My first encounter with the metro:
On my second day here I went on the metro to go meet someone. Unknowingly, I accidentally went during rush hour. The subway is usually fairly crowded to begin with, during rush hour you can hardly. Luckily, Barbara had shown me the metro station before and where to get a ticket and everything or I would have been completely lost. So, I go up to the counter, tell them I need a ticket to the metro station Pedro de Valdivia. They kind of look at me funny, and ask, what? I tell them again, again, they ask, where? Finally, I show them (because I have it written down), and they say, oh, Pedro de Valdivia (apparently I wasn't pronouncing it quite right), they give me a ticket. What I later realized is that you just ask for a ticket, because it costs the same to go 1 stop or 20 stops on the metro. So I think they just thought I was really weird for asking for a ticket to a particular destination. Anyways, I get my ticket and the nice ticket-counter-man points me in the right direction. I put my ticket into the machine to get into the metro, and it eats my ticket! I was expecting it to come back out, like it does at Bart, because you have to scan your ticket to get OUT of the station (again, still didn't realized that the metro is one-ticket-for-all-destinations). So, after a few seconds of contemplating if I should ask someone I just decide to proceed to the train. The platform is literally packed with people. And, whenever trains pull up, it becomes a mad shoving frenzy. It took me about 4 trains to actually be pushy enough to get on. But, finally, I made it on to the train, and made it successfully to my station. Since that first trip I have learned a lot about the metro--when rush hour is, that you just need to ask for a ticket in general, that you don't need a ticket to get out of the metro. It's not so complicated now that I've got the basics down, pretty much like any other metro system.
Navigating from the metro:
Whenever I am trying to get somewhere once I get out of the metro, I get really disoriented. I never have any idea which direction is which. So, before I go places, I have taken to looking up directions on google maps and writing which streets I SHOULD cross after popping out the station to reach my destination and which I SHOULD NOT cross. It's a pretty good method that works like 90% of the time, the other 10% I just end up wandering... People are really nice when I ask directions, the problem is (and everyone here warns us of this too) that people will point in a direction with complete confidence even if they're not sure if it's the right direction. So, you can think you asked for directions from a local and are headed in the right direction, and end up on the opposite side of town anyways.
Chileno:
Everyone I meet, literally, asks the usual questions--how long are you going to be here, what will you be doing, etc. When I say I came to study Psychology and Spanish they always laugh and say I will learn Chileno, not Español. It's true--they have a very unique way of speaking here and there is a lot of slang, cachai? But, I've adjusted pretty well to the accent and speed I think.
First day of school:
Somehow, I ended up getting super lost on my way to the first day of classes. Luckily, there's another girl from the program who lives right across the hall from me, so I wasn't lost all by myself. My host mom gave me directions on how to get there, and told me it should only be about a 30 minute walk. So, Bonnie and I set out...we had been to the campus the day before, but had been given a ride back to our apartments, and the route driving is different than walking. Anyways, it turns out the street we were supposed to turn on doesn't intersect all the way across the main street. And, of course, we were walking down the wrong side of the street, so we didn't see it. We asked someone for directions a few blocks after our house because my host mom had told me the street was really close by our house. And, of course, the very nice man assuredly pointed us in the wrong direction. Then, we somehow ended up turning in the wrong direction (after walking the opposite direction of where we were supposed to turn). 45 minutes later, we decided to stop and ask for directions. The guy at the store was very nice and pulled out the phone book. We told him where we were going, and he looked up the street in the index and opened to the map. We found the campus, then asked him where we were. He looked at the opposite side of the map and pointed. Oops. We decided to hail a taxi because at this point we were already 15 minutes late to orientation and it was going to take another 15 minutes to drive there. Luckily, we got a nice taxi driver who took us straight there (we've been warned that some taxi drivers will take advantage of foreigners and drive in circles to get more money). Anyways, right as we were pulling up to campus I get a call from my host mom: where are you? how did you get so lost? I gave you directions! But, we made it and everything worked out :) And, now we successfully walk to campus every day.
Let's see, those are some of my funnier stories. Everyone is really nice here, it just amazes me. For example, I brought my big backpack and suitcase on the metro from Barbaras house to my host families house and everyone was holding open doors for me and helping me up the stairs.
My friend Barbara, who lives in Berkeley now but is from Santiago, has been amazing. She has taught me so much about the city and helped me get oriented, helped me get a phone. Everything. I don't know how I"ll every be able to thank her sufficiently.
My favorite things in Chile: guatero--my "hot water bottle" that I sleep with at night to keep warm, pisco sour--a really delicious mixed drink, the view of the Andes no matter where you are, the beach is beautiful
My not so favorite things: there's no central heating--anywhere, the air becomes brown when it doesn't rain, they only drink instant coffee
There's so much more to tell, but I'm sure this is plenty for now :)
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