Saturday, August 30, 2008

Culture Shocked

Seeing as everyday there is something new, especially in this past week, I thought a list of differences would make everything clearer than explain how each day has gone by.

NOTE: "It's not better, or worse, it's just different" - Rotary :)

Driving, well as I have said before it is LOCO
Seatbelts are not worn, except for some reason when we drive on the highway
Collectivo's are around everywhere instead of taxi's and they have no seatbelts as well
Stray dogs are EVERYWHERE! & they're not vicious at all, actually they're very friendly
There is no dinner, only "once" which is tea, bread, and sometimes eggs
Lunch is massive! Almost like 2 or 3 whole plates of food and they think you will eat all of it
School is well, a joke.
Time is not of the essence here. Right now can mean like 30 min to 2 hours from now
To greet someone you do a side-kiss thinkg. It really sucks if the person hasn't shaved in a while.
They talk fast, as in faster than most Spanish-speaking people
The houses are not heated
You go to to bed with socks and slippers, pants, as well as 2 shirts plus a sweater with the hood on
Smoking is their past-time, okay not literally but at a party even if a person does not smoke for a month they will smoke at a party (Social Smokers)
Shoes stay on in the house
Your clothes are hung dried even in the winter
Little kids are allowed to drink pop. As in 3yr olds. I thought that would make them more hyper than they already are. Haha
Tea is had at all times, it replaces milk, or at least for me
Milk tastes like cream, like table cream even though the fat content says 1.2% so it should taste like water but it doesn't
EVERYTHING comes in bags. Like milk (but different from us), yougurt, mayo, and other condiments. It freaked me out at first when we had weiners and they were squirting mayo from a large bag.
They point out in my yearbook all the "Chinitos" ahaha
Every house is gated, and may have barbed wire, or broken bottles, or pointed fence edges at the top of the fence. At one point part of a fence of barbed wire was down and it freaked me out that it wasn't there.
J-walking is expected
On the roads everyone thinks they have the right away lol
Houses are usually one floor
The notebooks for school are all graph paper (and this is for printing words)
Alcohol is sold in grocery stores
Almost anyone can buy ciggaretes as long as your not wearing your school uniform
When you walk into a big store and you have a bag from another store, a special piece of tape has to go on it so they know you arn't shoplifting anything.
Toilet paper doesn't have those serrated patches, its literally just a roll.
Everyone's favourite bands are usually the Beatles and Guns' N' Roses
Oh, and there is this obsession to ask you if you have a boyfriend (pololo) even if they just met you.

This is what I have noticed some weird, some cool, some unusual, but this is Chile so far this week for me!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

there is some things that it is normal for me, and i think that in the whole world is the same, but reading this, i can notice that is no truth....
some things really shoked me. like the shoes, i thank in canada you stay on the shoes un the house, it was weird xD ....
well anyway....

muye buenos tu blog, lo encontre muy coherente y chistoso, son geniales tus historias en tu estadia aqui en chile

take care !

Erica said...

haha. its too bad you are with rotary, you could be getting drunk and smoking all the time :P, not that you would anyway, but at least you'd have the choice. :)