Fin de Semana

Note: this was written midweek and for some reason didn't publish. So this is not this weekend, but last weekend. ¿Cachai?
This weekend was great. I'm not sure why or how, but it made me realize that I feel at home here, both in my house and in the town. Clearly, I'm still the foreigner who can't speak the language fluently, who doesn't always understand why things happen the way they happen, who is surprised by things that everyone else considers normal. But I don't feel like I'm sitting in the corner, watching everything happen around me while I try to wrap my brain around one little thing at a time. Todavía digo algunas cosas en ingles porque me olvido que estoy hablando en castellano. Sometimes, after someone says something, I think back to it and can't remember what language they were speaking. Especially because Chileans say certain things in English and if I hear it when I'm not really paying attention, I can't remember whether they said it in English or in Spanish. So someone will be talking rapid fire Spanish to me and I'll (hopefully) understand what they're saying and in the midst of it they'll throw in a word in English, like sorry which they copy from the What Does the Fox Say video where the fox says sorry instead of demonstrating his noise, and I'm like, wait, what, what's going, was that in English or am I just really confused? But I'm no longer phased by Chilean spanish as much as in the beginning. Clearly, there's still lots I don't know. But I'm not as lost.
On Saturday, several different things happened. First, my mom, grandmas, sister, and I made this really yummy food. I'm not sure what it's called, but it's a lot like gnocchi, Italian potato dumplings. For the last couple days, my host father's parents have been staying at the house, and my host mother's mom lives nearby  so she also joined as. Another relative, who I believe is my host mom's aunt, also joined us for lunch.
My sister and I had a picture taking session (she wants to be a photographer) where she took way, way too many photos. Most of them of me being ridiculous.
Then I went out to onces with a friend. She's from Chile and when she was in high school, she did a study abroad trip to the US, to a city near where I live. A year or so ago, she was back in the US, visiting, and I met her and talked to her about Chile. When I found out where I was living, I emailed her and it turned out that she had recently moved to Puerto Natales and started working in Torres del Paine (it's a small world after all, it's a small world after, it's a small, small world). So I met her and we talked, mostly in English, about my stay here and she gave me advice. It was nice to be able to talk to someone who knows firsthand the differences between here and New England.
Saturday night, mi abuelo, papa, hermano, hermana y yo fuimos al festival de cerveza de Natales. As minors, the three of us were not allowed to have any beer, but there was Chilean music and everyone was dancing. Because it's Puerto Natales, we also saw a ton of people we know, including about half of our professors and classmates.

Sunday was very relaxed. Acá en Chile, domingo es un día flojo. Everyone slept really late. As in, to the point where Cony and I were the first ones awake at one p.m. (This is slightly a lie. Carlos had to get up early in the morning to work and when he got back home at noon, he went back to sleep.)

Note the height difference

Me

Me... I told you she took a lot of pictures of me being weird.

Me, mi papa, y su cafe helado, or coffee with ice cream, whipped cream, and cookies. Besides the coffee part, it's yummy. 

Abuela- la mama de mi mama

Me and mi hermanito, Nacho

Bailando al Festival de Cerveza

I was sick of pictures at this point, the flash is really bright

we're good at making faces :)

