Jueves
so im on the crew computer in the hotel, and the computer is entirely in spanish and theres an international keyboard. ñññññÑÑÑÑÑ! i love how easy that is now. unfortunately, capitalization is a hassle and i still havent figured out how to make apostrophes, so pardon the lack of grammar, for all of you two people who still read my journal. :P i got a shocker when i signed onto livejournal and everything was in spanish.
so after monday came tuesday. dad and i drove to the beach, which is probably around 2 hours drive to the west. the beach was nice, but the town we were in was actually really big and modern. the nice thing about the cities around here is that they really take time to plant trees and flowers, even in downtown santiago. i would guess taxes are pretty high here because theres ALWAYS people outside watering stuff or maintaining parks. dad and i made the mistake of not buying sunscreen before we got to the beach and we couldnt find any place that sold it (go figure, these people have darker skin so they PROBABLY dont have problems like mine when it comes to the sun). needless to say, i have some interesting tanlines now. i actually moved my shorts tanline up a few inches, but now its not a gradual tan line, its a contrast between stark white and a pleasent tan. my stomach is red. my face was burnt too, but thats already gone. first day i had burnt my shoulders, but thats gone now too. my chest is still recovering, and it looks more tan than red now. thats one thing i REALLY like: no matter how white i am, i retain a tan after i get burnt, unlike some other white people i know.
miércoles, we drove to the mountains. we were in search of a national park, but after a couple of hours of driving the paved road turned into a dirt road so we didnt make it all the way there (assuming we were on the right road to begin with. when they dont have street names and you dont know the language very well, you never know). but we did get a nice feel for the andes. we picked up some hitchhikers on the way back (mother and her son) and they spoke english, which we found really incredible. in the city, there are a lot of bilingual people (in all of the restaurants we seem to go to, theres always some guy that our waiter pulls over if were having difficulty communicating to speak english to us) but this was in the middle of freaking NOWHERE. Likewise, we were really surprised when at this random convenience stand at the side of the road, the man who worked there spoke english. its actually kinda disappointing, because these are the situations that would force me to communicate in spanish that i miss out on because other people hear my dads miserable attempts to speak spanish (MISERABLE) and resort to english.
today we resorted to using public transport because we dont have the rental car anymore. the subways are pretty nice, but jammed during rush hour. we navigated pretty well and made it to the museo de bellas artes and the museo nacional. we had chilean sushi for dinner, which wasnt bad by any means, but we have an excellent sushi place in boca thats very hard to beat. and seeing as all of the chefs were chilenos or of other hispanic origin, it was a little different than our american sushi.
not that this should come as any sort of surprise, but i stand out like a sore thumb. part of it is naturally blonde hair (because ive seen a blonde here or there, but it all looks dyed to me) and part of it is the dress. women dont wear shorts here, and i only brought one pair of jeans. they either wear longer skirts, capris, or pants, but i have yet to see women wearing shorts. so given that we attract some attention, we get some looks sometimes. and today i got some looks from some guys that were so.. intense, its almost frightening for me. staring isnt impolite here, i think its part of flirting, because occasionally ill glance up and see a guy looking at me, glance away, look back a couple seconds later, still staring, keep going, and STILL be watched, all the way until i pass by. i would feel like a total piece of meat if it werent for the fact that they grope for my eyes with theirs instead of staring somewhere below my face, but its almost just as invasive of a feeling as if they were staring at my chest. and then, of course, theres the group of guys that i hear say "gringa" before i pass, as they watch me. i DO know that word. but all of this gets REALLY awkward when my dad is a couple paces behind me and sees the whole ordeal.
im feeling a bit better about my use of the language. communicating is still very choppy, but i think im starting to understand faster speech a bit better and im starting to hear things even when they use slang. plus, im picking up on words that you use in daily life. unfortunately, a lot of these words are different in chile than they are in other countries. avacado is aguacate, the way i learned it, but here its palta. albacora would normally just mean albacore, but here its tuna. dad, who somewhere managed to live in puerto rico for a few years, tries to say "china" for orange juice, but i really dont that works anywhere other than puerto rico. theres a lot of words (esp. on menus) that i try looking up in my spanish dictionary that arent in there at all. then again, my dictionary isnt very thorough or big, but im still kinda fearful about what i might get when theres something i dont recognize on a menu without an english translation.
im about 200 pages into a book i got for christmas, and i finished the scarlet letter while here! i read almost all of it over break, which was probably the majority of my work. i still have a physics lab left to do and havent started studying for exams at all (stupid of me, because i need As on two exams), so that might eat up some time. plus possibly gumbo limbo on saturday and then church and soccer practice on sunday... its a good thing i LIKE to be busy...
