Monday, July 7

Today I woke up early for my last Monday at school.

Ale has the same name as me and she is also an only child, so we say that we are twins. We kind of look alike right?

I didn’t know it at this point but today was my last day of actual classes because the rest of the week we just worked on stuff for the alianzas all day. It was a full day of history, which I love. After school, I stayed until 4:30 doing nothing because we were supposed to be rehearsing barras but nobody was organized at all and so we did nothing and talked. At 4:30, Vicente and I went back to his house.

He didn't want me to take his picture ;))

We walked over to the jumbo to drink a coffee in Berezzi. When we met like 11 months ago and he found out that I love manjar, he promised that he would take me to get a coffee with manjar in it, and we kept putting it off until this last week when we finally did it. We sat outside drinking coffee for a long time, talking and laughing. Vicente is really shy but he’s also one of the sweetest guys I know and really funny if you get past his shell. We got back to his house around 7:30 and it was dark so he walked me over to catch a collectivo back to my house. I got home, showered, ate once with the family, and went to sleep.

Sunday, July 6

Today I woke up around 10 and immediately went over to the San Martin house. It was supposed to be a surprise, but Sally had let it slip to me that Cristobal was getting home a week early as a surprise for his mom. When I arrived at the house, Cristobal had already arrived, surprised Nancy (who was actually furious because she had wanted to wait for him at the airport), and was out surprising his friends at their houses. Sally and I made key lime pie while he was gone, and it was ready by the time Cristobal and Vicente arrived back at the house. We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out with the family, eating a big lunch, and just chilling with Maxi, Vicente, Cristobal, Sally, Monse, and I.

A little later on, Vicente and I invited all of Cristobal’s friends (who are also our friends) to a pick up soccer game at a field nearby. When they arrived, they were surprised to find Cristobal there playing. We all played (even me, although I am terrible and was dressed in jeans and tennis shoes not cleats) for about an hour, and then the San Martin offered to take me home. I live far away, and so when I saw that we were driving next to a collectivo that would take me to my house, I told Eric to stop the collectivo so I could get into it. It was a hilarious car chase while we tried to get the driver’s attention, but he finally pulled over, and I jumped out of the San Martins car and into his. I got home, took a shower, ate once with the family, and went to sleep.

Saturday, July 5

Today I woke up late, and was working in my room when Manuel came in and invited me to go to this outdoor warehouse of food where the vendors of the feria get this food. We drove out to it and he bought a big crate of grapefruit to make juice. From there, he dropped me off at school right as all my classmates were getting out of preu. We were all planning on staying at school until like 6:30 doing work for the alianzas. We practiced barras, worked on all the suits we had to make out of recycled material, and practiced lifting people up like cheerleaders (which is also part of the barras routine). By 6:30 I was really bored and tired of doing nothing and basically just kind of in a bad mood. Everyone was going to Popi’s house to continue working, but she lives so far away from my house and I didn’t have a way to get home after, so I begged off of going and just went home. I spent the night with my family, talking and sitting by the stove. I got into bed early. 

Friday, July 4

Today Sally and I were supposed to wake up at 8 to be able to get to her school by 9:30 (we were missing he first class because they had an English test). Her alarm didn’t go off until 9, and we had to rush out the door.

We arrived at Colegio Quimahue at like 10:30, and entered in her classroom in the middle of history. Her school is about 1/5 the size of Instituto Ingles, and it is completely red (the floors, the doors, the walls, the railings, all red).

Her classroom was about half the size of mine and there were only 20 people in her class. There are only 40 people in her whole generation (in mine there are 110). I met all of her friends during the breaks, and they were really nice and made me feel very welcome. The guys, as all Chileans are, were very flirty, and whenever any of them would talk to me all of their friends would stare and whistle, but it was still fun. After school, Sally and I went with her friends Paula and Elena to eat sushi. We laughed a lot, and they were amazingly sweet with me and included me in their conversation. I think if I had been in Quimahue they would have been really good friends.