Mi Curso

There are 36 people in tercero medio Bernasconi (there are two cursos in tercero medio and each has it's own name) and we have almost all our classes together. The exceptions to that are the Humanista y Cientifico classes where we split up and combine with the other tercero medio in our respective tracks. Of my thirty-five, I know the names of around fifteen. Several of those names are not actual names. So, for example and I'm spelling this completely wrong, Chichu (chee-chew) is the nickname of one of the guys in my curso and I know who he is and I've even sort of had conversations with him, but it wasn't until he friended me on Facebook that I discovered his real name is Sergio. Nicolas is Chappa, Luis is Lucho, Tomas is Negro, Marcela is Machete (it has nothing to do with the English word machete), Gaby is Flaca, etc. Of course, there are also people whose nicknames are directly related to their actually names: Constanza is Cony and Natalia is Nattie. All these people have known each other forever and something like a third of the curso has been in this curso in this school for as long as they've been going to school. There are groups of people who kind of stand off from the core of the curso, but a solid twenty-five (if not more) are amazingly close. During breaks, we sit on the floor outside the classroom in big groups, talking or collectively playing on someone's phone or playing card games. But there's always at least people standing up, goofing off. More often than not, a guy is teasing a girl. He's probably got her backpack or her phone or is playing with her hair or tickling her or generally trying to get her attention in an annoying way. She's smiling and laughing at the same time she's telling him to quit it. And it's not flirting the way it would be in the US, it's more like the interaction between a brother and sister, though that's not exactly right either. This happens constantly with about half the boys and all the girls in the curso (there are some boys who are more shy or studious who don't do this). When everyone is sitting in class, well, first of all, when we walk into the classroom, everyone immediately finds a desk and drags it to where they want to sit. We have to be in three sections, two running along the walls on the side of the classroom and one down the middle and each section is three people wide, but other than that anything goes. Everyone has their desk close enough together that  in order to get up you have to move your own desk and the desks of everyone around you. From your seat you can without stretching your arm out, touch at least five classmates. When the teacher isn't giving us notes to copy down (every single class we're copying down notes. Pages and pages of notes. Everyone here uses pens in three colors- black,blue, and red- simultaneously to write their notes), people get bored and start goofing off. Girls constantly braid other girls' hair with mini braids and there is always at least one pen fight going on somewhere in the room. By pen fight I don't mean someone stealing pens, I mean scribbling lines on someone else's skin or notebook back and forth. Despite the fact that it would be incredibly easy to exclude the exchange students in this atmosphere, we're included in everything. I've had to re-write my notes when I get home from school cause someone wrote song lyrics overtop the notes, I've had pen scribbles on my hand and even my cheeks, and I'm usually a part of the conversations even though I can't always understand what they're talking about. Generally, the best part of a day at school here is the atmosphere and the people. 

