So much to talk about!

Hey Everyone. I´m not doing so well staying up with this blog. Sorry about that.
So let me start where I think I left off.

To make this efficient, I think that I will post a picture and then write a little about it.

Indepence Day. September 18th

So these are some pictures from Dia de Indepencencia. It was fantastic! The whole family went to my dad´s house in Vicuña. The family from my mom´s side and my dad´s. We all ate out in the cabana that he has for big parties. There is always a barbaque and tons of food. Also, everywhere you go, you hear the Cueca. There is a picture of me and my Dad dancing it. I wasn´t very good but I thought it was pretty good for about a month in Chile. :) On the 18th, all you see is Red, Blue, and White. On my street, every house had a flag hanging from their balcony. Food, Family, Dancing are the main things of Independence day. It was so much fun.

School and Friends

BEACH!! We love to go to the beach. This is Leni (glasses) and Cami. They are probably my closes friends. They are totally bakan (cool) and i love them. They are always there to help me and help me with my spanish. School is going great. There is a slight problem with my Bio teacher but I´m working on that. I love choir and I think that my teacher think I´m good, which is surprising because I always thought that I wasn´t that great at singing, surprise surprise. Oh, and in English class, we had an interview to do. I did mine in spanish! It was great. I think that I got a 7 (perfect) but I have yet to find out. ;)

Chilean Wedding Millitary Style

This was the most amazing wedding that I had ever gone to. First of all, it was Chilean, second of all, it was military. Let me start you off with some differences:

Bride and Grooms parents sit up the ulter

no bridesmaids

a lot of sitting, and standing

(militar part)

swords

uniforms

metals

The whole thing was amazing. I loved the part where they get to walk through the liftd swords. It was fantastic. Then the after party was even more amazing. It was like a wedding from a magazine. It was in this amazing room with candle lit chandeliers, flowers in every direction you look, and a little candy cart with every kind of candy you could imagine! There were 2 tables full of delicious desserts and fruits. The music was great, and the food was amazing, like something you would see made on TV. Later in the night, there was a small parade, with drummers, dancers, people on stilts, and glow sticks and silly hats were handed out. We didnt get home till about 6 in the morning. My mom was one of the last dancing people on the floor. She does love to dance.

So I think that I´m going to stop here. It took me a while to get this post down, I´m sorry about that. It hink I´m going to write about when new and exciting things happen. I have been down here 3 months on the 7th of November and everything is pretty normal now. I´ll keep you posted.

Thanks for keeping in touch.

Te Quiero Much y Cuidate!

Serena de La Serena

First day of School

Yesterday was my first day of school and all the fright that I had went away pretty fast by 10:00. I woek up at about 6:30 and left around 7:00. We got there and my host mom showed me around for a minute and then saw a girl named Lenny and she asked her to be my guild for the day. She took me up the stairs and brought me to the room where the 11th graders meet. Also, like I said, I´m with 11th graders. I found out that I will be finishing the semester with them and then having a semester with them as seniors. They are all about 2 years younger than I am. Continuing on. We had to wait outside of the door for a while becuase Lenny said that the teacher was never there early. So we waited and more people started to gather around. Some greated me with a kiss on cheak and some didn´t great me at all. It made me nervous because all of them talked amoungst themselves. Some asked my name but that was it. I got in there and I talked to the teacher, who was very nice, and she said that if she started to talk to fast for me to understand then I could say something. So I sat back down and they pulled out their books from the shelf. People were chosen to pick to read aloud. I tried to understand but I could only get the some words. It was Roman litterature. I guess I got 1/4 about what they were talking about. After we finsished that we talked about it for a little bit but then it seemed like we have free time. They all created a circle and started to introduce themselves. They tried in english but ended up doing most of the introductions in spanish. Then it was Jamitos turn. Everyone anounced that he was going to be a daddy!

........

Ok. Well I wrote this on my return from my first day of school. I never got to finish it because we had lost our internet. It didn´t work and it still doesn´t work. For right now I use the internet at school on my free time. Let me get you caught up on my school live in Chile.

