I've decided that tomorrow after class I'm going on a photo-taking adventure..since I can never seem to remember to bring my camera anywhere. I've been here for more than a MONTH now..it's hard to believe, and whenever I see a map and realize I'm in the southern hemisphere (and that google talks to me in Spanish) I still get a little weirded out.
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They say that when you immerse yourself in a foreign culture you go through culture shock, and I think I assumed something along the lines of "yeah, but that happens to other people, I study international affairs, I love foreign cultures, and I'm open-minded, how hard can it be?" A month in, I can say that adjusting was (and is..) harder than I expected. I had a turning point last week-I went for a run on this beautiful, sunny day, and after that, everything started feeling easier. I'm comfortable enough now to fit in on the streets (as much as I can considering I'm taller than everyone in sight) and answer questions in class, and make Chilean friends---I love being here and being able to function in a culture that's not my own, it makes me want to live in as many foreign places as possible, because maybe then I could finally put my finger on what it means to be American.
I've become a big fan of long runs, my $20 Chilean mp3 player that's compatible with Windows 98 (!!) and runs on batteries (surprise...), drinking 20 cups of nescafe to try and approximate real coffee (I had a cup of brewed coffee today and almost had a heart attack), sneaking into the kitchen late at night to make myself oatmeal, not doing my reading for class (since I still can't find some of it), and learning how to use Chilean keyboards (an arduous task that usually ends in me turning in papers with punctuation errors galore and accent marks that don't exist in English or Spanish). I also love the honey here (it comes in huge tubs), and yesterday I discovered you can in fact make (delicious!) scrambled eggs in the microwave (gas stoves are not for me..).
a few of my favorite (and not-so-favorite) things:
Funny things that have happened to me recently: my host family and I were having lunch with their friends, and I was casually shaking some pepper onto my food, and I looked up to find the ENTIRE table of people staring at me like I'd just sprouted a third arm. No one here uses pepper..instead they use insane amounts of salt..on everything they eat. I'm thirsty all the time.
Today, I walked to a cafe to get out of my house for a bit and do some reading...on my way back, I was listening to my super ghetto mp3 and all of a sudden, every car on the entire street is honking, continually. I had NO idea what was going on, and it's not uncommon for guys to honk at you if you're walking on the sidewalk, but I figured that there was either a funeral or a fight unfolding on the street in front of me. Apparently, however, people were honking 33 times, because earlier in the day, Chile got some great news--there are 33 miners that have been trapped in a mine here for the last 17 days, and today they sent a probe down and the miners sent a note up saying they were alive! So, great news..the downside is that the president said it may take four months to get them out...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11054376
(the note & President Pinera, who looks eerily like Howard Dean in my opinion...)
<3
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