          That atmosphere isn't restricted to the students. The teachers, depending on the individual, are part of it too. Of course there are the stricter teachers who aren't included in the group but then there are the teachers who everyone loves and includes in everything. Here, you never call you teacher Mr. Lastname or Mrs. Surname. It's tio and tia which literally mean uncle and aunt. A perfect example of this relationship is the sweet thing my curso did for one of the teachers this week. Here, each curso has a profesor jefe who is in charge of the curso and is basically a second mother to everyone for the entire time they're at the school (usually the profe jefe is female). This year, my curso had a new profe jefe because their old profe jefe is eight months pregnant and moving to Punta Arenas. (We all think our new profe jefe is awesome as well.) So, the day before the old profe jefe was set to leave for Punta Arenas, my class had a baby shower for her. Friday afternoon after school got out at one, half the curso went to the cafe one girl's brother owns and which he had closed for us for the afternoon and prepared everything the best we could. The two days previously after school, a small group including the class president and officers (and their siblings- the other exchange student's sister is the president and my brother is something so the two of us tagged along) walked around town buying everything we would need with money we collected from everyone in the curso. We even ordered a cake and everyone bought presents for her and the baby. When the profe arrived, approximately three hours after we'd started getting ready (it actually only would have taken thirty minutes to get ready but because it's Chile we were having fun, taking our time, and socializing), she greeted everyone and we showed her the cake and she started crying. She gave a short speech like thing (which I understood!) about how sweet this is and how much she'll miss our curso and she wishes us all the best. By the end, the only people in the room of thirty (not everyone came) who weren't crying were the two exchange students. Then we say down at the table and ate cake and soda and chips and cheese puffs and whatnot. I tried helping serve the cake and was told by several of the boys that no, I should go sit with the rest of the girls, the boys would take care of it. This was followed by Lucho shouting that the rest of the boys needed to get up and come help, which they did without a single grumble. (Chilean chivalry is very much a part of everyday life. Por ejemplo, when my sister and my five year old brother were goofing off and playing some game that involves the winner hitting the loser, my father told my five year old brother it's not right to hurt a girl so he shouldn't actually hit my sister. Also, at lunch if the girls arrive to the cafeteria late and there aren't any more chairs the boys will actually stand up and offer the girls their chairs. Automatically. Like they don't even realize what they're doing.) After giving the profe her gifts, the baby shower stopped being such a baby shower and started being more of a group of teenager hanging out. Lots of karaoke was sung and people danced and everyone laughed and we were there for another four or so hours. I tried to help clear the table and was again told to sit down, it was fine, the boys had it under control. (The part of this that confuses me is that cooking and dishes are often considered the girls' chores at home. So for example, my sister is automatically assigned the job of cleaning up after meals while my brothers get other chores.) When we were eating the cake, I ended up sitting with the other exchange student at the end of the table where there were more boys than girls. Which was good, because that way Aim and I got to learn the names of our non-female classmates. Cristian (teachers often mix up our names, because in Chile Cristian is pronounced cris-ti-an instead of cris-chin) can repeat back everything I say in English with a near perfect American accent. Boris (I can't pronounce his name he Chilean way. Which is unfortunate 'cause the way Chileans say his name, it sounds really cool) is a skater. Dylan does karate (he's also really skinny. I'm not sure how with all the food Chileans eat). Chichu is a gaucho (Patagonian cowboy) and a bull rider. (To my horse crazy friends, his horses are beautiful. When I told him I have horses, he showed me a picture of his personal horse and it is the prettiest buckskin I have ever seen. I want that horse. I'll trade Ernie.) Of course, finding all this out was really hard since it was incredibly loud in the cafe and they all talk like Chilean teenage boys which is to say every sentence has at least one Chilean slang in addition to the standard weon and po. 

           It was a good night. And at the end, because Carlos and I were some of the last people there, we got to take home some of the leftover cake. It was delicious. Seriously, seriously delicious. Light and rich with perfect creamy, airy, not-too-sweet-or-dense frosting and sweet filling in-between the layers. I definitely ate way too much cake.

This is most of the people. Some are missing. From top to bottom, left to right. Javiera, Gaby, Cony, Me, Marcela, Gabriel, Tomas, Aim, Carlos, Kamii, Gaby, Cintia, Claudia, Boris, Chichu, Natalia, Cristian, Lucho, la profe

Nattie and me

the cupcakes I sort of helped Nattie and Kamii make. I was not part of the decorating though cause I was setting up the rest of the babyshower

people chilling outside the cafe, some of them on a smoke break from setting up

THE CAKE

everyone sitting at the table

hanging up the sign that said babyshower with Boris and Cristian

our current profe jefe and the profe jefe who is leaving

Josefa is going to be the baby's name and Tomas is playing his guitar in the background

I'm a fan of these cupcakes

Regalos!

Aim, Cintia and the table

the set-up

Colegio

Colegio (school) started this week. I've been the new girl at school before. Back then, I got lost a bunch, repeatedly arrived late for class, couldn't find my locker/had a broken locker that didn't shut, forgot every single person I met, and went right to sleep as soon as I got home. But that was nothing compared to going to a school in a foreign country where not only did I not know how things worked but I couldn't understand when it was explained to me. Only, thank god, this time all my classmates were extremely helpful and aware of the fact that I didn't have a clue. Well, all might be a bit of an exaggeration. There were still a few teenage boys trying to convince me that some swear word or another was actually a polite way to greet someone. And there were the people who introduced themselves with an adjective instead of a name, like "soy rico" which loosely translates into I'm hot. But I either realized what was going or the girls I was with told me every time so it was all good fun.