Sally told me that one of the main differences between her new school (which has a reputation for being for a poorer class of people) and her old school is that in her old school, her friends would buy everything for her, and in this school, her friends can’t even eat out at restaurants that often because they don’t have the money. I didn’t really notice any differences in the way the people behaved. My Instituto Ingles friends told me that at Quimahue I would be so afraid of the low class people who talked with bad words (like my friends don’t do that) and were reckless, but I actually found Quimahue’s kids just as welcoming and sweet as Ingles’ kids. But it’s true that the two schools wouldn’t have been friends. They are different types of people. I took a collectivo home after sushi, packed up a bag, and then Manuel took me into the center in the hunt of sparklers for the “4^th of July” party I was having tonight. We went to 3 different stores, but apparently they’re illegal here in Chile, so I had to show up to Pablo’s house with only my USA sunglasses, “American cut” potato chips, ingredients to make s’mores, goldfish that my mom sent me months ago and are now stale, and American flag key chains as presents for people. Nico, Dani, Fernanda, and Vicente arrived later, and we all sat around and talked and laughed and watched funny YouTube videos. I had an amazing time with them and laughed until my stomach hurt like I always do, but in my mind the whole time was the fact that this was probably our last get together. Manuel came to pick me up around 9:30, and I left, wishing them all a Happy 4^th of July (although it was without fireworks this year, at least we had s’mores and good company). I went home, talked with Manuel and Lilian for a while, and went to sleep early.

Thursday, July 3

Today was an interesting day at school. Sally and I decided that it would be fun to see each others’ schools, and today she came to mine. It was a little awkward at first, but I just introduced her to all my friends during breaks and she sat with me during classes and it was fun. The only thing I don’t like about having my exchange student friends meet my Chilean friends is that the Chileans always end up comparing us. Who is prettier, who speaks better Spanish, who is nicer, stuff like that, and it is really annoying and unfair especially when they have only met the other person for like 2 seconds. It happens when I meet other people’s friends and when they meet mine and none of us like it, so we basically avoid introducing each other, but sometimes it is fun, like it was today with Sally. After school, we didn’t want to sit through language, so we decided to try to leave early. The guy at the front desk saw me coming, said that if I didn’t have a note there was absolutely no way he would let me leave, and turned us away immediately. We went out the front and decided to search the perimeter of the school (which is completely walled in) for a place where we could escape. We found a couple interesting spots, but I was pretty chicken about it because I was imagining how embarrassed I would be if we were caught. We went to the back of the school behind the track (we had to pass by Maxi running on the track and all the teachers eating lunch in the cafeteria) to a hidden spot with a low wall that came to a little above our heads. Sally looked over and said it was a lot, so she threw my bags over the wall and boosted me over. I looked and saw that in fact it was a person’s house and that their front gate was locked, so we would have no way out once we jumped the fence, but my bags were already there, so we had to try out luck. We jumped over, and as we landed in the person’s backyard, we realized that there was a big dog there. Sally started yelling for the person in the house. A startled and confused woman came out, we explained that we were exchange students escaping from school and had had no idea that this was a house, and she opened the lock on the gate for us and let us out. We ran down the street, filled with the adrenalin and terror of what we had just done. We went over to Louis’s house, where the exchange students from Rancagua were going to have a “last get together”. We made chicken burgers and sat around Louis’s table and talked about life for like 4 hours. I gave them each (Louis, Sally, Katie H, and Nigel) photos that I had printed of us with letters on the back, and flags from the rotary club of Laguna Niguel. We said goodbye around 7 and Sally and I went back to the San Martin house. We cooked brownies, talked to Monse, and watched Back to the Future with Maxi. Around 11, we went to sleep in Sally’s room.

Wednesday, July 2

Today was a very busy day. I arrived to school at 11:20 because I didn’t want to go to either English (because it is boring) or Calculus (because we had a big test). I arrived, and my friend Gonzalo immediately called me, yelled “Alex come to the auditorium there are gringos there” and hung up. I went and found a group of like 15 gringos with all the kids from the English elective at my school. They all cheered when I showed up and the gringos told me they had told them all about me. They were from a school in Missouri and had come to Chile for a month long exchange. They were super sweet and excited to meet me and talk to me, although I had to say goodbye really fast because break was over. After school, we stayed rehearsing barras until 6. I usually am bored at barras practice because everyone is very disorganized and we never get anything done, but today we accomplished a lot and they taught us 3 new dances. I went home in collectivo at 6 as it was getting dark. When I arrived, I Skyped Ana, and we talked for 2 hours while I hot glued pens to a trash bag to make a suit jacket for the recycled things fashion show at the alianzas next week. Around 8, we hung up, I ate once with my family, showered, and watched Dead Poets’ Society before going to sleep.

Tuesday, July 1

Today was a little less cold that yesterday (maybe because I put on like 10 layers today), but I was still freezing. During physical education, we had free time to work on things for the alianza, so we sat in the classroom painting posters. After school there was no barras practice because they had a mock PSU test, so I got to go home early. I sat and talked to Manuel for a while, then went for a run, showered, and ate once with the family. We went out to Monchito (my counselor)’s office to get my $400 security deposit. I said goodbye to Monchito and was so happy to finally not have to see that careless, lazy man again. I’m just happy I ended up getting everything that Rotary owed me before I left the country (and it wasn’t easy—I definitely had to fight for it).