Long Time Away from the PC

Well, I´ve been in Chile for three days now. My host family picked me up at the airport (after I paid the $100 entrance fee) and took me home. They´re a really sweet old couple who live at home with their daughter. At the time, I could kind of understand them although it was tough because my spanish is rusty. They took me home and pointed out some sights for me. As we were driving I noticed that a ton of construction is going on. It seems that Chile is doing really well in the new economy. Roads and malls are being built, construction workers are around by the hundreds, and dust is everywhere as new buildings go up. It seems like the country is doing real well and the local population is enamored with consumerism. There are advertisments for cell phones and cars, clothing, and anything else you could want.

We got home and they showed me my bed which is in this tiny room with a closet and a bathroom. Not a lot of space but it´s livable. I just unpacked and then I hit the sack because I didn´t sleep at all on the flight. When I got up, they made me breakfast which consisted of avocado spread on bread with tomatoe and salt (LOTS OF SALT). Apparantly salt goes on everything. Afterwards, they took me to the supermarket and they let me get some stuff for my meals. They´re supposed to make me breakfast and dinner. Their daughter, who originally I thought would be like 11 or 12, turned out to be 26 and works with children with learning disabilities along with her pololo (boyfriend in chilean).

Ismail the Pololo was a nice guy and we talked about politics. The US of course is the big imperializer. I think Bush has got a lot of work to do if he´s serious about changing hearts and minds. I tried to explain to him the US position but I didn´t come across well because my speaking is weak, although I think I´m okay at understanding what I´m told, although it depends on the person's accents. Anyway, Ismail said that he had a hard time believing the good intentions of the US considering its history in the region, namely Gautamela, Allende, and Nicaragua and that with the US war in Iraq, the US is just being imperialistic. I understand his view, but I think the US doesn´t think in the same way as it did during the Cold War. I think we have a lot better awareness of the long term effects of our actions. Considering our history though, especially in this region, I could see it´s going to take a lot to get people to change their minds about the gringo.

Saturday night we went to a pena which is a bar that also has a guy playing folk songs on the guitar. It was neat and there was a mix of people of different ages. I went with my host sister and Ismail and we listened to old chilean songs from the 50´s and 60´s while drinking something that was sangria-like but not sangria. I couldn´t understand a lick of spanish though because of the noise so I just kept saying ¨si si¨. We got back to house around 5AM which might be early for Santiogians.

Sunday my host parents took me to a fair in a typical Chilean village, I believe the village was called Curacavi. It was alright as far as fair goes. Besides the interesting crafts and food, I noticed the village was really different from Santiago. There was only one paved road and there only full houses, as we would think of them in the US. The others seemed almost put together as an afterthought. Many were small and parts of them seem to have a slight slant. After driving through the village I wondered where they got their food from. I only saw one building that resembled a store. I guess Chileans outside of Santiago are poorer than their brethren in the city.

After the fair we drove through the mountains to get home which had roads just like the ones you see in car commercials, hairpin turns and the like. It´d be a great place if you had a sports car and no will to live...

A New Location

Apparently people resented having to sign in to leave a message. Consequently, I moved my blog over to this site in order to accomodate their wishes. Now, ya'll can leave messages anonymously so I hope you're happy. I hope everyone appreciates my magnanmity.

One last day in the states and then tomorrow I'll be whisked away to non-english speaking Chile.

First Conversation with the Family

I had my first conversation with my host family today. I called around 6:50 EST which I think is 7:50 Chilean time although I still haven't figured out what the time difference is. Anyway, they seemed really nice and excited. Carlos answered the phone and he was really happy to talk to me. I felt kind of flustered during the whole conversation, I had that feeling I always get in Spanish class when the teacher assaults me with questions. Except this time I wasn't in class, I was speaking Spanish for real, with real people who use the language instead of English. How about that! Talking! And not using English! Crazy!

I understood Carlos, but when Maria Elena (his wife) spoke to me I had no idea what she was saying. I kept saying "no comprendo", "lo siento"...they must think I know nothing! Hahaha! Well, low expectations are easy to beat, that's what I always say.

So, I am not nervous about going but I definitely realize it's going to be a lot of work. I need to "el cram" the "espanol", so to speak, but that's what the 12 hour flight is for, right?

And so it begins...

Well, here we go...

My Jonathan Berman and I am 20 years old. I'm from Poughkeepsie, NY and I'm on my way to Santiago, Chile to study abroad. I've never done a blog or anything of that nature but I felt it was important to catalogue and keep track of my trip to the other side of the world. I'll be there until May 20th, 2005.

On January 27th, 2005 I am taking an evening flight from Newark, NJ to Miami, FL in order to transfer to LANChile airlines. From there I will take an 8 hour flight to Santiago, Chile. I should arrive in the airport at Santiago at 6:50AM, which, if the universal time clock website is right, is 16-20 mins before sunrise in Chile. So that should be quite a sight to see, the first sunrise I'll see in South America.

Of course, that depends on whether my flight gets in on time...