This is how school works:
There are 1,000ish students going to my school from Kinder (Kindergarten) to 4 Medio (12th Grade). The school has two stories and two gyms. Each grade has two (I think... there might be some with more) cursos, or "class" of students. You stay with your curso from Kinder to 4 Medio. Each curso has a Profesor Jefe who is the teacher who takes care of everyone in that curso and, when you reach 2,3, and 4 Medio helps you plan for graduation and class trip and such. Until 3 Medio, all your classes are with your curso. In 3 Medio, you choose Humanista or Cientifica track and have three classes in that track that are different from your normal, curso classes. (I chose Humanista because Cientifica included a bio class and the kids here took bio last year so they're just continuing it while I know nothing about bio. Also, Humanista means an extra English class. And I like the elective Lenguaje teacher which makes that impossible class bearable. Also, I am a humanities type of person.) Nearly all the girls who I hang out with chose Humanista.

My classes: Educacion Fisica- Gym
                   PD Lenguaje- Spanish literature class for the Humanities track
                   Languaje- Spanish literature class
                   Filosofia- Philosophy
                   Historia- History
                   Religion- Religion
                   Matematicas- Math
                   PREU Matematicas- Math preparation for the PREU test (like SAT or ACT in US)
                   Ingles- English
                   PREU Lenguaje- Spanish literature preparation for the PREU test
                   PD Historia- History for the Humanities track
                   Biologia- Biology
                   Musica- Music (theory and playing and rhythms/listening stuff)
                   C. Curso- the time when the curso gets together with the Profesora Jefe to talk about our class
My uniform:

From left to right: Cony, Nacho, Carlos, and me on the first day of school. Cony is wearing the sweatshirt, skirt, tights and shoes. Nacho and Carlos are wearing the shirt, pants, and shoes. I am wearing the shirt, skirt, tights and shoes. You can wear either the shirt or the sweatshirt, it doesn't matter. Girls can only wear pants during the winter when it's cold. There are also sweatpants, but those are only for gym class (which is unfortunate since they're much more comfy than the skirt and tights). 

Wednesday: First day of school. We only had school from 8 until 1 because it was the first day (being an exchange student, I didn't realize that we weren't going back to school after lunch until my host mom told me to change into regular clothes so I could come to the grocery store with her). The first class wasn't actually a class. It was the school making sure that everyone who was supposed to be in the curso was there and the Profesora Jefe talking to us about this year. We had to fill out a form with our information (I realized that I have no idea what my address is, why my parents phone numbers are, etc. Carlos basically filled it out for me). Then we spent the rest of the time talking (talking in class is a big thing here. Also, formal respect of teachers does not happen here the way it does in the US. Everyone calls the teachers tio and tia (uncle and aunt) and they have to call for attention every two seconds. A normal class here would be considered really rowdy and loud in my school in the US.). There aren't many girls in my curso and they basically split up into two groups. The other exchange student and I were automatically included in one of the groups because one of those girls is Aim's host sister and they are all friends with Carlos. Aim and I had already spent time hanging out with all the girls in the group. Having friends is especially important here because during class everyone moves the desks into clusters and if you're not clustered with your friends you're the only one whose desk is still in the proper place. Second class was Humanities English. The teacher just moved here and she'd never met any of the students in the class except the exchange students. (I mentioned before- she speaks English really well and studied in the US for awhile). She introduced herself and announced this class would be all about communication (easy peasy). We started the unit "the world of teenagers" by using our prior years of classes (or fluency) to introduce ourselves. You know, the standard "My name is Sarah. I am 27. I like to shop. My favorite color is purple." We started out introducing ourselves to a small group of people then each group had to elect one person to introduce themselves to the class. My group, of course, elected me. All the other people presenting themselves used their notebooks. Apparently it's really hard for people here to say fifteen. I spent at least half an hour repeating "fifteen" over and over again so they could copy me. They kept saying fixteen (except for the one guy who said he was fifty. I tried really hard not to laugh.) After break, we were supposed to have chemistry class and instead had a high school meeting/welcome thing in one of the gymnasiums. A whole bunch of stuff happened and a bunch of different people said things. Everyone stood up and sang the national anthem (oops, don't know that) and the pastor (it's Catholic, so he's not a pastor but I can't remember the word right now) led prayers. The principal told us the rules: arrive on time, dress properly, no pololo-ing (pololo is the word for boyfriend which is also used as a verb to mean something like participating in couple-y behavior). At the end, Aim and I got to walk up in front of everyone and stand there while they talked about us. (I didn't catch what they said because it was all over the microphone system and there was enough static that it would be hard for me to understand in English let alone in Spanish. Although, I know that they told the students to take care of us because I only spoke a little Spanish and Aim spoke none and we had never gone to school in Chile before.) After that we went back to Chemistry and played two first-day games. One was "Me Pika". You say "Me llamo Christina y me pika el dedo" (my name is christina and my finger itches, you use your own name and whatever body part hasn't already been said) and then the person to your left itches the body part you said. It goes around the room without repeating any body part. The next one was a way of telling people about our summer vacations (yeah, didn't have that since it's winter in the US right now). We made two circles, girls on the inside in a small circle and guys on the outside in a big circle, and walked in opposite directions. When the Prof. called out stop, we turned to the person across from us and talked about our summer vacations. It's hard enough to understand everything in the first place, but in a room where its so loud you can nearly feel the vibrations in the floor, it's nearly impossible. At one, I went home with my siblings, ate a delicious lunch, and slept for a solid four hours.

