At a typical Chilean Asado (BBQ) hosted by a student´s host family

Galen created his own pisco sour (unique chilean drink made with a chilean liquor distilled from grapes) mix, which was called, ¨gringo sour¨

Obama´s inauguration party in the american owned, Basic Bar.

We promise, despite these pictures, we really have been studying spanish...and really immersing ourselves in the culture... We have been taking advantage of the many excursions organized by the spanish school we´re attending. This past weekend we drove to the mountains with a few other students and hiked to the San Francisco glacier. The Andes are breathtaking with the wide array of colors and open landscape. Galen has found the link to the googleearth site:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=sanfrancisco+glacier,+Chile&sll=-33.584164,-70.473948&sspn=0.0271,0.077248&g=maipo+river,+Chile&ie=UTF8&ll=-33.758384,-70.066638&spn=0.013522,0.038624&t=h&z=15&iwloc=B

On Sunday we went to a Chilean BBQ at one of the student´s host family´s home. We have been having a great time getting to know students from all around the world. We have befriended students from Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Brazil, England, and Australia. After enjoying great food from the BBQ, we headed into the center of Santiago where there was a night performance on one of the open plazas. The area was covered with people and the sky was filled with blinking lights. It was quite the show with acrobatic performances taking place within a 30 foot tall gigantic glowing wheel.

We have been overall very pleased with the Spanish classes. We are both amazed with the progress we have made in such a short period of time. We are starting to actually make out words when people speak to us in their rapid Chilean tongue.

THE BLOODY NOSE

The churillasco

my semi frozen lunch

Tourist??

Kara learned a new word yesterday-servilleta which means napkin

it all started out yesterday when we were walking towards the metro, and i suddenly got a bloody nose. i turned to kara and asked if she had any napkins in her bag and she replied ¨no¨i´ll go get some. As she ran down the street to the McDonalds i turned my face towards a near by building with my nose up in the air. Now this was not just any bloody nose it was the worlds worst! A passing by woman and her daughter stop and saw the issue and immediately went into action. i told them my girlfriend would be back in a minute but she ran off as her daughter stood and giggled at me. Her mom came running back and with a wet paper towel and proceeded to forcfully jam it up my nose. it had been about 8 minutes since kara had left and she finally comes around the corner holding a chocolate icecream in one hand a the most pathetic looking napkin in the other. we all looked at her and laughed. The people at Mcdonalds didn´t understand what kara was asking for so they just gave her and icecream cone and one napkin. After i recovered from my bloody nose i had the opportunity to eat the icecream, which was actually amazingly good despite where it came from. we then continued our journey to the market where we did our grocery shopping.

we both start classes on monday, which is only a 25 min walk from our apartment. we are both excited about starting this class, NOT that my spanish was that bad, but its not that good.

hope all are well

kara and galen

Day 4

us at bellas artes; a museum filled mostly with political cartoons and a few sculptures and paintings

kara´s quote of the day is : ¨i love it here, i feel so tall!¨



we just relocated to the apartment that we will be living in for the next 6 weeks, which is in the provendcia area. to say the least i don´t think that kara´s dad has to worry about her safety. the apartment is in a gated community with a 24 hour clerk in a up class neighborhood. The Providencia district is beautiful with cobble stone streets and wide sidewalks lined with trees that have lights all around the branches. It is a very nice residential area that has a lot of stores and restaurants but doesnt have as much of the hustle and bustle of the centre district in the center of santiago. kara is very excited because we have to walk by a Starbucks to get to the metro, so she can get her real coffee. she learned today how to order a grande coffee with two pumps of vanilla. suprisingly enough people around here typically drink instant coffee.

we went grocery shopping yesterday for the first time and i accidently asked where the breast milk was only to get a very concerned look. the humor of not knowing the language... The mid range price for wine in this area is $3.00 a bottle, which is a little dangerous.

our phrase for the week: ¨when in rome¨ Kara was very excited to order the typical chilean fast food, churillano, which is equivalent to the american hamburger. It is a slab of beef with cheese, fries, and a fried egg inbetween a hamburger bun. It was delicious.

we are getting more and more familiar with the city; we just purchsed our metro card yesterday and now can get anywhere we like without spending money on taxis.

the beginning

Our poor decision to stay up late on new years had its consequences. Our flight time was 21 hours. we had crying babies and people unable to keep their food down. galen experienced the challenges of his height throughout our flights.

We cant express our feeling of relief and excitement as the lights of Santiago became visable out of our plane window. As we stepped off the plane we felt the wonderful summers heat. We had our very first experience of being GRINGOs when the taxi driver charged us twice as much as it should have...i guess we have some work to do with our spanish.

So far we have had a pleasant experience interacting with the Chileans despite the language gap. They have been very friendly and helpful besides ripping us off on the first cab fare. Kara has appreciated how studious Galen was with his past spanish classes... however, he has helped complete the mission of keeping us fed, clean, and happy so there cant be too many complaints. For the past two days we have been seeing the sites...despite karas desire to take an official city tour, galen insists on being our city tour guide...(for those who know the emersons sense of direction, you can only imagine the adventures)

We are excited to move in to our apartment tomorrow that we´re renting for almost 6 weeks. Kara starts her classes next monday and Galen may join...

lastly- Chileans stay up super late we have dinner around 10;30 at night. lunch is their biggest meal, we miss our big american breakfast. we´ve been enjoying their abundance of fresh sea food.

we are now going to enjoy a pisco sour, a traditional chilean drink!! hope all is well.