Saturday, May 9, 2009

---> A day in the life of an exchange student

My weekdays:

6.40am - Get out of bed, wash face
6.46am - Back to bed (it's too early to get up, but my host sister showers.) Listen to iPod
7.05am - Get up and ready, have breakfast, brush teeth
7.35am - Drive to school
8.ooam - School starts, but the teachers are never in class that early
9.30am - 10 min break
9.40am - 2nd period
11.10am - Other break
11.20am - 2rd period
12.50am - Break
1.00pm - 3rd period
1.35pm - Lunch. Try and run to be one of the 1st in the queue to use the microwave
2.30pm - 4th Period
4.00pm - School finishes, walk to place to take colectivo. Wait.
4.30ish - Arrive home, change, wash lunch containers, relax, do homework, chill
5.30ish - Host Mum arrives home. Talk to her, watch TV
7 - 9pm ish - Eat onces (tea/hot chocolate, bread/leftover lunch)
9.30pm ish - Shower, brush teeth
10.00 pm ish (because I don't use the shower for 1/2 an hour) - go to bed, read a children's books in Spanish, listen to iPod, SLEEP (normally about 11ish)

Tuesday: Band until 5.40pm
Thursday: English 'conversation' with the eager kids to learn English and the Gringo teacher
Friday: Band until 5.40pm

Last weekend I went to Caldera on Friday, because it was a holiday. We had one of my favourite Chilean foods for lunch, Pastel de Choclo, which is a meat mixture, with lots of onion, and a ground corn topping, and surrounded by pastry, which is more like pizza dough. On Saturday I went to a vintage clothing shop with my host mum and older host sister, and found a really cute yellow skirt, perfect for summer. We had lunch at a 'public' restaurant, which is like the place where all the locals go - a friend empanada and Churrasco, which is like a hamburger, but oh so much better because it is Chilean. We returned on Saturday night, and my older host sister, brother and I got ready to go to a carrete (party). It was at the same place as last time, but this time there was an asado (barbecue, chilean style) and a few different people. But unfortunately my conversation person, a really nice person who is patient with my Spanish and very nice, didn't turn up so I was a bit lonely. It was the birthday of the Embarazado, a friend of my host siblings, and it's a tradition to shove people's heads in their birthday cakes. 

The cake was nice though, despite that. It was really a torte, which consisted of layers of pastry and manjar, and manjar-cream. Very addictive. Very much so. We went out to the street for some reason and sat on benches there and ate cake and drank coca-cola. Then went back and played a game when you have a dice, choose a number, and if your number comes up on the dice, you have to drink Pisco. I didn't play because I don't drink but was the person who rolled the dice. 

Sunday was a chilled out day. I found out that my conversation person wasn't at the party because he studied then went to the Casino. I'm not sure if that means the Casino Casino, as in the tallest building in Copiapó, or whether it's another kind of place with the same name. They really don't worry about gambling here. The Gran Casino is opposite a church, too. So it's like pray-play-pray-play. Well not really but yeah. 

This week was a busy one. Traffic here can be nasty. There are speed limits but nobody really patrols them. It just feels like on the roads, everyone is in a rush to be somewhere. Then when not driving, everyone is really chilled out. I don't know what it would be like if we all had bicycles. Twou'd be interesting.

Spanish grammar has begun to slip into my English. One of my friends wants to practice English, so sometimes we talk in English, and on Thursday I managed to say 'book of Biology' instead of simply biology book.

Last night, my host brother and I had fun googling the places I'll visit on the North tour, they all look surreal and awesome in the photos on Google images (google, or googly, as they pronounce it here). I'm excited to see the flamingos. And llamas too, hopefully. Not to mention my AFS family.

And it's true, we're all like brothers and sisters here. One of my friends was having problems and a few of us were taking part in an epic facebook messaging session giving him advice and friendliness. There are a few of us who are like the tight group, me and a few Americans, and then also I have like a 'big sister', one of the other NZ girls, and one of the other NZ boys is like my brother, I'm kind of an orphan because I don't have parents in that aspect. And we all have our elaborate marriage plans too. And general things we talk about. 

I was sitting on a bench in school with my friend Andrea and she said to me that sometimes she thinks it seems like I'm Chilean. That made my day. I also get called 'Kiwi' at school now (or 'Kiwi Loca' (crazy Kiwi). Not Gringa. 

I'm listening to Sigur Rós while I write this and I think it's influenced my writing style. Interesting. 

1 comment:

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