School and Such

Although I already knew the family and house mighty well after the first week, we realized that on official "first night questions time" never actually took place!  Most of the many questions I pondered were already tossed at my papa in the first car ride to the house, therefore, the laughably terrible reenactment of what it would be like if I didn't know the family yet and was meeting them for first night questions didn't cover too many new topics.  However, that night was a HUGE confidence booster for me, as the whole conversation was in Spanish.  Although I was not the one saying much, I was actually understanding!  It may seem like that is something that is easy to do after training your language skills leading up to the trip, but in reality, the accents, vocabulary, speed, slang, and raspy voices are things you can not prepare yourself for.  For me, this small victory was a very promising sign that I was going to make it through the trip after all!

Americano!!!

Restaurant with Fernanda's friends! 

 I got along well enough with Fernanda's friends that they invited me out to a restaurant and to walk around the other side of Concepción!

Me, Feña, Lucy

It makes me incredibly happy that two of their names are Nacho :)

In the photo above, Nacho 1 (Nacho Libre), Nacho 2 (Negro), Lucy, Feña, Fran, Téte, and I are pictured.  Those are the people who I can remember the names of! Chibi (Martin) also later joined us! As I had yet to start school in this time, it was awesome to be able to socialize with people out of the house!

La Féria 

personal appearance in the Newspaper!

Pictured above is an incredibly satisfying display of fruits that was displayed at the "Féria" the first time I went with my dad! The Féria is a mini market thatis set up right on the corner of our street every Saturday.  It is where we buy our fresh fruits, sea food, bread, veggies, anything you can imagine! They sell clothing and house goods as well!

I was quite the popular attraction at the market, and believe that this was the first time that I actually understood what my cat-callers were saying... at least my language is improving!


I attended my first rotary event this week which was an incredibly fancy dinner welcoming me and Mischa (another student from Greenland who speaks no Spanish yet) and to send off Monserrat and Javier (the two outbound students). The meeting itself happened before Monsé left, but the paper didn't come out until the following Saturday.

Me and Fer!

beautiful image of my host parents at
age 16! They got married at 19 and 20!

Me and Josefa 

I had already met my grandparents from saying goodbye to Monse at the airport, however this week was the first time I was able to talk with them in the house! They brought out many old photo albums to look through and told many wonderful stories to go along with each:)
Papa also whipped out a book that he had stored in his room of the "Seasons in New England"! I got to loom through it and suprisingly, there were photos of my town in the winter and fall sections!

We talked for a while and watched "La Columbiana" (which is very dramatic I might add).  They all got a good laugh out of it when my grandma (Lela) was explaining to me that the girl in the show is "embarazada", and my response was "who? Me?"... embarazada means pregnant:) there's a little insight to the life of an exchange year:)

Later that week, I finally was able to buy my school uniform, meaning I would at last get the chance to socialize with people my age!

August 16th, the fateful day of schooling!!!!!!!


I convinced papa to come into the school with me so that we could learn more information from the principal about where I should go and what corse I would be in!  I was initially told that I would be put in primero medio, or the freshman class, simply to attempt to límate the risk of me having to be in uncomfortable party situations where my friends were drinking and I didn't want to (as I told my principal off the bat that I was not going to be a part of the drinking/smoking culture).  However, after hearing that I will be going back into my Junior year in the United States I stead of repeating Sophomore year, we decided that I should be put into an environment where I can still be taking in the curriculum as I learn the language.  Thus, with a little paperwork, I was switched into 2mB (Sophmore year).

Now, since the seasons in the United States and Chile are swapped (summer here is December and January) the school years also follow that pattern.  Therefore, I was placed into the second half of Sophmore year, I will stay for the summer, the first half of Junior year here as well, then return to start my junior year at home! Confusing... I know:)

Because there was such a last minute switch in my grade, that meant that the students in my class as well as the teachers had no clue that an exchange student would be joining them.  Man I wish I had been recording their faces.