so tomorrow were heading out to los dominicos, where i can hopefully find some gifts i can bring back for friends because ive been rather unsuccessful on that item so far. we have to check out of the hotel at 4 and our flight is at 10... get back saturday morning at like 5 or so.
so after monday came tuesday. dad and i drove to the beach, which is probably around 2 hours drive to the west. the beach was nice, but the town we were in was actually really big and modern. the nice thing about the cities around here is that they really take time to plant trees and flowers, even in downtown santiago. i would guess taxes are pretty high here because theres ALWAYS people outside watering stuff or maintaining parks. dad and i made the mistake of not buying sunscreen before we got to the beach and we couldnt find any place that sold it (go figure, these people have darker skin so they PROBABLY dont have problems like mine when it comes to the sun). needless to say, i have some interesting tanlines now. i actually moved my shorts tanline up a few inches, but now its not a gradual tan line, its a contrast between stark white and a pleasent tan. my stomach is red. my face was burnt too, but thats already gone. first day i had burnt my shoulders, but thats gone now too. my chest is still recovering, and it looks more tan than red now. thats one thing i REALLY like: no matter how white i am, i retain a tan after i get burnt, unlike some other white people i know.
miércoles, we drove to the mountains. we were in search of a national park, but after a couple of hours of driving the paved road turned into a dirt road so we didnt make it all the way there (assuming we were on the right road to begin with. when they dont have street names and you dont know the language very well, you never know). but we did get a nice feel for the andes. we picked up some hitchhikers on the way back (mother and her son) and they spoke english, which we found really incredible. in the city, there are a lot of bilingual people (in all of the restaurants we seem to go to, theres always some guy that our waiter pulls over if were having difficulty communicating to speak english to us) but this was in the middle of freaking NOWHERE. Likewise, we were really surprised when at this random convenience stand at the side of the road, the man who worked there spoke english. its actually kinda disappointing, because these are the situations that would force me to communicate in spanish that i miss out on because other people hear my dads miserable attempts to speak spanish (MISERABLE) and resort to english.
today we resorted to using public transport because we dont have the rental car anymore. the subways are pretty nice, but jammed during rush hour. we navigated pretty well and made it to the museo de bellas artes and the museo nacional. we had chilean sushi for dinner, which wasnt bad by any means, but we have an excellent sushi place in boca thats very hard to beat. and seeing as all of the chefs were chilenos or of other hispanic origin, it was a little different than our american sushi.
not that this should come as any sort of surprise, but i stand out like a sore thumb. part of it is naturally blonde hair (because ive seen a blonde here or there, but it all looks dyed to me) and part of it is the dress. women dont wear shorts here, and i only brought one pair of jeans. they either wear longer skirts, capris, or pants, but i have yet to see women wearing shorts. so given that we attract some attention, we get some looks sometimes. and today i got some looks from some guys that were so.. intense, its almost frightening for me. staring isnt impolite here, i think its part of flirting, because occasionally ill glance up and see a guy looking at me, glance away, look back a couple seconds later, still staring, keep going, and STILL be watched, all the way until i pass by. i would feel like a total piece of meat if it werent for the fact that they grope for my eyes with theirs instead of staring somewhere below my face, but its almost just as invasive of a feeling as if they were staring at my chest. and then, of course, theres the group of guys that i hear say "gringa" before i pass, as they watch me. i DO know that word. but all of this gets REALLY awkward when my dad is a couple paces behind me and sees the whole ordeal.
im feeling a bit better about my use of the language. communicating is still very choppy, but i think im starting to understand faster speech a bit better and im starting to hear things even when they use slang. plus, im picking up on words that you use in daily life. unfortunately, a lot of these words are different in chile than they are in other countries. avacado is aguacate, the way i learned it, but here its palta. albacora would normally just mean albacore, but here its tuna. dad, who somewhere managed to live in puerto rico for a few years, tries to say "china" for orange juice, but i really dont that works anywhere other than puerto rico. theres a lot of words (esp. on menus) that i try looking up in my spanish dictionary that arent in there at all. then again, my dictionary isnt very thorough or big, but im still kinda fearful about what i might get when theres something i dont recognize on a menu without an english translation.
im about 200 pages into a book i got for christmas, and i finished the scarlet letter while here! i read almost all of it over break, which was probably the majority of my work. i still have a physics lab left to do and havent started studying for exams at all (stupid of me, because i need As on two exams), so that might eat up some time. plus possibly gumbo limbo on saturday and then church and soccer practice on sunday... its a good thing i LIKE to be busy...
so tomorrow were heading out to los dominicos, where i can hopefully find some gifts i can bring back for friends because ive been rather unsuccessful on that item so far. we have to check out of the hotel at 4 and our flight is at 10... get back saturday morning at like 5 or so.