I purchased a basic cell phone to use to contact people, and it’s been nice to be disconnected from my iPhone for a lot of the time :) Each day we’ve had class with one of the Spanish teachers about culture and Spanish in Chile, which has been pretty interesting. Each Spanish-speaking country has its own variation of the language and it’s important to know the specifics of Chilean Spanish if we’re going to immerse ourselves in this culture. For example, it’s only customary to say “Hola, como esta?” or “Hi, how are you?” to someone that you know specifically, not to anyone you haven’t met before like a pharmacist. Apparently it’s very easy to spot foreigners because they’ll use phrases like this inappropriately!
Today we took a trip to Valparaiso, the major port city in Chile, located about an hour and a half west of Santiago. It’s a beautiful city filled with colorful buildings covered in murals. The amount of graffiti is a bit daunting but it’s almost become part of the culture of the city. We visited the former home of Pablo Neruda, the Nobel Prize winning poet from Chile who also became the country’s ambassador to many countries. We couldn’t take pictures inside, but it was really interesting to see all of the artifacts he gathered from around the world.
After walking around Valparaiso we drove to the next town over, Vina del Mar. It’s a major tourist city with a beautiful beach and a great boardwalk filled with gifts from Chile.
It’s been a great week so far! Tomorrow we’ll be exploring downtown Santiago a bit more and the rest of the week will be spent finishing up orientation and visiting the local universities where we can take classes.