the blogger gods would not let me post the entire last stanza which is what i wanted to be my title in the little title box (the box says titulo here)-so, I just had to post it my own way. so there.
and if you were paying close attention you noticed that i have freed the back slashes!!
except that is a lie. . .
because i got the wireless password for my family's house---YEAH!---so really I'm back on my computer with the liberal back slashes-where i still don't know how to type accents in my words, but I can. . .
Post Pictures!!
Today has been a beautiful day. But before I start there let me show you some pictures.
So, this was the room that I thought was mine originally. see the windows? And of course after I had sprayed my stuff everywhere (pre-unpacking) in true Meredith fashion-after that-they informed me my room was actually upstairs. so, it was pretty funny to watch me scrambling to pick up my stuff. So, yes mom, I have learned my lesson and my room is now neatly unpacked with and everything FOLDED, seriously, it is-and put away . . . just in case I end up rotating rooms every week or something. You never know.
I'm sorry if this is sideways. don't know how to undo that, but this is the doorway to the house. Can you see the stained glass? isnt it cool?
and this is the living room.
dining room
by the way. it is like 32 degrees celcius here, and I know that may not mean much to you, but it really means that I'm sweating my hair off. no, but really its like 90 degrees farenheit. I am also quickly learning how to convert us measurements into the metric system. seriously, who knew that in addition to spanish, my math would improve here too!!
This is the view of the house as soon as one enters the gate.
and this is the view standing to the left of the door and looking at the gate.
This is standing at the gate and looking left.
This is the back of the house on one side.
y por el otro lado.
and this is what my room actually looks like.
Isn't it nice? I'm very lucky.
Today, my class only lasted for half the normal time because it was our first day and the professor needed to evaluate me and so he wasn't prepared for the whole four hours (plus, basically I flew through all his material). Ha, no just kidding, there was no flying, but I did take three quizzes on different grammatical structures and TOTAL only missed like 4-I was pretty stoked. Each time he went to check one I held my breath and kept thinking gosh i hope I know what I think i do, but I did. so, no worries. My professor, by the way, is very nice. He looks like he might be three or four years older than me, but not more than that. He is very professional and a really great teacher. He helped me a lot in a very small amount of time. Starting next week I will spend two hours with him and the other two hours with another professor Monday through Thursday. I'm excited to see how much my spanish will progress in a month with this one on one attention.
sidebar-I started this entry this afternoon and had to quit because we went on an outing. and so much has happened since then. The days seem SO long here because the sun doesn't go down until 9pm.
Before I forget, I have to tell you how excited I am because I totally rode the metro to my classes and back and even had to change trains twice. . . and I didn't get lost. It was pretty exciting I assure you.
After my classes I was walking back when I saw this sign. seriously people. ROGER WATERS is coming to CHILE!!! I am going to try to get tickets, but we'll see. Check out this photo:
Like I said before at some point, there is a park near our house with lots of interesting sculptures. I walked through on my way back and took some pictures.
This is the bridge that crosses over the Mapocho river-I pretty sure it's brown because of the sewer, but if you squint your eyes and don't think about the color it's really pretty. And everything surrounding it is truly breathtaking. I don't really have friends yet (except mis padres chilenos) hence I'm taking a picture of myself. This guy across the bridge was staring at me, and I know what he was thinking-aww poor tall white girl is taking a picture of herself. great.
no, but really the park is beautiful. here's some more:
The pictures of the sculptures are especially for Kara:
In other news, Pancho y Berti bought these apartments in a brand new building in a very Haight-Ashbury (seriously) region in Santiago that is called Bellavista. I really wish I could live there some day. (Don't worry family. I will return eventually- : ))
that they are planning to rent out. But before they rent them they are fully furnishing them. So, we have been on many adventures to the apartments and to buy things for the apartments. I pretty much follow either or both of them wherever they go because it is all so interesting and an opportunity to learn for me. I'm soaking up as much as I can. And although I thought I might annoy them with all my billions of questions and furrowed eyebrows, I think they don't mind me tagging along. I never have to invite myself, which is good. They are both so loving and jovial-that there is always a new joke, a new exchange of words. Pancho is one step closer to that golden certificate at the end of the month.
