Arrivals

“There are hundreds of languages in the world, but a smile speaks them all.”

This trip is all about learning new things right? Here are ten things I learned in the first 24 hours.

1.     The most effective way for a child to assert his independence is by refusing to use his legs.

2.     Chugging a coffee right before you board an airplane makes for a pretty unpleasant flight.

3.     Everything really is bigger in Texas. #unnecessarilylargeairport

4.     I’m hopelessly addicted to my cell phone and twitter.

5.     Chile has adorable ginger babies who are fairly well behaved on airplanes.

6.     American Airlines shows only one film on a nine-hour flight.

7.     You can fall madly in love with a language in just a few hours, well before you have any kind of grasp of it.

8.     Lack of central heating. It matters.

9.     Read the signs and you won’t end up standing in five different lines just to make it through immigration.

10. I’m incapable of speaking Spanish without about half of the words that come out of my mouth being German. (It’s pretty bad. I think it has to do with “es” – “is” in Spanish, “it” in German – it’s far too frequent in both languages for me to keep them straight.)

Alala and my host family. Me oh my. You should have seen us sitting in the Dallas airport peering at the sheet only Natalie’s mother had been smart enough to successfully print out.

“It says ‘Husband 20’! I’m living with a couple my own age?”

But wait… that’s really uncommon in Chile.

“Let me see that again.”

Peer even closer.

“Oh that two is a SEVEN!”

You’re living with OLD PEOPLE!

We flew to Santiago and they picked us up and carted us straight to our homes to spend the Sunday with our host families. My family is this adorable 70-year old couple and their not-a-real-daughter-but-maybe-some-kind-of-relation-anyway-an-adopted-daughter 12-year-old Johanna. Johanna spends the weekends with them and the weeks at some kind of semi-boarding school it sounds like. I couldn’t quite catch what the problem with her father is, but her mother has problems with drugs and alcohol, and my host parents have been taking care of her since she was five. None of them could speak any more English than I can Spanish, which isn’t much, and since we’re in Chile and there’s three of them and one of me, we’re speaking solely in Spanish. Looks like I’m gonna need to learn a thing or two about this language. I’m also perfecting the smile and nod. They aren’t letting me off the hook though, they love to talk, and they talk to me whether or not I understand a word they’re saying. I think I catch about 25% of what they’re saying, but if it sounds important I have them repeat and rephrase and gesture until I figure it out. I hate to admit it, but by lunchtime I was pretty exhausted straining to focus and understand everything, but those are just growing pains, right?! My host mom speaks with the most clarity, and at a nice slow pace, but Johanna is particularly good at rephrasing a statement or question in such a way in which I will understand it. My host dad talks well and slow, but for some reason I can’t understand a word he says. But he loves to talk and he’s very sweet, I just make extra use of the smile and nod with him.

One of the first things I did, before lunch, was take a little trip about Las Condes (the suburb I’m staying in). All three of them came into my room speaking all at once asking about my subway card and I was thoroughly overwhelmed and my host mother was just tickled at how confused I looked and finally they got it through that she and Johanna wanted to take me to the metro station now to add money to my card, because tomorrow there would be “muchas gente”. So we took a little trip. They told me over and over about the people “corren” in the park, and that they could only do that today, because there was so little traffic. I also think I accidentally told them I like to run. Ha. As we walked to the pharmacy to buy me some shampoo, they realized we were walking right past a relation named Marin who is about my age’s apartment, and why don’t we pop in and introduce you. We traveled up the elevator, rang the doorbell twice in order to wake her from her slumber, introduced me, told her I don’t speak Spanish, to which she gasped, and then we were back on our way.


When we came home I unpacked to the insistence and supervision of Johanna. When I finished it was time for a special Father’s Day lunch, which is the biggest meal on the weekends. We had fresh bread and salad, which was lettuce, carrots, and an unfamiliar vegetable topped with your choice of salt, lemon, oil, and/or mustard. The salt took me right back to Passover and the parsley in salt water; I think I shall skip the salt next time. Then we had “pastel de papas” (potatoes cake). The potatoes were prepared in a traditional Chilean way – it may have been the first time I’ve enjoyed eating potatoes that were not fried. Ground beef mixed with onion, topped with slices of hard-boiled egg and topped again with mashed potatoes. To be polite, I ate everything I was given, but it was a struggle getting those last few bites of apple cake down, I was so full. Delicioso. And then I took a nice nap after getting minimal sleep on the airplane. And when I awoke, there was dinner and I was given a special larger dinner while the padres ate yogurt (Johanna had left for school), because they were too full. Apparently I’m expected to have a huge appetite. But the food was good again.

(not taken by me, it wasn't quite that pretty!)

I feel spoiled. And I have a space heater and everything. They brought me to my room at 8:30 and told me I can ask them if I have any questions and I meant to ask about the internet tonight, but I think I just realized they are getting ready for bed. I can find another time to use the internet. But on the bright side, my Mac has magically rediscovered its ability to hold a charge.