Three Weeks of Classes Down!

Friday I finished up my third week of classes but it has felt like much more considering all the homework we've had! So far, I have written one essay, performed a short play, given one presentation, completed a collective 100 pages of reading and also turned in several small descriptions about places I've visited. And this weekend, I will be working on another presentation due at the beginning of the school week! Phew! It's been a wild ride, but even so, I feel like I've been learning the most outside of classes!

Since my last post, I have eaten a few more typical Chilean foods! Empanadas and Choripon (Chilean brat) are some of the simplest, but I also had a great experience at a Restaurant called "Vardo's" for Father's Day! My mom, brother and I went out to eat with my grandparents to celebrate and I definitely enjoyed the experience =) I started with Pastel Choclo which is like a corn casserole, but underneath is Pino (the combination of typical empanada ingredients!)! My main dish was Pastel de Jaiba (crab) with rice. Tasty =) And then to finish for desert, I ate Moldido de Pan which tasted like bread pudding but in a cake shape. Needless to say, I'm loving the food here!

Working on them choripans while watching a fútbol game (soccer, that is!)

Eating Pastel de Choclo with a taste of Mexican music =)

Family photo on the patio of the restaurant

I loved this restaurant because instead of giving you a menu, they bring the dishes to your table and you get to choose which one you would like! This also makes dining incredibly more difficult than usual because you want to eat ALL OF IT!!! To continue in some family fun, I played Monopoly with my little brother and we also decided to turn it into an English night so he could practice! That was pretty fun and rather special =) When Marcela returned home, we had some failures to communicate with our conversion and translation in languages! 

When I had to get back to real school life, I spent some time working on my essay and my host mom offered to help me out because she is a writer. I can hardly believe the similarity between her teaching/correcting style compared with my mom's! During elementary school, I remember asking my mom to help me out with some papers and she would tell me to make changes that I did not understand, but I wanted to so badly! I'm fairly certain there were many tears because my mind is rather literal; I just want to understand the way everything works! So when I started working with Marcela on my Spanish essay, I once again felt like that 10 year old girl, so confused with the different things that make up a sentence and cause it to sound good! But it also helped me to remember that as I'm trying to grow in my understanding of the language, I cannot be so literal. Often, I try to figure out exact translations for what I want to say, but it's another language with another set of rules, and also a set of exceptions for those rules! I just need to observe and repeat.

But listening has proven to cause me a little bit of trouble as well. Sometimes the things that happen... One night I was reading and came across what seemed to be a familiar word, but I couldn't think of what it was! I had a long discussion with my little brother about its significance but could not figure out what he was saying. After some time, I finally decided to look it up. As it turns out, it was a swear word that I'd been asking him to explain to me! Won't be making that mistake again!

This post is turning out to be a fairly short one since I missed my siesta today and am therefore feeling a strong urge to sleep! But I do believe one of the great things I learned this week is that I was right about the wedding rings! For many women, the band is what's significant, not a gem. Those who have started to wear gems are doing so more as a result of the influence of American culture. So what usually happens is when a woman gets engaged, she is given a thin band (of probably gold or silver) to wear on her right finger. Then when she gets married, she is given a second, thicker band to wear on her left ring finger. Many women continue to wear their engagement right while others choose to save it for their children or put it on a necklace. 

However, they do not double up the bands to place on their left finger upon getting married. The reason? If someone is married and their spouse died, they continue to wear their wedding ring. Later, if they are to remarry, that is when they will have a double band; one from the first spouse and another from the current spouse. But the amazing thing is that diamonds are not a big deal here! And that is just a joy to my heart =)