July 30th

I have moved in with my host family and they're wonderful. I have a mom (Daly), a dad (Nandy), a sister (Sofia Maria, 19), a brother (Javier, 22), a grandma (name and age unknown), and a dog (Apolo). I have a tiny but lovely room with the most comfortable bed in the world.

Bonus religious iconography.

On Sunday I went to a birthday party of somebody related to my host family. I'm not sure how she was related but she turned 90! The party was at a restaurant and lunch lasted for more than four and a half hours. I ate maybe half as much as everybody else and I was still unbearably full. It was just like a birthday party in the states but with a lot more relatives and more singing and probably the same amount of alcohol.

Everybody that I've met here has been really nice and patient with my inability to understand about 60% of what I hear. I'm definitely getting better and am quickly filling a notebook with words I'm learning. It's difficult to tell which words are chilenismos and which are words I just never learned but they all go in the book.

We're headed to Buenos Aires tomorrow and we'll get back Sunday. It's a six hour bus ride to Mendoza where we'll stop for dinner, then a thirteen hour ride overnight to Buenos Aires. We changed some money today and man, the money down here is weird. Before we leave tomorrow we still need to pick up our IDs, add money to our cell phones, and I need to attempt to register for classes. No doubt I will enjoy it all very much. 

I doubt I'll post again until I get back from Buenos Aires. I'm not bringing my computer but I'll try to check email a couple times while I'm there. Ciao!