Friday, August 16, 2013

Saturday, August 3


The next morning, Saturday, I set an alarm so I wouldn’t be the last one sleeping. I got up around 9:30 and got ready before going to eat breakfast with everyone. We didn’t really do much on Saturday, but I tried to stay around other people the whole day. This was partly because I really want to get to know my family quickly so we can all feel more comfortable, and also partly because I had absolutely nothing to do. It is a weird feeling not to have homework, a TV show to watch, a friend to hang out with, a gym to go to, or a car to drive yourself somewhere. My mom, Nancy, has an artist workshop in the backyard, where her students come and make projects. She brought me in and helped me make something while one of her students was there.
My first piece of artwork--coathooks
This was when I had my first encounter with the typical Chilean greeting. Whenever you see someone you know, you kiss them on the cheek to say hi and to say bye. When you go to school, you greet your classmates with kisses on the cheek. When you meet someone for the first time, you must kiss them on the cheek. When you see someone you know in the supermarket, you kiss them hello, then you talk for literally 30 seconds, then you still have to kiss them goodbye. At first it was very weird for me but I think I am getting used to it now. After we finished in the workshop, the whole family walked to the Jumbo, where they showed me around the shopping center and the grocery store. At first glance, the grocery store looks just like any grocery store in the US, but when I actually looked at all the products, I realized that none of them were familiar. Every time I told my family that I didn’t know what something was, they looked at me with expressions of shock and awe and put it in the cart for me to try.

 
We passed by some root beer, and I told them I liked it. They were really confused and said they’d never heard of it before. We bought some root beer and vanilla ice cream and I introduced them to root beer floats. Nobody liked them! They just said “you Americans are weird”. After dinner, Cristobal, Maxi, and I watched TV and funny videos on YouTube (well funny for them and confusing for me) and I didn’t go to sleep until like 4.

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