It´s Chilly in Chile

Hello again! This time I have a little bit more time to write. Pardon my cheesey title haha. It´s actually not that cold today. I was lucky and got to sleep in this morning! It was amazing! Today, Melissa and I are planning on doing some exploring downtown. We´re probably going to go visit El Museo de Las Bellas Artes (The Museum of Beautiful Art). Apparently this is the most important Museum in Santiago. I saw it yesterday while I was trying to find my school and I´m pretty sure I can find it again. I hope so! Oh, while we´re on the subject of being lost, I BOUGHT A MAP! Woohoo! I am so happy about that! Maybe I can find my way around a little better. I think I can! I think I can!

Also this afternoon, Melissa and I are planning on going out for ice cream with a friend of her family named Pilar. Then, later tonight we are going to a birthday party that Lorena, our advisor, told us about. Luckily for us, my mamà`s nephew is a cab driver, so he´s going to give us rides there and back. I´m not comfortable enough with this city to be out at dark yet, so this is a relief! Then, I think Melissa´s just going to spend the night at my casa. I don´t have plans yet for tomorrow, but hopefully we´ll do something fun!

The food here is very good! I love having hot tea all the time. Last night I had a traditional drink (I forgot what it was called) that consists of non-alcoholic red wine served hot with fruit slices. It was really really sweet, but good. My family had company, so we had a bigger dinner than usual. We had tacos! Yum! They were different though. They were small soft tortillas that you could fill with black beans, palta (sort of like a spicey guacamole), corn, cheese (although a very different type than we´re used to), and chicken. The chicken was different though - not shredded and not spicey. I loved the black beans in the tacos though - yum! The night before we had a special type of bread with whatever toppings we wanted - palta, cheese, eggs and bacon, ham, and this stuff that´s kind of like solid jelly that you cut into slices. That´s the best way I can explain it hehe. Everything is so good here! The milk is similar to the milk in Spain - it´s proccessed differently, so it´s okay if it´s left out for a long time, and it only has to be refrigerated after it´s opened. I don´t really care for the flavor enough to drink it by itself, but it´s okay if you just eat it with cereal or something.

I´m starting to figure out my neighborhood. I live next to all of this gigantic skyscrapers since I live in the financial district. It´s a pretty busy part of town. The Spanish here is different - they cut off the last part of their words and speak verrryyy very quickly. Also, most of their speech is made up of slang called Chileanismos (or something like that). Lorena (my advisor) said that Chileans speak with terrible grammar too - not just the lower classes, but everyone! So it´s been challenging at times to understand people. My family is really good about slowing down when they speak to me though. They are wonderful people!

Well, I´d better get going! Props to everyone who actually read all of this. ¡Chao!