Hey guys! I finally remembered to do this haha. So on Sunday I finally got to Punta Arenas, Chile where I will be living with my new host family for about 6 months. I live with my parents Charo and Naldo, my sisters Martina and Kuki, and my grandmother Yeya. They are extremely nice and have been very welcoming. I actually left Chicago on Wednesday though and had two orientations with AFS in Miami and then in Santiago. The one in Santiago was so much fun because it was with all the AFS students from around the world that will be staying in Chile for either a semester or a year. There were 82 of us in total from 16 different countries and 5 of us from the US. It was crazy to see and hear about the differences and similarities between everyone. For example, I met a girl from Turkey that lives in Istanbul, which has 18 million people in it. On the other hand, I also met a guy from Austria who has 20 people in his village. There was a guy from Italy who brought his guitar and would play it during our free time and I didn't realize it, but I guess everyone knows the American classics, like the Beatles, even if they didn't speak English otherwise. So we would all sing together, which I thought was so cool because it was one of the one things that was universal between all of us, although most people spoke English pretty well.
Since Chile is south of the equator, it's winter here and Santiago was freeeeeezing! It was only about 40 degrees, but the buildings there don't have heat so you never really warmed up. I ended up sleeping in my winter coat with tons of layers. Punta Arenas is a little bit cooler, but it's very rainy and windy. The winds get up to about 120 kph! I don't know what that is in mph though because I'm still trying to learn how to convert everything to the metric system. I woke up in the middle of the night last night because the wind was so loud. And I thought Chicago was windy... it's nothing compared to here! There aren't many trees here because of the wind, but the ones that are here look like paint brushes because the branches still straight up, also they all lean in one direction from the wind pushing them so much. I will be sure to take a picture of them the next time I go into downtown Punta Arenas, where they're more prevalent because they look so funny.
Today was my second day of school at Colegio Charles Darwin. It's a little different from the US because it's a block schedule, we have 15 minute breaks in between every class to talk to people, the teachers move around to different rooms instead of the students, we have a 2 hour break to go home for lunch, and we end at different times everyday. So far it's been hard and a little stressful because everyone speaks so fast and it's really hard to understand. Also, I'm taking physics (which I'm hoping to change) and biology. They're extremely difficult because in addition to being in a language I'm not fluent in, I have never taken physics and the things I learned in biology are different than what they learn here. It should get better though. I mostly just get frustrated at the fact that I don't understand it because I don't need grades from those classes for my school in the US.
I miss my family and friends back home a lot, but hopefully that will lessen as I get more comfortable with the language and culture here. Now it's time to go eat dinner (9:30 pm! or 21:30 as they say here). Every morning we have a small breakfast. Then at about 1:30 we have a very large lunch. At 6 we have tea time, or "onces" where we also eat bread, cheese, and jam (they eat so much bread!). And finally we have a smaller dinner, usually a little earlier than tonight. They say I eat like a bird but I think they just eat a lot haha. I'm especially not used to eating so much for lunch because it's the main meal and we usually have 3 courses. Well now it's time to go, but I'll try and keep this updated when I remember.
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