Still here... still breathing...

This weekend I am in Valparaíso with todos los norteamericanos. The city is pretty, and I love being near the ocean. It is an absolutely gigantic city, but we are actually staying in Viña del Mar which is right next to it. Today we went to the city, rode a boat out a ways, and walked around a lot. I got to drive the boat with the help of Elias, our pilot, it was very fun. I decided my favorite thing about being here is all the awesome mercados with their super cheap, super cool stuff. Today I bought myself a little colorful mapish thing of Chile. It has all the names of the states on it, and a picture of something unique from a few of them. I think it is made of some sort of plastic, but it is made to look like metal. Moral of the story, it's hard to explain but me likey.

Had a hard night last night. Missing Danny especially, so Ben's mom keeps telling me I need tres pololos chileno (three chilean boyfriends). It has been quite hillarious. But even though I am missing home and those there I realized this week how much I love my Chilean family, and how much I am going to miss them when I leave. My chilean dad called me today just to check on me and ask how I was doing, and I think we are going to take a family trip to Santiago soon so they can show me around. I'm looking forward to it. My brothers here are awesome. Yerko junior is a sweetheart. Very mature for a 17 year old boy, and has been very fun to talk to. Andrei is hilariously hyper active, but amazingly sweet considering that fact. I love spending time with him, and sharing meals with him. I am a bit sad because I haven't gotten to spend a lot of time with my mom yet, but I am looking to remedy that soon. My dad here is just a cherry on the top. He reminds me a lot of dad at home, and has been taking very good care of me. Don't worry dad, he could never, ever take your place, but he is doing very well for a stand in :).

I am super surprised at how much Spanish I have been able to understand lately, and speaking is a bit easier. I am, by no means, even close to being able to talk fluently or understand everything, but I am farther along than I thought I would be. The only thing I worry about now is how I will keep it up when I get home. I don't want to lose everything, language wise, that I learn from this experience. I have also learned so much about myself in the short time I have been here, mostly in the past week and can't wait to learn even more.

I hope everyone is doing well. I miss you all more than I could ever express in words, and can't wait to see you in two months. Hasta luego, chao.

Kayli

Three weeks down, nine to go...

School has officially started. We have been in it for to weeks now, and I have already given a speech and taken an exam. I've got another speech on Monday and an exam on Tuesday, plus tons of other little odd jobs. Things are moving incredibly fast, and I love it. For once I'm not wishing we would just get on with things, I like fast paced classes. My lengua class is taught by our program director Florencia and I really like it. It is just the simple learning Spanish class. Our lab is super easy, just listening and answering questions. Our lab teacher, Guillermo, is awesome. He is around 60 years old and has a British accent after studying English somewhere in London or Britain. He speaks very intelligently and you can tell he is constantly trying to think of how to make it as easy as possible for us to understand. My culture class is interesting, but I don't really like it. The teacher is cool because you can tell he is really in to the material, but he is super hard to understand considering he speaks solely in español. He blabs on and on about "identidad chilena" and "la famila chilena" and almost the entire time we have no idea what he is saying. He hardly ever asks us if we understand, doesn't pause long enough for us to say something, and speaks in incredibly elevated language. It is rather frustrating, but we are figuring it out. My Gramática teacher makes me die every day from either laughter, boredom or a mix of both. She talks to us like we are in kindergarten, it is absolutely ridiculous. I have not learned anything new in that class, it's all stuff we have already gone over in Lengua. Hopefully it will get better later when things are more difficult.

I am getting along really well with my family. My dad, Yerko, and I have been doing a lot together and he treats me like his own daughter. I love it. I haven't gotten to know my mom, Loreto, very well yet because she is very busy with work. My 17 year old brother, Yerko (yes the same name as his dad), and I haven't talked a lot because he is with friends a lot. He is very nice though, and I hope to spend more time with him later. My 8 year old brother, Andrei, is hilarious. He loves me right now because I play piano for him, and he is just learning. He always wants me to play and sing for him, and he quizzes me on the names of everything in the kitchen when we eat dinner together. I also have two nannies, both named Mary but pronounced differently. One is the normal pronunciation, the other is pronounced like Mah-ry. They are incredibly nice to me, and I cannot believe how much they do for us. They do laundry every morning, and I don't get it back till it is washed, hung dry, ironed and folded perfectly. They do all the dishes, and make all my meals. I don't even have to get up during meals for anything, they bring and take away everything. When I wake up in the morning my cereal and bowl are ready and waiting, and they always make sure to give me a snack for school. Their constant questions are "Was the water in your shower hot enough?", "Do you have any dirty clothes for me?", "Would you like to eat something?", and my personal favorite "Would you like dessert?". My family is already treating me as one of their own, even the nannies are starting to call me "mi niñeta" (my little girl). I love spending time with them, and they are all making my stay here much better.

