Vacaciones

I haven't been in school for a week, but there's been a reasonable amount going on. My host family has an apartment on the beach in Viña del Mar, and I went there with my host mom, my host brother, and a friend of his. Viña and the adjacent cities are beautiful. From the apartment window, I could see across the cove/bay/inlet to Valparaíso, which is Chile's principal port and the grittier counterpart to the gentrified, fairly vacation-oriented viña. One day, after a failed attempt to get into the synagogue in viña (you need to be cleared by security in advance), I went to valparaíso with my host-dads cousin, who lives in the same apartment complex. She was incredibly welcoming, and valparaíso is incredibly awesome. I'm not usually one for superlatives, but it might just be my favorite city in the world. It has the grit of a real city, but also feels very lively. We took an incline up to the top of the city, and got drinks in a really nice café with an incredible view (and probably the best hot chocolate I've ever had). Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera on me... but it was really something. Outside of that jaunt into Valparaíso, I just spent a bunch of time with my brother and his friend, combing the beach for sea-glass, playing pool, messing around/working-out in the gym, and just hanging out. We were there from Monday till Thursday.

Thursday was also my birthday. It was kinda lame that half of the day was spent in a car driving back, but when we got back, I went

to the official city of Curicó kick-off party for the Independence Day celebrations (invitation only) with the other rotary exchange students, and after that I had a little gathering at my house. A lot of people were out of town on vacation, but I still had fun with those who came, plus I got to make 3 (THREE) wishes when I blew out the candles on the AMAZING manjar cake. Manjar is ridiculously delicious. It's kinda like caramel or dulce de leche, but much better. It was a bit lonely not having all the people I know on my birthday, but it was nice to receive a lot of birthday wishes through facebook and email, and my parents even sang to me through skype.

El 18 de Septiembre was/is chilean holiday. They make a really big deal out of it (hence the week of vacation). There are lots of flags everywhere and other sorts of patriotic doodads.

Everything that doesn't have an entire Chilean flag on it is probably made by the same companies that make patriotic doodads for the US. I'd be surprised if companies from either country didn't jump on the opportunity for a market share in another country who's flag shares the same scheme of red and white stripes and (a) white star(s) on a blue field. We went to a little farm south of Talca, which I think is where my host-dad (the one who was unfortunate enough to be talking when the photo was taken) grew up. He's one of 8, and 5 of his siblings were there with their families. The barbecue was delicious and his family was really nice. A lot of eating, some soccer with the younger cousins, and flying kites. Kite flying is traditional here, and a lot of them are really good at it. We were using just a simple traditional square paper kite, and if I understood correctly, we had almost 2 miles of string out. The kite was basically just a speck.

Yesterday, some family-friends came over for an asado (BBQ). It was nice because everyone was just hanging around, eating, and talking for a good 5 hours. Today I took a little bike ride out into the country, played a little bit of soccer, and spent a good bit of time lazing around. Vacation's been relaxing, but it's also been boring a good bit of the time, and I think I'm glad that school will be starting up again tomorrow.

On the Spanish front, I'm feeling pretty solid. Conversing isn't such a chore. The things that I still struggle with are knowing the protocals for social words for greetings and such in different situations, understanding people speaking full-speed ahead with a normal Chilean vocabulary, and pronouncing English words. They try to pronounce as an English speaker would, but it's generally a bit off, and not always in the direction you'd expect. For instance-- mall is pronounced closer to mole, Jack is closer to yack, and Mcdonalds rhymes with hack-own-Al's. I am thinking in Spanish a good bit though, especially when I give keep giving myself mental nudges and avoid English.

3 things that are different here

1. Everywhere that I've been, half of the horizon consists of the Andes, which are freaking huge and all snow-capped. They're also especially dramatic because there aren't any gentle hills-- it goes straight from a steep slope to completely flat. A bit different from WV's rolling Appalachians.

2. Everyone shares any food they buy. Not at meals, but if you ever have a snack, you offer it to everyone around you, and they usually accept. I found out the hard way that it's actually very rude not to. This means it's not uncommon to buy a little bag of cookies and end up with just 3 or 4 for yourself. On the other hand, you get other people's handouts a lot. I think this is a bit of a reflection of the fact that 10% of the country is communist, and an even larger chunk (including the president) is socialist. It's nice in a lot of ways, but I also think it's a little bit impractical sometimes-- what do you do if you're really really hungry? Buy 5 bags of chips?

3. People use very little heating in their houses. Layers are definitely the thing. It doesn't work to do like I always did in the US-- winter coat for outside, just a t-shirt for inside. The difference between the two temperatures usually isn't that big, so it's a sweatshirt all the time, and usually more layers for outside.