My New Chilean Life

Throughout my few days here so far, I've noticed that Americans are incredibly spoiled. We take advantage of the simple things like air conditioning, heat, dryers, and much more. I can already tell coming to Chile has and will continue to change my perception on things.

Yesterday I got to meet my aunt and my second sister, Javiera. Javiera is 20 years old and goes to the same school as me. I honestly feel so blessed that my family is so wonderful and welcoming. I know I told people before coming to Chile that one of my biggest worries was that people weren't going to find me funny in Spanish. That's not the case though. I literally made my mom cry and her sister laugh so hard because they couldn't understand my broken Spanish.

Thus far, these are the "bad" things so far:

• I can't watch my TV shows here. You have to be in the US to watch the shows online. Goodbye TV world for 6 months.
• I can't find my favorite face wash anywhere :(
• My program leader was semi unorganized. I kinda forcefully yelled at someone about my frustrations and later that day, things got better :) 

Clearly you can see that nothing is actually bad and I'm just a little dramatic, per usual.

Here are my random thoughts about Chile thus far:

• My family is beyond wonderful. My first day of orientation, my mom gave me 500 pesos to take the bus to school. She also leaves out breakfast for me in the morning. (Apparently this is only in the beginning). She likes to take care of me :) 
• I can officially take the bus to and from school alone!
• I accidentally asked the lady at the pharmacy for a face wash with butter instead of makeup. WHOOPS. In my defense, the words are kinda close....
• The buses here are SCARY. They drive so fast, you have to hold on for your life. They start moving before the doors are even closed and before you even pay. 
• The language has been very tough here for me. Chilean Spanish is much different than the Spanish I've learned my whole life. They speak incredibly fast, they shorten their words, and have so much slang. It's going to take me some time to get used to it. I think in about a month, I'll be fine.
• My host mom literally doesn't let me help. I keep telling her I'm not lazy and that at home I do the dishes, do my own laundry (along with everyone else's usually) and I can clean. The other day when she was dealing with a repairman in the other room, I sneakily washed all the dishes and put them away so she wouldn't have to. 
• Picking my classes have been a little frustrating. I need specific classes so I can stay on track with my studies. It seems so far that I will be taking three classes with Chilean students (SCARY) and one English Spanish class where I'll learn about conversation and culture. I'm actually excited to start classes though because it will give me a chance to interact with the Chilean students.

I'll try to have some pictures soon. Everyone tells me not to whip out my expensive electronics so I'm almost afraid to take pictures!

That's all for now!