Me debo dormir pero...

I'm so grateful for my time here because
every day I learn something new about
Chile, the world, or myself.












As I sit here listening to una cancion columbiana que escuche hoy en clase, I can't help but think about my Lee Lee. Banny, I hope you know that a great percentage of the reason that I keep up with this blog is for YOU!! I salute you for not having a facebook or a myspace and thus I am going to try to get you (and everyone else of course) the details of my adventures, life lessons, ups and downs, and epiphanies. Mom and Lee Lee, I think about you ladies ALL THE TIME. I told mom that I was on a tiny bus coming back from horseback riding and Mercy by Duffy came on! I have so many songs to share with you from my class, Lee Lee. I can't wait till you are in Brasil or France or Italy having your own international experience. I wanted to express through this entry (as best I can) the changes taking place in myself that I have noticed. Like I said, it is hard to consciously note all the things you find out about yourself when you are living in another country. I even had a hard time expressing it to Megan over a glass of wine in Bellavista two nights ago. By the way, having your best friend with you while you are in a foreign country is pretty much amazing. So let's see...I am still the same Rose that is very dedicated to school, a friend to all, punctual and polite, strong-willed, adaptable and flexible, and always joking. However, when you are expressing yourself in another language, it is difficult to show people who you truly are. Imagine having to think about every word that you say. I know that I am blessed to have a slight advantage with the language because I know that all the knowledge is in my brain...somewhere...but all the same let it be said that it is VERY difficult to express all of your stories, wants, and problems in another language. I am almost finished with my first month in Chile and because we have been meeting the other people in our program and taking the ILP course, it isn't like I have been only speaking Spanish. Actually, I speak very little Spanish throughout the day because I walk about 6 blocks to the bus stop at 8 AM, take the bus to school, sit in class for 4 hours (where I speak a little but mainly learn and listen), and then hang out with friends or go back to my house. Talking with Maggie is always great practice, but I look forward to starting school at Universidad de Chile because then I will really be immersed in the language. Megan and I are also going to meet up every week at a coffee shop of our choice to speak Spanish and do some language studying. There's nothing like speaking Spanish with someone who you feel totally comfortable with. It's amazing what comes out of my mouth when I really get going with speaking.

Life is a crazy, crazy thing. I don't even know how to express it...the days pass by so quickly and I am just trying to run to keep up with the passing of time. Of course, these past 4 weeks have been NON-STOP! My average day for the past month has been waking up at 6:30 AM...hopefully showering but usually doing homework...going to school and then having to do something after school like meet a friend or go to a museum with my group. And then I wouldn't get home till like 9 or 10. Then I would usually talk with Maggie about some profoundly deep topic (Hoyos Negros was our topic last night! haha) And I won't get to my room until like 11 or 12 midnight. Then I'd do my homework?! So I'm sure yall can all agree that I felt like time was passing by at the speed of light. But I look forward to life as a Chilean student which I will get to experience in a week. I want to actually feel like I am in a foreign country instead of always surrounding myself with Americans. This is easier said than done because I have met so many amazing people studying abroad here as well. But I think it is a balance that every person needs to find in order to not feel super lonely but also to challenge themselves to live like a Chilean would.

In other news, I think I may have sprained my ankle. haha not really that funny because I can't really walk without feeling immense pain but it's going to be fine. Mama, PLEASE don't worry! It's actually a funny/stupid story. I tried to climb a fence because Tony said that the gate to his house wasn't going to open because Tom had put the lock in the wrong position. We were reviewing for our presentation and we'd gone to get some snacks. So hearing that, I decided to try to climb the fence. I'll save you the gory details...but I must have inverted my ankle in the fall. Now I'm sitting here with a bag of ice on it hoping that it gets better before I have to walk to school again on Friday. The funny thing is that when I got home today I feel asleep for 6 hours and when I woke up, I went out to use the bathroom and Maggie was like: "Hijita, que te ocurrio? Te duele en el pie?" I was like: "Quien te ha dicho?" haha She claimed it was a pajarito but it turned out to be some people in my group from the presentation. So she got me an ice bag and served me dinner on a tray in the living room while we watched a Chilean telenovela. She explained the twisted stories of the characters as I ate my alcacofa (artichoke!) y pasta. I am just praying with enough sleep and icing, my ankle will get better. But the reason I even decided to include all of this in the blog is because there is a silver lining! I think that this was a sign from God pretty much telling me that I need to take it easy. I have not been taking ANY time for myself, and even tonight as I limped away from school, I got like 3 invites to go dancing or watch movies etc. It is so flattering but a girl can only do so much. Even my host brother wanted to see if Meg and I wanted to go out tonight and Megan had been calling today to see if I wanted to come over. Like I said, I am always flattered but I think it is just comical that it took a sprained ankle to make me able to say NO. Lord knows that I would have donned my cutest outfit and hit the town dolled up tonight to go salsa dance or watch Harry Potter o solamente carretear. But I am much happier watching incredibly convuluted telenovelas with Maggie and updating my blog for all of my favorite people.