Anyways, all that is to say, that this evening we went looking for a sofa. . . which turned into a search for a sofabed. And Berti is a Queen at bargain shopping. She explained to me in detail her plan of searching out all the options at the all the places (at every place we went she got a business card with the quoted price written on the back) and then after much thought will make her decision. We went into this shopping place that I don't even know how to describe. Imagine a small mall with flat escalators without stairs (that you could push a cart onto) and there are random stores like an eye doctor, a barber, no clothing stores that I saw--but on the top floor is this huge store that is basically exactly like a home depot. It's name is "easy."
easy. I mean let me tell you I did some major pondering over this. Because there are random english words EVERYWHERE, the names of random places and things.
I found a restaurant called ALABAMA! but I was trying not to have a breakdown and grab the dude on the bike with the backpack and figure out how to translate-dude-so that I could say to him
dude! I'm from there
and share a moment, but I decided to keep what little dignity a five foot nine gringa con los ojos locos has left.
But. . . do not despair. .. I will definitely get a picture of that place. There's also a bar called "Dublin-a real pub" and another restaurant called Louisiana something.
And Berti told me over dinner that 70 or 80 percent of the music here is in English because todos los jovenes hablan ingles.
and my thoughts about all of this, which are still processing, are really only in question form right now:
Why does a country this far away from the United States take so much of their cultural expectations of what is "in" from the US?
Each year, how much of their culture are they trading for ours? especially when adults like Berti and Pancho (and many of the younger people too, I imagine, Especially those who don't have access to great education-and there are many!), when all these members of the population can't even understand the lyrics??? how is the meaning or representation or perception of music changing?
of course, then I also wonder-ok grandpa-how many people in the US ever really know song lyrics [I know many of us do-but many others don't]? I mean how many really grotesque songs do we walk around singing without even realizing what we're saying?
I mean this isn't grotesque, but I Really, Seriously believed for years that the song "Wearwolves of London" was Wearwolves of Thundah--no, really, I sung along with it. I BELIEVED that it said Thundah, to the point at which, when it was pointed out to me, I almost shed a tear, because i really liked saying thundah that much. (next time you hear it. plug in thundah. you'll see)
I digress.
are citizens of the united states even aware of the impact our trends and images have on other places?
are chileans attracted to our cultural images and styles because it is inexplicably connected to the image of money and wealth, to the image of the "American dream"?
I don't know. what do you think?
back to Food. my favorite topic. we had this awesome dish today called pastel de papas. The bottom is like hamburger with spices and onions-almost like taco meat, but different- and the top was basically pureed potatoes. AMAZING. almost licked my fingers, but i stopped myself. and i promised Berti I would make chocolate chip cookies with her and teach her the recipe.
Ok folks, Im about to fall asleep, but I just have to tell you one more thing. I met Berti's parents tonight, and they were just so great. They live about two blocks from Berti's house, and they told me that they understood my spanish perfectly. Her father reminds me of my gramps, a really kind-hearted man, lots of laughter and jokes, and when his meal was over, the first words out of his mouth were "what's for desert?" I almost hugged him.
He was asking me about my German heritage, and I told him that my maternal grandmother came from German descent, and I told him that her name was Schraeder, and he said he knew some Chilean Schraeders. neat huh? anyways, they were lovely people.
and I shouldn't throw this is in at the end, but i just remembered that my professor was telling me today that he had done some research on Chilean bad words. They have an unbelievably amount of bad words that are apart of the modern discourse. I mean way more than we have. I know. It's hard to believe, but really. and he was saying that these words didnt really exist in that type of frequency or used as much until after Pinochet and the dictatorship. He was suggesting that all the hatred and fear brought out the worst in them and was expressed through their language, especially because many of their bad words are specifically about types of people, like homosexuals or prostitutes, or just mean words for people in general. He was suggesting that the hatred that some (and its important to say that because there were/are many chileans that supported Pinochet) people were forced to repress because of the government's control had to manifest itself in another way, and sadly it ended up being on one another. Now these words are apart of the common Chilean slang, like many words that you could think of off the top of your head in the US that are common hurtful words used to belittle others.
oye, the ways we project our fear through hatred and blame.
sorry, that was intense, but I didn't want to forget. nunca quiero olvidar.
and sorry this has been so long, but a lot is happening!! Carpe Diem!
"And I, tiny being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars.
My heart broke loose with the wind."
una aurora,
mere
"Poetry" : http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/poetry-2/
sorry, I couldn't find it in spanish online because it's hard to find a poem titled Poetry by Neruda in google.
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