After almost one week in Santiago, this is a phrase near and dear to my heart: please speak more slowly.....It´s difficult to learn a new language and the fact that Chileans speak about 1,000 words a minute makes it even more challenging. That all aside, I am having a great time and am really enjoying discovering all about this new city and culture. My Spanish classes are M-Fri, 2pm-6pm and are divided into 2 sections, grammar/vocab lessons and conversation. My teachers, Franco and Ximena, are fabulous though and make the class engaging, interactive and actually really fun. To my surprise the school is a lot bigger than I thought, offering both morning and afternoon classes based on level with students from literally all over the world. The students in the class can change week to week as some people are here for months, while others maybe just come for a week to get some language basics en route to more travels. My class this week included a nice mixed group of Americans and Brits. Katie is also a 20-something from Chicago and is here as part of her job (a nurse at UIC hospital) to gain more Spanish fluency to take back to working with her Spanish-speaking patients. Ed is a 60+ retiree who is looking to move to Latin America and is checking out Chile and improving his language skills. Ollie and Kate are cousins from England who have just arrived in Latin America from other travels around the world, they are headed up to Peru and then through Central America so wanted to get some vocab basics. All in all, a great group, all at beginner level and all having a lot of fun here. My Spanish is improving daily, but it´s hard. I can understand a lot, especially when people speak slowly, but I am not at the point where I can really speak back or engage in conversation. I think after another week or so I should be a bit more comfortable. When originally thinking about and planning this trip, I kind of forgot how difficult many things would be. Not speaking the native language really creates a feeling of helplessness, which I hate, but I think it is giving me much more self-reliance and initiative. I have to be the one to practice and study, go out and talk with people, make new friends (while speaking different languages), navigate my way around a foreign city...essentially create a life in a sometimes uncomfortable and certainly unfamiliar environment. But we all know, I am up for any challenge!
Aside from school, I am obviously working to improve my social life while I´m here as well. The other students I have met are so much fun and really great people. There is a student group house very close to where Mariana and I live and we often do things with a group, similar to how it was when I was on my study abroad program. There are students from America, England, Canada, Brazil, Norway, Germany and Austria...and that is just this week! One of my favorite part of my travels so far has definitely been meeting interesting people from all different backgrounds and from all over the world, hearing their stories and their future plans. Luckily, everyone loves a good fiesta and there have already been a few nights where dancing at the clubs starts running into the wee hours of the morning. To be fair, it is helping me get a taste for the young adult culture here, right?
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| some new friends |
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| at the club |
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| Me and my roomate, Mariana |
But it isn´t all baile and cervezas...I´ve been taking advantage of the amazing summer weather and walking all around the city during the day before my classes. Santiago is very much like New York in that you can easily walk from neighborhood to neighborhood. It is unique in that it is a large metropolitan city, but in a valley so there are mountains surrounding us which makes for some excellent hiking and gorgeous background scenery. My next goal is to start connecting with some local Chileans...stay tuned.
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| In Providencia, view of Cerro San Cristobal in the distance |
This weekend, I´m off to Viña del Mar and Valparaiso with some new friends to enjoy the beach and get a little break from the city, as well as see some new towns I´ve been reading a lot about. I´ll post pictures and thoughts on that trip next week. Chao!
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