Thursday: A normal school day. I understand the majority of PD Lenguaje because it was about communication and she wrote nearly everything on the board while she explained it. On the other hand, the only thing I got out of Biologia is that this is going to be very difficult. It was a class just for reviewing the material from last year. The only thing I reviewed was my ability to copy other people's notes. Historia was another story. I understood small parts of it, but it is very, very difficult to focus on an hour and a half history lecture when you only understand one out of every couple sentences. Basically, a long history lecture is one of the more boring things in the world (in my opinion) and that's only multiplied by a million when the words coming out of the professor's mouth might as well be nonsense sounds. On Wednesdays and Thursdays there isn't enough time to go home for lunch so you can either buy the actually passable cafeteria food (the cafeteria is tiny. A thousand students and its only slightly bigger than a normal classroom) or you can bring your own food. My little brother gets out of school at the same time we have lunch (he's in first grade at the same school) so my mom brings us freshly cooked food. After lunch, we have Lenguaje. All I have to say is the best grade I can possibly get in that class will be a 4 (lowest possible passing grade, out of 7). I already have an essay to read in the next two weeks for PD Lenguaje and we were assigned another essay for regular Lenguaje for the same time frame. She said that this was a very difficult essay to read and most of the class would struggle with it. That's gonna be fun. Oh well. I'll learn a lot. 

Friday: Another normal day of school. Whoever designed the schedule for my school wisely recognized that nothing gets accomplished on Friday afternoons so I have three classes in the morning and school ends at one o'clock. I have PD Historia, Musica, and C. Curso. I understood a surprisingly large amount of Historia and Musica. C. Curso was just electing president and deciding what fundraisers to do and the like. In the late evening, I went with Carlos and a bunch of our classmates to one girl's house. We made pizza (here, making pizza means putting tomato sauce, cheese, oregano, and ham on a flat, round piece of bread and heating it. Muy rico), played futbol and other games, sang karaoke. 

Saturday: All the exchange students in my town had a get together. We ate a delicious breakfast filled with sweets (cookies, brownies, some sort of pastry with manjar in the middle, and cake) and then went to the campo para hacer canopy (zipline). It ended up being too windy to do anything, 100 km/h winds, so we might be going back tomorrow. 

