It's September?

Some views of Chile:

A Chilean produce market- there are many on the street corners.
Cafe cortado. Espresso and steamed milk, to be enjoyed in the afternoons.


My first empanada! With shrimp and cheese. They served us little glasses of pisco sour, bread and pebre (like Mexican salsa, but usually spicier) and ceviche before our entrees were served!
Que delicioso!

The Chilean independence day, the 18th of September (called Fiestas Patrias) is coming up! This is the country's flag hanging over Calle Valparaiso in Vina.

My dog, Toffee, thought my suitcase would be a good place to nap!

Happy September to you all! I can hardly believe it is already a new month here! Abby and my mom are leaving to bring her to college in Minnesota today, and it is so weird to not be a part of that. They will be so close to everything that is familiar to me, and I'm a world away in Chile. But I guess this is Abby's unique experience and I wish her the best of luck this semester!

I hope you all enjoyed the above photos! I'm trying to post what I can each time, so that you can get a mental vision of my life here. I'm in my third week of classes, and unfortunately I actually have homework now. As my mom would say, I am on a 'study' abroad trip. As I write this, I am taking a break from writing a short essay about cultural differences between Chile and the US. This has been a very fun paper to write, because quite a bit of my time here has been spent pondering these differences. I chose to write about the lives of high school and college students. I have my two sisters here, who are close to my age and whose lives I've been priveleged enough to observe. The essay is in Spanish, I can email it to any of you, if you ask me! You can copy/paste it into any Spanish-English online translator and get a decent English version.

Tuesday I had my introduction/orientation to part 1 of my service learning. I will be teaching basic English to Chilean women twice a week for 2 hours each time, and I will be teaching completely alone! Originally we were split into groups of four, but the interest level has risen so we are each going to have our own classes. I am pretty nervous for this! What makes me qualified to teach? I need to be creative and think about how I would like to go about my lessons. I just hope my 'students' are patient and understanding.

Today, I had a meeting with Eleonora, my trip director, another student and a person from Fondo Esperanza. FE is a micro loan bank in Chile, and a very successful one at that. We visited about what they might want from some volunteers, and to be completely honest, I still don't exactly know how we will be helping! I still often miss small details in conversation, especially when the other person speaks quickly. Listening is getting much easier, but when I concentrate so hard, responding can be difficult! What I do know is that I will be volunteering Thursday mornings for four or five hours (I don't have class that day) in either Vina or Valparaiso. We have another 'meet and greet' with other staff members this Friday, so 8 days from now.

This weekend, we have a group trip to Pomaire, a town near Santiago known for it's pottery. That is really all that I know about it, so I will go and report back!

Another side note, we finally have working internet and cable TV! Watching television here can be very entertaining. I like reading the Spanish subtitles on American shows- it is interesting to see how they translate the words and phrases. For instance, in the show Friends, Chandler says the word 'Duh' and they translate it as 'Es obvio' (it's obvious). Es obvio does not have the same humor as 'duh', but there is no direct translation! Also, shows/movies that have the voices dubbed over are pretty funny, because the voices are definitely not the same!

Well, I ought to go finish up that paper. So long for now!