Thanks for reading all the latest news! Much love to you all! From Chile this is Rose Linehan saying good night y mantenganse con estilo mis amigos! :)

Fotos de montar caballos

See previous blog to hear how much fun we had! These are the pictures of our adventure.

La Serena Investigative Report

Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door...oh wait, that's La Iglesia de Santo Domingo...

La Magica de la Naturaleza

Can I ring your bell?

The bus dropped us off in the middle of nowhere! If I didn't have my
girl scout nature guide & my compass, I would have been super scared.

Trekking through La Serena

The group at Hostel Jofre

Presidential candidate Marco Heriquez Onomami

About to catch our 11:30 pm bus to La Serena

El sanctuario a la Virgen Maria de Lourdes

El Mercado Recabo donde puedes comprar cualquier cosa en el mundo

Niki y yo en un mar de flores

As you know from the previous post, our investigation report on our cultural experience in La Serena this past weekend was a total success. The trip turned out different than I would have though but I learned a lot through the experience. For example, if you are going to take a bus 7 hours to a place known for its observations and pisco factories, you guys should plan to visit these things before hand. Because there were two groups of 5 going to La Serena, it was hard to try to be the leader and tell everyone what the plan was. So I just went with the flow. But looking back, I never want to spend $30 on a bus ticket and $15 on a hostel and even more on food to just walk around the town. Fue una lastima que no pudieramos visitar el observatorio ni la factoria de pisco ni una isla en la que vive los penguinos (yes...penguins!). But I plan on going back and the important thing is that we got what we needed to make a great presentation. We talked to many people from La Serena who showed us that tourism is a huge part of the economy in this town and their primary goal albeit tacit was to make el extranjero siente comodo en su cuidad. One guy that we met was a waiter at a restaurant who wore an American flag pin on his shirt. He ended up talking to us for about an hour about his views on politics and why he always looks forward to talking with Americans. Amidst his intense sharing of opinion, I got to a point where I could hardly keep my eyes open. This wasn't due to the quality of conversation but rather to the fact that we had left Santiago at midnight and arrived in La Serena at about 6 am, scrambled to find a hostel, and then went right to exploring. Fighting my heavy eye lids, I took to walking around La Serena while my collegues continued gathering information from the waiter Manuel. I found my way to a minimart con el prepositio que pueda comprar un cafe para despertarme. I ended up talking to the clerk who told me that back in the day, they would create myths about La Serena to bring tourists and foreigners to the area. He told me the story of El Tesoro de Francis Drake which is said to be hidden somewhere but no one knows where. Thus people began to come to La Serena with the hopes of finding this hidden treasure. He also told me that there are tunnels under the city from the churches to other places. I discussed these two interesting facts in my presentation today because those are types of things that I love learning about...the mystery, the magic, the culture.

Being in La Serena made me realize why I decided to come to Chile. When Megan and I were in Costa Rica, we stayed in a small mountain town for the first 3 days and it was there that I found myself reviving my Spanish. This happened so effortlessly because 1) I HAD to speak Spanish. There was no other option. But more importantly 2) There is a certain compassion I find amongst the people of a small town no matter if it is in Phelan, CA or La Serena, Chile. I LOVE that compassion because the mentality of the city folk is hard for me to handle. Being able to get out of the city for a while and feel the fresh air of a historic beach city to the north was a great experience for me. I am progressing with my Spanish but it will always be difficult to talk to a stranger. You never know how fast they are going to talk or whether they will have patience or WHAT! But the people in La Serena whether at the restaurants, the open air artisan market, the hostal, or the minimart made me remember why I decided to come to Chile. This made the trip worth it.

Finally, when we got back from exploring the city, I laid down to take a "nap" (Lee Lee, if you are reading this, you are already one step ahead of me) and didn't wake up until 7 am the next morning. Annie and I started talking about how we wouldn't have time for any of the stuff I mentioned before and just as we were getting frustrated about the fact that we hadn't planned well enough, Niki came in to suggest me go horseback riding! Long story short, we decided to go! We took a bus 30 minutes from La Serena which dropped us off on a random country road which we had to walk down for about 15 minutes with all of our gear. When we got to the place, it was a genuine Chilean ranch and our guide was a genuine Chilean cowboy! Mom, I could not help but think of Man From Snowy River the entire time I was there! :) We went up into the mountains and let it be said that it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience...unless of course I do it again. But you get the point. All in all, Annie and I agreed that the horseback riding "made the trip". Like I said, we plan to return to La Serena to see the famous observatory, pisco factory, and penguin island. But for now, I can revel in the fact that we truly did investigate that beautiful city (founded in 1544 by the way!!) and had fun doing it.

Manteganse con estilo santiaguinos...

