Sunday, September 14, 2008

Just a Day!

Friday. Just a day.
This is just one of the views of a "hill"

I woke up at 6:30am as per usual to get ready for school. Did my usual routine got dressed in a uniform, and heated up milk for my chocolate/coffee drink, with bread. I got a ride to school but this time my host Dad Fernando drove me instead of Consuelo with the three little kids. We also had to pick up a few of the kids that we drive to school as well. We spoke in English so that Fernando could pratice some more before he goes to Victoria and gives a speech and answer questions afterwards. I was telling him on how English is a very indirect language and how everything is assumed and judged by tone. Whereas Spanish is a very direct language and there is a verb for everything and rarely do you say "I am going here" in Spanish directly translated it would be "I go here" in that sense it is hard for him to judge certain questions.

I got to the school, went up to my class 4 ME on the second floor knowing the the first two periods were going to be "English Class" ahahahha. It is quite a joke, but I help my classmates pronounciate certain words. As in "although" they just cannot make the "th" sound, or add it with another sound. "Although" usually ends up to be "Aldo" so trying to get them to say "thwart" was a whole other problem. Also trying to get them to figure out the difference between "keys" and "kiss". After english class Biology was supposed to happen, but instead some official guy of the school came in and of course all the guys started to cover their earrings and make their hair look shorter. But, he came in and told us that we were going to eat hotdogs and then leave the school (I am still not sure why we got to leave early)

We had our hotdogs and left. With my friends we walked to downtown Talagante and sat down in the centre plaza (this is basically a circle square in the middle of the city). We talked and tried to fix our friends "new earring" instead of hydrogen peroxide we used someones perfume to disinfect it. All I could think of was how my Aunt would die if she saw this!

We went to the supermarket and spent 30 minutes deciding what kind of cookies we wanted, I found oreos (hurrah!) but they are about half the size of the ones in Canada. I also found cereal that looked like Frosted Flakes but were in Spanish instead. Everything again still seemed really cheap.

We went back to the plaza to eat our food, the whole time this one stray dog was hovering around us for food. It was so adorable but of course it looked so adorable that everyone gave it food, which is also the reason the dog was so fat, insanely fat, whereas most of the stray dogs are very lean. I also noticed lots of whistling and honking that people made at girls, that I hadn't noticed before because I usually walk around with my older host brother. But benig in a group of girls and with one guy......well, you can imagine. This day was also a rather hot day. When the sun comes out here in Talagante it feels like a late spring in Burlington, and I rather hated the fact that I was wearing tights, socks, and Mary Janes, when I really wanted to wear long shorts and a T-shirt.

When I got home at around 1pm my host father told me that we were going to pick up his horse Ahrecife from his friends house in a town one over from ours.
Frankly I am quite scared of horses ever since I was almost bucked off one up on a mountain in the Yukon. So I decided this would be an opportunity to perhaps, get over the issue.

Well, a did pet it. But I would rather not...

When we arrived at the house I even had to lead it around a bit. Scary. Apparently I will ride him someday.

So this would be the horse...
I have also now officially been given homework thanks to my Chemistry, Physics and Spanish teachers. How wonderful. I did do my 20 chemistry questions with out a translator and my brother only had to help with 3 questions I think that is pretty darn good. I also understand a lot more Spanish that is being said to me, responding however is not so easy!

3 comments:

Lioness said...

Hi,
You don't know me, but I heard you'd been lurking on my blog, so, I"M LURKING BACK! How are you? And I love riding horses, they are really that scary. When you're riding them, they can't bite you, and they can't really throw you unless they are stallions and it looks very sweet. Gosh the landscape is SO different in Chile than in Thailand. It seems beautiful though.
Feel free to comment on my blog, because I hate seeing the "0 comments" thing.
Anyway,
Good luck with riding and dancing and all the stuff you do in Chile,
Suzanne

Lioness said...

Oops, they aren't that scary. Horses I mean.

Erica said...

haha. you didn't get an answer when you asked why you got let out of school early? man this is a slacking school system. hahah.
it definitely is always easier to understand than respond. any language. you pick out a few words you know and get the mood of everything else and you can understand what they are saying, but trying to reciprocate!!!
I'm sure you're getting along great by now. :)