some pics of Santiago

Cuidate en Santiago.

Last wednesday, this small town boy headed out to the big city. As I told my classmates and friends I was heading out to Santiago, they all gave me some big city advice. Translated to english it read a little like this:

*Dont drink the water there, its terrible and will make you sick.
*If you walk the streets past dark somebody will most likely jump you and steal all your money
*its really dirty there
*people aren't nice

That was most of the advice I received for my 3 day journey north. Now lets take some time to analyze it. The water, while not quite as good as patagonian water, did not kill me, make me throw up, or spend days pooping. So that was cool. I could even order a tap water in a restaurant, which when I do in Porvenir, they just look at me funny. Secondly, I was out till approximately 3 in the morning two of the nights with friends walking around and to my demise, am still here and nobody robbed me. Shucks.
Now to address the dirt. Yes, Santiago is super smoggy but it wasn't terrible when I was there and they streets were cleaner than in Porvenir! Them southerners really like to litter. And finally, I asked a variety of people for advice and where to eat or go out and they were super friendly and willing to answer.

Now, I am sure there are exceptions to my experience and dangerous, dirty, silly places, but all in all, had a very pleasant experience in Santiago. I must say however, its wreaked of America. I stepped off the plane to a starbuck and cinnabon and there was english at every turn. Viva Patagonia!

Shoot! I'm almost an adult

In 5 days, I will turn 18. To me, that is something extraordinarily peculiar. I have thought I was an adult  since about the age of 10 and now its really happening. What my life looks like in my life right now:

Not doing my own laundry (gotta love Chile- I hate laundry)

Only cooking about once a week

Listening to/making sex jokes or gringo jokes all the time

Learning the cello (life long dream, and turns out my school has cellos to lend) 

learning spanish 

learning bad words in spanish

using bad words in spanish 

not driving 

walking to school everyday and loving every second of it

living in freaken Patagonia Chile! 

Well thats not really going to change at all with adulthood except I must point out, the drinking age here is 18 and I have been told that Chilean wine is incredible...

The last week there was no school in celebration of Chilean independence and man did we celebrate! Whether it was dancing the national dance in front of the whole town, eating incredible traditional chilean food, or dancing until 6 in the morning! It was definitely a good week. 

Thats all I got for you all. Ill get you pictures at a later date. Stay classy. 

Mellow

Island life combined with small town combined with latin america results in one thing, mellow. There is a large culture of "tranquilo" and everything is just a little slow. I am still trying to get used to this. I like parts of it but a large part of me wants to head out and adventure but the people here work, eat, sleep, hang out, and watch television. I thought that was America but its appears it has permeated to the end of the world. So much inside of me wants to get out and run and explore this area and learn as much as possible and I feel as though I am learning in a much more mellow way and not nearly as much as I could be. Here are some photos of the last couple weeks.

 

Life

Well the month mark has come and passed and I feel like I have settled into a routine, or as much as I can. Last weekend I went hiking which was super cool and we could see the southernmost mountain range in the world from what we climbed. How neat is that? A moment that struck a cord with me was the opportunity to wash my face in a small chilean stream. Every since I started hiking and doing "outdoorsy" style stuff, I have washed my face in whatever mountain stream I found. It has served as way to "baptize" myself more or less and dedicate my time outside to God. And now, I have done that with my trip to Chile. I still would like to do more adventurous things but I am content in my cultural activities of which I am a part. Every day I have school, which is a blog post in itself, and after school I do a variety of things. I have dance class to learn the National dance of Chile (Cueca), Batucada which is a sort of drumline, basketball, and church- I have found a awesome little church here with a sweet small group and we are singing songs in spanish and english which is super fun. To say the least, my nights don't really include homework. Life is busy, fun, exciting, and confusing but through it all, I am content.

Now for a few funny anecdotes:

First- Miscommunication
A couple weeks ago I was talking to some girls at school and I liked the earrings of one of the girls so I innocently said that I liked her "globos" because that means balloons in spanish and they looked like balloons. Well all the girls started giggling and just stood there saying to myself what on earth is so funny? I asked why they were all hysteric and to my demise, a buddy of mine leaned over and told me that globos also means boobs... Boy o Boy did I feel uncomfortable. But a couple seconds later, we were all laughing about it. The life of the Gringo.

Second- What did I sign up for?
Well life here involves a large amount just saying yes because I dont always understand what is going on and the other day, turns out I said yes to something I really shouldn't have. A club that works to promote healthy living in youth was doing a demonstration on how to put on a condom. I showed up at the time they told me to and saw a wooden penis with a condom on it and well, we can just say I was shocked. They were telling me I had to teach the students around how to do it and let's just say health class was a while ago... I ended up just watching, learning, and encouraging others to learn. Again, I felt incredibly uncomfortable! Such is life.

Family

Well shoot, I have been down here at the end of the world for almost a month now! I am still loving every bit of my time and trying hard to not miss them northerners too much. Talked to my good bud Steve last night and to my sister the other day via skype and I am missing the family I had back there.

The good news, however, is that my family here is super awesome. We have been traveling, cooking, cleaning, and watching movies. My host dad is well... pretty obese so he kinda just sleeps all the time but my Mom and sister are awesome and super fun to hang out with. And of course, there is the cousins, aunts, uncles, grandkids etc of my family. Everybody is family in this small little town. Its super fun to get to hang out with them and meet all the different relatives. Let me tell ya, there is nothing better than homemade donuts made by your lovely host aunt- see picture below.

In other news, I am starting my college app stuff down here too. Isn't that fun. It cant be worse than applying for a visa but its still pretty bad. Well, Im off to Argentina to go watch a rally car race that runs from here (Porvenir) to Rio Grande Argentina. Super stoked. Here are a couple photos of my adventures with the family.

 My host sister and I! Look at that stud...

Ice skating!

WIND WIND WIND WIND WIND

The donuts! I ate like 10 I am pretty sure.

Miss you blair! you are just so precious. 

A couple of photos of my adventure!

My bags, the ride in the tiny plane between Porvenir and Punta Arenas, a picture of the huge building in Santiago, the Folk art Festival de Patagonia, and some shots in Punta Arenas and below is my host mom and me!