Today was presentation day and we had the pleasure of being the first group to present. I think it went great actually because we had the audience laughing and I totally nailed my little spiel on la gente, la historia, y religion en La Serena. I went into the zone when I was talking in front of the 90 people in the room but I have to say that I had memorized most of the stuff that I said. This surprised me because the Spanish was just flowing which me realizing that I actually had memorized what I was saying. After the presentation, one girl told me that I hadn't even read from my card at all. She also said she loved the presentation! All good things. :) For our creativity aspect, we decided to do a newscast where Tom and Annie were the main anchors and Tony, Niki, and I were the field investigators. Tom found this music that was exactly like what plays at the beginning of a news program and when we started, the music came on and Niki and I pretended to be doing their makeup. Then we ran over to our positions as the music was ending and Tony looks at the audience and says: EN VIVO. Hilarious. I am ecstatic that the presentation went great and I am extra ecstatic that we don't have school tomorrow and I am even MORE ecstatic that Saturday is our last day of ILP. Don't get me wrong...I loved that class and I have learned a lot. But it is really hard for me to speak in class because I'd rather just listen to what everyone else has to say. So when I am forced to say something profoundly insightful about a movie or a reading, it takes all that I've got. Our teacher firmly believes in learning as many new words as we can and so each student is assigned a day in which they have to email all the new words we talked about that day to Victoria who compiles all of our new words into a list. We are going to be tested on that list during the final. There are about 500 words on that list. I know, right?

We already had one test on the vocab and that was the night that I got to hang out with Meggy for the first time in Santiago. I had made about 300 notecards and was planning on staying in to study. But plans change and it was Kyle's last night so Megan, Annaleigh (she's also staying at Maggie's house), and I met up with my two host brothers Luke and Kyle and one of their friends. We went to a castle on top of a hill that looked like an LA club. haha I know it sounds crazy but literally you get in a van and it takes you up to a castle on top of Cerro Santa Lucia. It was like three stories and the top story was a private party that I guess we were invited to because we dropped a name and got in. They played so much American music I had to remind myself that I was in Chile. The Piscolas (Pisco and Coca Cola) helped to remind me! Anyways, the connection between this story and the notecards is that I brought my 300 notecards in my pocket to the club. And I even got a chance to look through the majority amidst talking to all the guys in suits who may or may not have just come from work. The club is called After Office but we learned that some guys just put on suits and pretend like they just came from the office. :) Either way, it was a great night and in this moment, I am just SO happy that the presentation went great and that I don't have to worry about it anymore!!

Tratando de imitar Neruda

Por mi parte, soy o creo ser…
Cantante de la verdad, mujer de la fe,
motivada por pensamientos, diario de mis amigas,
cuidadora de secretos, amante de la naturaleza,
tranquila en mi alegría, perdido en mis sueños,
madre de mi hermana, fiel a mis amigos,
abrelatas de diálogos, observadora de acciones invisibles,
inoxidable de corazón, curiosa del futuro,
trabajadora clandestina, donante de chistes,
llorona durante películas, con tatuajes de experiencia,
regalona de respaldo, creyente en felicidad,
pensadora antes de hablar, espantosa por el odio,
reina de la música, registradora de eventos pasados,
madre de paciencia, con ojos de cristales celestes,
ayudante de la tristeza, alimentador por mi honradez,
modelo de la moda rara, navegante de boca
con quemaduras de dolor, llena de fuerza,
una parte del gran dibujo, dependiente e independiente,
contenta conmigo misma pero caprichosa como todas.

Escrito por Rose Linehan

Cultural Events

During this three-week Intensive Language Program we have had the opportunity to go on many cultural field trips with our tutores. There are about 12 tutores who are Chilean students that attend either Universidad de Chile o La Catolica. There are about 10 students in my group and it is our tutor's job to show us the youth culture of Chile. She takes us out to dinners sometimes and around the city and speaks with us to improve our Spanish. My tutor's name is Camila, and one night she took us to this authentic Chilean restaurant that we had to take the metro to. We got off and walked through these cobblestone streets to an alley. The entrance to the restaurant was in the alley and there were three stories to this restaurant. I got this amazing fish platter that looked so pretty when I got it that I felt guilty for eating it. We played a get-to-know-you game and spoke Spanish all night. We also went to Concha y Toro with our tutors which is a famous vineyard in Santiago. We got to taste some wines and I even bought a Shiraz Rose from the winery. It was quite delicious and the price was right (Dad, I know you'd appreciate that.) Finally, this week we also went to La Moneda which is the Chilean White House basically. We got a tour of the premises and I could smell the history. The tour was entirely in Spanish but I got most of the information. Numbers and dates are one of my biggest challenges because it is a lot to compute at the same time. But it is nice to challenge my brain sometimes...I stress the "sometimes". haha We have one more cultural experience with our tutores planned before the ILP ends on July 18th. It is a museum day on Tuesday, and I will tell you guys how much I learn. :)

Cerro San Cristobal

The day after the rain stopped was the day that Molly, Jeanny, and I decided to explore our little community que se llama La Reina. We walked around the cute little suburban neighborhood and tried to learn all the streets. Maggie spent about 30 mins drawing me a very detailed map and helping me to understand where I am in relation to all I had seen so far in Santiago. After us ladies were done exploring, I got a call from Annie saying that a ton of people were going to Cerro San Cristobal. Cerro means hill in Spanish and this hill is in the middle of the metropolistic city of Santiago. We decided to go and it ended up that about 15 other people from our program had the same idea. We hiked up for about 15 mins until we got to the top where there is a towering ivory-white statue of the Virgen Mary. It was an amazing view as you can see from the pictures.