The doors to each classroom are glass, thus the teachers can see who is knocking to enter.  The principal and inspector walked me up to the second floor and across the hall to the 2mB room, and knocked on the door.  Now, since there were two large men I front of me while entering, I got to hear the immediate gasps and chatters and see all of their faces right after turning the corner.  The greatest sound ever:)

Everyone was so excited, and were all smiling and whispering "es una gringa".  The principal eventually calmed them down enough to give me an introduction speech, telling them my name, how I am a straight A student in the United States (meaning no one is aloud to question my intelligence based on the grades I might receive when talking tests in a different language), and that I practice Taekwondo, meaning the boys outta watch out!

Probé Juan (my Lenguaje teacher) told me where would be best for me to sit.  That ended up being right in the front row with a group of beautiful beautiful girls (who later would turn out to be my best friends!)
Profs Juan tried to continue to teach the class normally, but to no avail as there was no way he would be able to get a word out above the charter that was taking place between the students:)

First day friends!
(Josefina, Valentina, Javiera, Valentina 2, Sofie)
Josefina dns Valentina are twins, try and guess which ones they are in the first picture!

The day finished up as any new blonde girls first day of school in an ocean of brown haired Chileans.  Lots of looks, smiles, high fives, questions, introductions, you get the idea:)

Not going to lie, I was famous as famous can be through the first few weeks of school, and sometimes I forget that I haven't had the chance to get to know everybody, so I get occasional visits from ecstatic 5th graders!

Indeed, a blond in a sea of browns:)

Vale did this, not me, but what's done is done
 and at least I can consider the vandalism a cute memory!

 never too old for a sea-saw (spelling's not my strong suit, forgive
me if that was wrong)

My dearest Vale! 

As my newly sprouted friendships began to grow, people started to ask more about me, my life, my family, hobbies, everything.  Remember how I said that I wanted to take this year to grow more comfortable in my own skin? Well the first real experience I had of that was when I returned home from school that day and happened to come across a clip from a movie (who knows which one)- the video showed a voice over on top of a girl walking into a school and through the halls.  I think I can take away the theme of the movie being that she switches schools every two months because of her parents jobs, so she began to mess around with it.
The voice over said something along the lines of "the best part of switching schools is that you can be whoever you want to be.  You can say you have done anything you want to say, and people are too lazy to look into your past and se if it's true or not."  Then the video went on to show her walking through the hall in various outfits telling various stories to new groups of people.
As fake of a life that would be to live, it was a very cool thought to know that nobody here knows me.  No one knows my family or my history or my friends back at home, and if I really wanted to, I could make myself be anyone I wanted to be.
Obviously to me this was all theoretical, but as I continued to dream of the things that I could possibly say, I realized that my real life is still he story I would rather tell.
That made me incredibly greatful, that God has given me such amazing opportunities that I wouldn't want to tell anyone anyone different.  He blessed me with such a diverse, but tightly bound family, that I am excited to be able to tell everyone I meet about how hard it was to leave them because of how great they are! Now that's what I call a life confidence boost!

I keep this picture around just because I love how honest
my face is, showing the amount of confusion I was in with the language 

Back to the growing friendships... The Friday of that week, I was walking home from school again with Valentina and Jorge when I got really excited over a little playground I saw across the street, because I mea, who doesn't love playgrounds.

So, they decided to show me a beautiful, really old playground that is located right behind the plaza that I pass walking home from school daily. We went right away and they didn't hesitate to join me acting like 4 year olds swinging from the monkey bars.  Now that's what I call friendship, am I right or am I right!

You can never be too old for playgrounds. 

A few other fun things that happened this week,

I witnessed that the little green walking men on the crosswalk signs ACTUALLY MOVE THEIR LITTLE FEET WHEN ITS TIME TO WALK!  I actually got so gosh darn excited about that, it's not even funny!

I tried my first empanada:) YUM

Visited many shopping centers and grocery stores

Judged a Spanish debate on my second day of school informo the of the whole school

Sang karaoke during math class

Began to learn another cultural dance similar to the Cueca in gym class

 Secret Cupid!!!!

And papa woke me up the following Saturday with hot chocolate in bed:)

^no need for an explanation on that one :)

El Chapecao! Practice makes perfect! 

That's it for this week!

Sarah Rachel