I haven't done much since the last time I wrote, other than school, tons of homework and some trips to downtown. We went to Concepción yesterday and got to meet the president of the school. We also went to lunch at the beach and ate tons of cheese empenadas and fish. I'm pretty sure they had to make around 70 empenadas for us. The beach has black sand so I am bringing home a water bottle full to go along with my bottle of New Jersey sand. I also bought a present for Kristin at the mercado there. This week I am having coffee with my compañera on Monday, and we go to Viña del Mar in Valparaiso this weekend. Should be a nice weekend, and I'm sure I will have a lot to write about after.

Well, I think that I have written enough to take up sufficient amounts of time from your busy schedules =). I hope you are all doing well, I miss each and every one of you so much and can't wait to come home. Talk to you in a few days, chao.

Kayli

P.S. If you would like to see pictures just head to my facebook. I have 80 some odd pictures there. Love you all.

First week down

I am all moved in to my new house... have been for like 4 days actually. I love my new family, they are all so happy and active. I feel incredibly welcome and more at home now. The house is bigger than I thought, and my room is bigger than the one I have in the states. The family used to live in Santiago and when they moved to the house they built an extra little apartment for when their grandma comes to visit. When I walk in the front door there is a bathroom straight ahead, with my own personal sauna, and no I'm not kidding, a big bedroom to the right, mine, and a room to the left with a couch, bunk beds and some exercise equipment. The first week of classes is over now, and it went pretty well. I ride the bus to and from school everyday. Things are going a lot better now, but I still wish I could come home. For some reason, I had a really hard day homesickness-wise. Tonight I am either going to go out with everyone to La Biblioteca, a pub, or hang with my family. I think the second, cause I am tired and don't really feel like paying more money for the radiotaxis and such. Tomorrow I will probably go downtown and shop a bit for presents at the mercado. I absolutely LOVE the mercado. I wish we had something like that every day in the states. Anyway, that's enough for now. I'll catch up with you later. Chao.

Kayli

P.S. I am starting to plug my free phone in now more than before because I have wi-fi. It is a Magic Jack from my dad, a phone with an Oregon number that runs off internet. It will probably be plugged in every night from like 6 to 11 my time. Feel free to give me a call, or leave me a message. 503-919-4007.

Waiting

So... I am officially moving to a new house. I will be with the family with two sons and am very excited. Not only do I think they will be a very fun family, but apparently they have a very big house. Florencia told me they have a big backyard with a pool and... a piano inside!!! Plus, the father heard that I was sad I couldn't go to church and said he is super excited to take me to mass with him on Sundays... should be interesting, but fun. I am hoping to move in tomorrow night, but I am not sure yet. Florencia was going to talk to Rossana for me yesterday, but Rossana went to Concepción to visit family. Hopefully Florencia will get to talk to her today, but I guess we will just have to wait and see. I will continue to keep you guys updated.

We had a party at Florencia's on Thursday night. There were tons of people, and it was very fun. We started around 8 and the party didn't end till 1:30. I stayed after to help clean up, and ended up spending the night. I spent most of the day yesterday with Casi and her sister walking around downtown. It was Chile's independence day, so we went to on eof the little parties, called Ramadas, on the side of the street that looked almost like a little fair. There were lots of small covered areas to dance and drink in. There were games, swings to ride, some shops and snacks to buy. Then we walked to a Rodeo, but got there a little too late, so we just looked around the shops. Then I spent the night at Casi's place, and we have been spending the rest of the day just relaxing.