    Dion from Denmark, Max from AFS, Jan from Denmark, Carlos from AFS (not my brother), me, Prisci from AFS, Aim from Thailand

Note about time zones: Chile was previously two hours ahead of the USA (8 in the US, 10 in Chile). Today US jumped an hour ahead on daylight savings for springtime and Chile jumped an hour back on daylight savings for fall time. So, for the rest of my stay, the time in Chile and the time in the US are the same. 

Second note: I may have been lying about this. I'm not sure. The Internet says that the official time has not changed and will only change in April but all the electronic devices (phones, computers, etc) have moved an hour ahead. Everyone is confused. 

My Life

Mi Casa

      My family lives in a complex of houses for military families. The man of every family that lives here works for El Ejercito (the army). Seeing groups of men in army fatigue (camo clothes, boots, army backpack thing, and floppy hat) is an everyday, normal occurrence. Slightly up the hill, towards the center of town, there is a small building that functions as the center for the complex and for the men working in the army. I've gone there with my host brother to buy coca for lunch when we're out of it and my host mom doesn't want to go all the way into town. 

the houses

My Week

       Most of this week I've spent relaxing with my family and trying to figure out how to understand Spanish. Wednesday, I walked around Puerto Natales with Max and Carlos again. We then had onces at Baguales, a super popular restuarant that's a 5-ish minute walk from my house and right on the main downtown plaza. For anyone who ever goes to Puerto Natales, I seriously recommend this place. As the Chileans say, "muy rico". It opens at 6:30 and its got tons of locals and tourists every night. (I've already gone there twice- the second time with classmates). For onces at Baguales, a group of Chileans typically order Mega Papas (1 kilo de papas fritas caseras con pollo apanado, tocino y queso/1 kilo of french fries smothered in breaded chicken, bacon and melted cheese) $5.950. (Note: smothered means something completely different here. They have a light topping of chicken, bacon, and melted cheese. They are not the American version of smothered where everything is covered by the cheese. Also, $5.950 does not mean its 5 dollars and 95 cents. It means its five thousand nine hundred and fifty pesos, which converts to approximately $11 USD.) 

For some reason, one of the tourist attractions is fingers coming out of the ground. I asked why, but they didn't know. They thought it was something about some guy who cut off his fingers and then did something memorable. Clearly it wasn't that memorable.

Giant bear. You can't see it, but there's a sign that says Welcome to Puerto Natales, Capital of Adventure Tourism in Patagonia in spanish.

    Thursday, I .... Well, I actually don't remember exactly what I did Thursday. I'm fairly certain that Thursday was the day it rained most of the day and I chilled inside the house, having tickle and pillow fights with my 5 year old brother. 

