Moments

¡Cuidado! Moment: When you are walking down the street like you know where you’re going and some Chilean yells, “¡Cuidado!” to prevent you from actually stepping out into on coming traffic and accidentally killing yourself.

Gringa moment: When you are with a group of people and a Chilean asks you if you all speak Spanish and after you have all answered the affirmative, he points at you specifically and asks “Even you?” Another form of the gringa moment occurs in the dance club, when someone asks you to dance and you tell them no and then they ask you again in English because they think you didn’t understand the first time, when really you just think they are sketchy.

TranSantiago Moment: When there are a lack of micras and metros, the busdriver has no idea where he is going, and you don’t have to pay to use the bus because city planning did not realize the impact of changing the entire public transportation system and end up just pissing everyone off.

Castaño Moment: You find yourself walking downstairs and into Castaño everyday for a sugar/caffeine boost because wherever you are, Castaño is not more than half a block away. It’s the Starbucks of Chile! In pastry form! And they have ofertas on cookies con chips de chocolate!

Stanford Moment: When you are standing on the street corner and your friend asks you what you want to do that night, and you realize that all you want to do is sleep, and when you say this, all your friends agree with you and then start talking about how much they have to study the next day despite the fact that you are in a foreign country and not on campus.

Highlights of the week: baking chocolate chip cookies w/o chocolate chips, talking with my host mom and dad about random things, discovering Bellavista, finding hazelnut gelato, talking to the folk at Astrid y Gaston, going to Jammin’, going to El Tunnel again, NUTS!, used book fairs in pretty buildings, being told my Spanish was passable, hearing Ilana’s stories, being distracted by the free wireless at Starbucks, actually going to Starbucks, Chinese dudes in heavy armor duking it out with swords while everybody just sits there and watches not really sure about what they are seeing.

Ciao!