Things are still pretty hard for me, and I really miss home and everyone there, but things are getting a little easier. Thanks to everyone for all the prayers and words of encouragement. Love you all.

Kayli

Moving...

Well, it has been quite crazy the last few days. I had a really rough night on Sunday and spent the night at Florencia´s house. She is the director/our surrogate mother while we are here. She was very nice and her house was amazing. She mentioned to me that a change of housing, to one with more people, might help. We decided to hold off on the dicision and have coffee later in the week. I spent the next night at Ashley´s place, another girl in the program, and we went downtown to shop and explore for a little while the next day. Last night I spent the night back here at Rossana´s and watched TV for the first time. I discovered that there are like 10 channels in English with Spanish subtitles, it is so great! I can understand what is going on, YAY!

Today I finally did my laundry. It is so strange not having a dryer, my clothes aren´t warm and soft when I get them but cold and stiff. Oh well, I will get used to it. I also went out to coffee with Florencia and we talked about the possible move. We both decided that it would probably be the best thing for me right now and she gave me a few options to choose from. The first, whom she called today at lunch, is the family of her daughter´s boyfriend. A mom and dad who are both fairly busy with work, a son about 17 who knows a bit of English, and another son about 8 who is apparently very hyper and a bit of a brat. She said she thinks we would be good companions for each other because we would keep each other busy, haha. That is the family I am hoping to be with. The second is a family with a single mother, a son about my age who studies in Santiago and is home on some weekends, and two daughters a little younger than me. We got to drive by both of the houses on the way home, and they are really big compared to the one I am in now so it will be a big change. Who knows what will happen, but pray that God puts me where I need to be.

I have absolutely no idea what I will do for the rest of the week, but I´m sure I will find something to keep me busy. I will continue to keep you updated on my move. Love you all.



Amor siempre,

Kayli

Another day, another something...

Hola mi familia y mis amigos. I am here in Las Termas de Chillàn, a hot spring in the Andes. I went snowboarding yesterday and swam in the hot springs with everybody. They even had a little kareoke type thing after a while in the pool. They played "I feel good" for us gringos and the lady kept holding the mike in front of me, so I sang almost the whole song. It was really really funny. The rooms took forever to get ready though, so we had 20 people's junk in one room from 10ish to about 6. It was absolutely ridiculous since they told us the rooms would be ready at 4. But, we got free drinks, free wine with dinner, free lunch and 6 free half hour massages out of it thanks to the grand negotiating skills of Florencia. Now we just have to wait and see who gets the massages.

I had a great time yesterday and hope today will be good as well. I still miss everything and everybody though, and if someone told me I could go home tomorrow I would leave in a second. Hopefully when school starts I will get used to being here and not feel like that. We go home tonight and have next week off for Chillán's "Spring Break". Kayla and Ryan and I might take a trip to Santiago, we shall see. Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the last few days of summer.

Amor siempre,
Kayli

Better day...

Yesterday was a better day. I got to go to Kayla's house, and they have wi-fi!!! So I got to Skype with Danny... yay! And her power actually worked to charge my stuff, so I didn´t blow a fuse like I did the night before. We had a welcome ceremony at the school, and one of the performing dancers made me get up and dance in front of the audience with him, thank goodness for those ballroom lessons. Haha. We also met our compañeros, mine doesn´t speak tons of English, and I have a hard time thinking of what to say, so I stay fairly quite, and I feel bad about that. I am hoping we will get along better later. Last night we went to a pub and had a great time. We were there from 10 till almost 1. I was so exhausted when I went to bed. It was fun, but there were still many hard times yesterday. This morning I am having an extrememly hard time, I miss my family and friends SO much. I know things will get better, but right now it doesn´t really feel like it. I really just wish I could come home. I am so tired of trying to communicate. At night my head literally feels like it is swollen. Rossana, my host mom, is so nice, but communicating is just so hard. I will hopefully get to go out to coffee with Florencia, the program director here, later today. She is teaching us, and is also like a second mom to us.

Anyway, I am having some fun, but am still in the midst of crappy culture shock. I am still not sure if this whole thing was a good idea, but I´m here now. Sorry that these posts just keep getting longer and longer. Hope you are all doing well, and I will talk to you later. Chao.

Kayli