Let me start you off with a picture.These are some of my friends. From left to right, Diana, Nicol, Me, and Mila. But those who know me that this is not the end of "my friends from Chile" list. There is Cami, Eliu, Diego, Pablo, Leni, Maria de los Angeles,Thomas, Abel, and Wasso, Pollero, and everday I meet a new person. They are all very nice. I think I was explaining that in the beginning of this blog. In this picture you can also see my uniform. That day there was sun so I didn´t wear my tights, but usually its freezing so everyone does. It right now is so cold that I´m wearing leggings under my tights. You can see your breath in the morning and sometimes through out the day. There is now snow with this cold so it is a bit different. When the sun is out, and you are in the sun, its pretty nice, but if you go in the shade you freeze. When the sun is out, you can look for me there.

Classes. I´m still working on figuring out classes but I think I´m getting the hang of it now. The day is different everyday. Mondays, I start out with Language which is also the same class as History which I have on Wednesday morning. But starting on monday. History, then our main teacher comes in and chit chats with us. After that we have break then go to physics (which is in the works of being changes to Bio). After that another break. Then one of my favorite classes, English. For English I am a teach for one of the advanced students. His name is Eliu and I speak in Spanish while he speaks in English and we correct and teach each other. I help him with his worksheets and I let him read from my Ishmael book. He is pretty good at English. He can read and sound things out, we just need to work on understanding what he is reading. But I think that that will come eventually. After English we have lunch for an hour. After that I don´t remember. Sorry.

Tuesday: Math, English, Break, Language, Bio (for everyone), Language, Lunch, Music (I have my piano lesson)

Wednesday: History, Chemistry, Break, Gym, Break, Elective, Lunch, Math

Thursday: Language, Philosphy, Music, Break, Math, Break, Main Teacher, Lunch, Don´t Know

Friday: Selected Math Class, History, Break, Philosphy, Break, English, Home (some times we get to go home early on Fridays)

That is the basic overview of my schedual. It is very confusing and as you can see, I´m still learning where I belong as certain times. Classes are hard because there is a lot of reading involved and read spanish is probabaly one of the hardes things for me. Also, they don´t really give out worksheets OR write the questions on the white board. Instead they say them out loud and we are suppost to copy them down and then work them out. Listening and coping! It is super hard! I only know half of what they are saying and only get half of the question! I have to get it from my neighbor most of the time. Also, my spanish spelling is probably as bad as my English spelling. It doesn´t help that they never say the words in "clear" spanish. When I look at what I just wrote, I had no idea what they were even trying to say. Math is good. Math is a language of its own. It is universal. Thank god. I´m a semester behind in Physics so I´m switching to Bio. Hmmmm, I think that about sums up everything! For a while there I didn´t do much at school because most classes were finishing up a certin section in the schedual so I had to wait till about now to start doing stuff.

That was school, now outside of my school life!

This was a concert that I went to. The orchrestra you see in the back is the Symphonic Orchrestra from my school! Many of my friends are in it and they played with some famous Chilean guy that you can see with the white guitar. It was a really great concert.

We went to the beach and I was lucky to catch the sun setting. It is absolutly gorgeous down here. The waves are huge and the sand feels like silk. It still a tad cold but nothing a Minnesotan can´t handle. Also, in Minnesota, my friends and I sometimes go to the beach to hang out. But here it´s differnt. When my friends in chile and I go to the beach, we can´t see the other side of the lake. Here, when you look to the otherside, you are trying to see the other side of the world. It´s an amazing feeling to think that you are litterally hanging on the edge of a continent.

This would be a sighting of school spirit. I was lucky enough to go to the School Parade! Each school made a floate or something to show and walked through the town. The winner won 1,000,000 pesos. There was also a Miss Serena (basically me but not) and we had a girl enter into that too. The parade was amazing and weeeeeeeeeeeee... WONNNNNNNN!! We got the pesos and our girl, Christina, won. It was awesome. I think that the it was amzing to watch the parade. Lots of kids from school were there and we had our chants that we yelled out. In front of the big Mono (puppet), there was a band. There were drums and the beat was great. Everyone around us would dance to our song. The other floats were good, but I guess ours was a little bit better than the rest. At the end there was a big free concert and everyone danced the salsa and stuff. It was so much fun! :)

Well I think that I´m going to stop here because if I keep writing more, I will never publish this. So Ill try to write more often. Sorry about that. :)

P.S. On the 7th of August, it marked my 1 month in Chile, and I have loved every minute of it and love my experience down here.