     Friday, on the other hand, was a very busy day. I went to bed at the usually 2 or 3 am, forgetting that I had to get up early in the morning. So at 8, my host mom woke me up and I showered and dressed. The president of the local AFS chapter picked me up from the house and drove me to the Color Cafe (the one the AFS volunteer owns, which I've now been to a bunch since he's the older brother of one of my classmates as well...) There I had breakfast with Aim from Thailand, three AFS volunteers some of whom spoke English, Antonia from Germany (she's been here for 6 months and goes to a different school), and a student from Denmark who has also been here 6 months and goes to a different school. After breakfast, all of us went to the school Aim and I will be attending (we're in the same curso, or class. Her sister and my brother are also in our curso.) We toured the school and met a bunch of the teachers including the English teacher. She actually speaks really good English, nearly perfect even. I'd been thinking that I would have to keep my mouth shut in English class because we were warned in Santiago that our English teachers probably wouldn't be as good at English as us and we should not in any circumstance correct them in front of the class. She told us that if we ever have any communication issues to go straight to here and she'll be able to help us translate. The school is large (for me), a little more than a thousand students. But then again, it includes twelve grades of students, so for each grade there are the same number or fewer as my 600 person 6 grade school at home. Because there are so many grades, the school has a bunch of different parts. There are two floors and the way it's constructed there are two halves to the second floor and you can't access one half from the other. There are tons of rooms that aren't classrooms but look like they might be and there are bars on the windows and gates in the middle of the hall to stop you from going into the wrong part of the school. It's pretty much guaranteed that I'm going to get very, very lost at some point in the first week or so. After I returned home from school, I went to the bank with my host mom and then made empanadas with my host dad. They are delicious. The dough is water, salt, and flour and its rolled out into a long rectangle. You plop the meat mixture (it's called pino, which is the Chilean name for the mix of carne picada and cebolla) in several spots in the center of the dough then add hard boiled egg and olive on top. You fold over the dough and cut out the empanadas. You can either cook them in the oven or fry them (al horno or frita). Then Aim, her host sister, and another classmate came to pick me up. We walked all the way to the other end of town (like a 30 or more minute walk) to pick up another classmate and then went to Color Cafe where another classmate met us. After hanging out there for a while, we walked to Baguales, met another classmate and had Mega Papas for onces. Then we walked down to the shore and walked along the sidewalk there. Understanding them is really hard, but they loved asking questions about me and Aim (I had to translate the questions for her). Some of them tried teaching me how to swear without telling me that I was swearing, but I caught on to it. When we walked back to the plaza, we met a bunch of boys in our curso, including Carlos, and again some of them tried to get me to swear at the boys. I didn't. Then at something like midnight, Cony and I went to a neighbor's house to watch a movie with the 14 year old daughter and her friend. We ended up falling asleep on their couch around 4 am and didn't come home until 6 am when we had to press the buzzer for a really long time before someone got up to let us in.

 my empanada.... I need some more practice

walking with mis compañeras

      Saturday, Cony and I walked with Nacho all over the place, trying to wear him out and get rid of some of his ridiculous amount of energy. (I have this quote on my iPod which describes the situation perfectly- "kids have so much energy because they siphon it out of their parents like midget gasoline thieves"). It worked until our parents picked us up from our walk (we'd been walking for an hour or something plus time spent playing in the park) and took us to family's house in the campo, or countryside. As soon as Nacho saw the other kids there, he regained all his energy and started running around like crazy again. We arrived at the countryside house at 9 o'clock and left at 12. It was my first asado, or barbeque, which is a huge thing in Chile. My host mother's family was all there- tons of cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents and tiny adorable little children. The food was the meat, baked potatoes, lettuce, tomatoes, and bread. The meat was actually pretty good (sorry, Dad, but your cooking does not compare) and I ate way too much food. 

 Nacho riding on Cony's shoulders

                                                                            Asado

Differences between Chile and the USA

-meals... there are four here. Breakfast (if you wake up early enough), Lunch, Onces, and Dinner. Breakfast is very light, some toast or cereal or eggs or something of the sort. Lunch is the biggest meal, always always something with meat. I've had pollo asado, lentaje y arroz, carne, sopa de pollo, and other things I'm not remembering. Lunch is usually served around 2 or 3. Onces is tea time and it occurrs around 6. Dinner is optional and depends on the day, the setting, the family, etc. It's usually small amounts of food. At every meal, the food is put in the middle of the table in large serving dishes and you serve yourself.

-smoking... every other person smokes. The majority of adults smoke and a third of the teenagers smoke. I've already breathed in more smoke here than I would in weeks in the US. I still notice the smell but it no longer makes me feel like getting out of there as soon as possible.

-buzzer vs doorbell and locks... All homes here have doors that are always locked. If you shut the door behind you, you can't get back in. For whatever reason, almost no one in the family has keys. So when you get home, you press the buzzer to be let in. The buzzer is the same thing as a doorbell only the sound is like the buzzing of a gym buzzer. I always jump when it goes off and I'm standing near a speaker.