Well I am officially a month into my second semester here in Chile, and I am happy to say things are still going well. My classes specifically the ones that are about the economy and with Chileans have become quite hard however. I have had two quizzes in my macro economics class and I feel that I did alright on them, however the last class I had was a bit discouraging because I didn't understand the last half of class or one of the in class assignments that we did. The whole class seemed to struggle with it but I made sure to write "intercambio" at the top of my paper, which means exchange student. However, I'm not sure that this was so much of a langue issues as just a content issue. Meaning I wouldn't understand this in english either. Im fine with concepts but its more so the advanced math that we are doing. However, I have plans to study with some people in the class as well as to get additional help from the university so there is no need to worry. In my other economics class I had a group presentation today. In my group were three other Americans and two Chileans, and I was the only american who spoke during the presentation. My spanish was a little shaky at parts because I was a little nervous, but I think I was able to get the American trying to present economics in spanish card so I think my grade will still turn out well. But after I did feel fairly proud that I was able to at least say something and that I at least tried to speak. My other two classes that I am taking Im not worried about so over all you could say school is going well.
Outside of school I have been enjoying the typical Chilean night life which usually includes going out and staying out late. Two weekends ago I ran into a friend and was invited to his house / party. He lives with 12 other people, so it was great to get to know a bunch of new people, however most of them are french so I wasn't able to understand much of what they said. But it was a rather interesting experience because among the people I met that night the only language that we shared was spanish. So I ended up speaking spanish with an Austrian in Chile. Which I found to be kind of cool. The party was in Valpo so I ended up leaving "early" at about 3:30 because I wanted to make sure I could get home and didn't get on the wrong bus after having to many piscolas (drinks). But over all it was a great party and I'm glad that I was able to go.
This past weekend I went to Santiago and partied with my host family which was great. We left on Saturday afternoon and arrived in Santiago later that day. We had lunch in my host brothers apartment and then I went out with my host mom and her boy friend to walk around Santiago and try and find his niece. We ended up going to this great street fair that had a ton of booths with cool things to buy. The area actually reminded me a lot of Denver so needless to say I enjoyed this experience a ton. Later that night we went to a play as a family, and it was sort of a Glam style play with cross dressers but there were also some great acrobatic acts. The MC however spoke so fast I couldn't even attempt to understand and even my host brother said it was fast. So if a Chilean tells you that someone was speaking fast spanish its fast! But it was a lot of fun none the less. Following the play we went out to a happening part of Santiago for drinks. And had lots of fun drinking and talking. The highlight might have been that to get to the bathroom you had to follow a picture of an iguana on the ground because it was fairly far away. So there were many jokes about "sigue la iguana" We continued drinking until around 2 after which we found another bar and had another drink but also ate some great food. I felt a little bad though because my family paid for everything and throughout the course of the night I think they spent a lot as this wasn't a cheap area. We made it home tho at about 3:30 but the jokes didn't stop because my host moms boyfriend snored about as loud as an earthquake so there were many jokes still to be made. The next day I was showed a few of the malls in santiago and even ate at the Hard rock cafe. And to anyone who would assume that Chile is still third world or cheap. You are dead wrong. I couldn't even afford anything in these malls. AKA the Louis Vuitton or Burberry. But it was still a sight to see. We made it back to Vina that night and this capped off a great weekend.
Im excited to see where these next weeks / weekends take me and Ill be sure to post about them as well. But for now Chau!
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