Thursday, January 30

Today we all woke up late and hung out for a while around the house. Then, Nancy sent Monse, Seyla and I to the jumbo to buy her condensed milk. We bought the milk and then bought ice cream from McDonalds and sat outside eating it and talking for a while before walking back home. When we got home, Tia Cecilia and Benja had arrived from Santiago, and we all sat down to eat lunch together. After lunch, Nancy taught me and Tia Cecilia how to make this amazing yogurt dessert with Maraguya (a fruit that doesn’t exist in USA) and I taught Tia Cecilia how to make Oreo bonbons. After we finished cooking, I went outside to find Monse, Laurie, Gabriel, and Tio Rolando in the pool. I immediately put on my bathing suit and jumped in with them. It was the first time I’d used the pool in the backyard and I had a great time. We played volleyball, monkey in the middle, we threw water balloons at each other, and we even put Yasmin in the pool for a little while. I like playing games because it’s a way to bond with people without having to worry about the language barrier (even though there really isn’t much of a language barrier anymore). Around 6, Seyla and I got out of the pool and showered and got ready to go meet my friends to see a movie. We took a collectivo and then a micro to get to the movie theater (Seyla’s first Chilean public transportation). We were meeting Nicolo, Louis, and Katie, but when I got there I only saw a giant group of punk looking Chilean kids. I looked closer and realized that my friends were in the middle of the group. Apparently all the Chileans were there to see the Justin Bieber movie and they had seen Nicolo and decided he looked just like Justin. When I walked up to them, Nicolo quickly told them that I was from Canada.  I caught on to what was going on and I said “yeah actually my cousin is Justin Bieber”. They all freaked out and came toward me asking if it was true. I said nope it was a lie and then they all laughed. I love how easy it is to make friends here in Chile. We said goodbye and went to buy our tickets. We saw The Book Thief, which I absolutely loved. Then we walked from the movie theater over to a little shopping center nearby where we sat down to eat some ice cream. It was another awkward mix of Spanish and English, since Nicolo and Louis didn’t even want to say hola to Seyla in Spanish and although she understood our English she didn’t want to speak it with us. I ended up talking half the time in English and the other half in Spanish, trying to be the bridge between the two languages and keep everyone involved in the conversation. My mom came to pick us up around 11, and I laughed when Louis had to greet my mom and he didn’t kiss her on the cheek. I remember when the kiss on the cheek was weird and new to me and people used to get slightly offended when I forgot it just like my mom did when Louis forgot. After dropping Katie off at her house, we went home. They had already eaten dinner, so Seyla and I cooked ourselves hot dogs and ate together. Then we went outside and sat with Nancy and Tia Cecilia while they did an art project together until like 2 when I went to sleep.