Adventures con Gala y Merlin

Today was a nice, lazy Sunday - I woke up around 10:30 am and took a shower. I usually shower at night, but during orientation they told us to shower in the morning. Apparently Chileans usually shower two times a day (once in the morning, once in the afternoon or night), and they will not consider you to be cleanly unless you shower at least once - and that shower has to be in the morning! Mamá Vilma offered me a blowdryer but I said no, thinking my hair would dry before we would leave.. of course in AZ it would dry in an hour - but here, because of the humidity it dries much slower! Tomorrow I’ll remember to use the hair dryer.

Another difference here is that you are supposed to take 5-10 minute showers! The water, gas, and electricity are very expensive so I have to be careful to not use too much water to brush my teeth, shower, etc.

Vilma led me into the kitchen and showed me how to make my breakfast and it was pretty confusing! She offered me corn flakes (but without sugar), yogurt, zumo de naranja, pan, marmalade, butter, and coffee. It was really difficult because she assumed I would put yogurt in the cornflakes, and I had to explain that in the USA we eat cereal with milk! She told me that most Chileans don’t drink the milk, but cream instead, because the milk doesn’t settle with them. I didn’t quite understand this, but I think maybe the Chileans (like many Asian cultures) didn’t have milk historically so most everyone is lactose intolerant. I’ll have to do some research on that. The coffee was also pretty confusing to make since it was based from a powder - I definitely underestimated the amount of powder needed to make it, so I ended up with pretty watery coffee haha! Breakfast was sort of frustrating today because it was all very confusing, but tomorrow it will all be easier! :)

After breakfast I cleaned my dishes without being asked.. I guess whoever prepares the food washes the dishes? I’m still very confused on the dish-washing policy here. Also, the kitchen can’t hold more than two people comfortably - and Vilma and Ximena always get washing the dishes first, so I can’t really help much once they’re in there, oops! I'm still saying please and thank you and offering to help clean the table and help with food - don't worry ;)

Vilma told me that Ximena’s two boys slept in late, so just the two of us would go to the supermarket today. We walked almost a mile to the GIANT mall with the “JUMBO” supermarket and I bought some lunches for school for the next week. I thought American supermarkets were big. Nope. This Chilean supermarket was the size of a freaking Home Depot. It was HUGE (mind you it did say “JUMBO SUPERMARKET” but STILL). I bought mangos, avocados, wheat bread, prosciutto, salami, and mozzarella from the cheese section. The cheese section was pretty unbelievable, and I grew up in WISCONSIN. There were hundreds of blocks cheeses behind a glass area with three workers. You went to a little machine with a touch screen next to the line, and took a piece of paper with a number on it. When your number showed up on the monitor, a cheese-cutter-person would come over and take your order! I asked for provolone, but they didn’t have any today, so I got mozzarella instead. When we went through the check-out line, I asked Vilma how much to tip the grocery baggers. She told me to give them a couple coins - just 100 pesos (that’s just a few nickels).

On the way back home, Vilma told me (in German) that she would be leaving to go visit her son who was sick. Her son is 55 years old and had a heart-attack 6 months ago, and it caused some sort of problem in his brain, so now he doesn’t function very well. She says she drives an hour north every day to go and see him so today she’d be leaving me with Ximena and her two boys.

I got home and played the ukulele for a bit - apparently Vilma’s grandson Max, who lives here when he’s not gone at school, had a ukulele lying around. She gave it to me and Jacob to play on last night. I stayed up for hours last night teaching myself some standard chord progressions, and re-learning some German folksongs that I know on guitar. So far I have about three German songs, and I’m trying to learn three Spanish songs now. The Spanish ones are pretty difficult! I have to really think about pronunciation when I’m singing. I really want to bring the ukulele to class tomorrow, but I’m nervous to bring it on the subway. I’ll ask Vilma about it tomorrow.

After playing for a little while, Ximena’s two sons and one of their girlfriends came over! I forgot all their names (whoops) but they brought a little white dog named Merlin who was really sweet. They each spoke and understood a little more English than Ximena so I got to talk a bit more. The girlfriend is a biology teacher for a school in the area, and is 5 months pregnant with a little girl! We watched her ultrasound videos on the TV later in the day, which were pretty incredible!

Ximena’s kids, the dogs, and I all went to the park by the Mapocho river today and it was really beautiful and green! There is a lot of green space to run in, beautiful abstract sculptures and monuments everywhere, not too many people, and lots of dogs. We all had a great time watching Merlin and Gala run around in circles, retrieving sticks, playing with children and dogs, and nearly interrupt some intimate moments that couples were having in the park LOL. It was really funny to watch them. We all wanted to get some ice-cream at what is apparently “the best ice-cream shop in Santiago” but it was closed, so we headed back to the car. Gala sat on my lap on the way back to la casa and we took some selfies! It was very cute!

When we got home we had our daily teatime, or Once (pronounced Own-say). Ximena made some carrot muffins for us - they looked a lot like popovers actually! They had thick paper wrapped around the sides instead of thin paper muffin cups, so they spilled over the top. I explained how in America we really only eat muffins for breakfast, but in the UK they eat muffins at teatime. The boys fixed us some coffee ice-cream with a splash of brandy in it as well, which was surprisingly good!

Then we watched the ultrasound videos which were really detailed and you could see the baby’s face 3-dimensionally! It was really heart-warming to hear Ximena making all these cute noises at seeing her first granddaughter’s face and hands and nose and feet for the first time. It was super super adorable haha!

After the kids left I took a super long nap and woke up after dinner. I was just going to sneak a banana for dinner and not bother anyone but Vilma saw me and directed me to a whole tray of food that she had prepared for me! She is so sweet, I thanked her a bunch because I wasn’t expecting that! She warmed up my favorite part of the pollo from yesterday, some arros, and then fixed some ensalada with really juicy slices of tomatoes. There was also a sort of clear gelatin with slices of white somethings in it - I was afraid that they were parsnips from lunch, but they were actually apples, phew! It was all really yummy.

This evening I went through the CD’s that they have and wrote all the titles down. I was going to play them all on my computer but realized my mac doesn’t have a CD player! Bummer. I’ll just find them all on the internet though :)

My first day of school in Chile is tomorrow! This whole week we’ll be having classes at the hotel, since the students are still occupying the streets outside our university and are on strike.

I just FaceTimed my family, and now it’s time for bed :)

In the words of mamá Vilma:

“Bellos Ángeles cuidarán tus sueños y te brindarán un dulce descanso.”

Love,

[CHAR]