Ok friends, Stay Sweet!

<3

It´s Been a While, Sorry.

I MADE IT!!!

That is how I will start off. I believe that I left off just arriving in Chile and having my first meal and everything. Well that is old news. I´m going to skip the part of where we went into Llay Llay (sorry about that last spelling, totally off) It was a pretty normal thing. IDK. I guess I will tell you about a different town outing. Countinuting on.

I wake up sunday morning and this is the morning of my flight to La Serena. I hadn´t taken a shower yet because when a fellow student, Peter, tried, he ended up having only 10 seconds of hot water and the rest was cold. I guess thatscared me off thinking that I could just take one at my new home and figure everything out there. I looked in the mirror and new it was time to take a shower. My hair wasn´t greasy, but full of dust and stuff. Sorry, this is probably boring but I thought it was sorta interesting. Moving on... I finally took one and the whole time it was hot water. Great. I would now look presentalbe to my new family. I was excited but nervous. All the kids in Llay Llay got to meet there families with their friends along side of them. It made me feel a little less confident that I would be at the airport with Olivia and Anna (students) and then just leave and have a new family. It was different then what I was seeing happen around me.

I took my shower and was rushed to eat lunch. Me and the other student had decided to skip breakfast and just sleep untill lunch or do what you please. I hadn´t packed and when they came to get us it was only 11:25! They were early! The latinos! So I rushed to lunch and had to stuff everything in my bags when I ran back to the room. We left EARLY and headed to the airport. We got there just fine and checked our bags. Kelcie was the smart one and checked ahead and new that that weigh requirment was different (lower) and didn´t have to pay a fee (as to what I think), but the rest of us did. It was $46 each but we all didn´t think to much of it. We got that down with and walked around a little bit. I thought I would should you what we found. This (I think) was art in the middle circle of the airport. It was suitcases stacked 4 stories high. It was a pretty cool thing to see. We went through security and were on our own again, but only for about an hour. We left on Día de los Niños, the Day of Children. Like mother or fathers´ day, the kids get gifts and candy. The flight attendents were handing out candy to the kids and Olivia said, "Hey, were kids!" as a joke but in the end, we got a cup of candy to share. It was great. It was about a 40 minute flight and we arrived in La Serena. We exited off the plane by stairs and walked outside to the side door. There was a balcony for people to stand and look for the people there were suppose to meet. Everyone was waving and so we waved back. It was great. I walked into the baggage room and my sister and dad were on the other side of the glass door. All my nervousness went away. They were so excited to see me. They helped me with my bags and everything. It was great! The other girls also got to meet their families.

When we left my dad took us to the University of La Serena. It was all white and lovely. It was also up very high. We went to this over look and I could se all of La Serena. It was beautiful. I also could see the ocean. It was the exact picture that I first put on that I found on google. It felt amazing to finally be there with a family ready to welcome me.

We arrived at my new home and I finally met my mother and my cousin. The house is lovely. They have a dog named Milo and some cats. The first night I got there we had a bit of a slumber party and the bed broke because my sister jumped on. They ended up sleeping on the matress on the floor and me in my room.

My sister is in some kind of classes during the day and I stay with my cousin. My mom is the principal of my school and is there all day except lunch. My cousin is really helpful. She helped me get all of my papers together and took me all over the city. It was lovely.

To tell the truth, after I have gotten my papers done, I have been watching TV a lot and on the computer. Now don´t worry mom, not yet, but I feel like it is because I don´t have friends yet and don´t have anyone at home really to take me places. My cousin has been living with us but I don´t think its normal. I think it is because I wont be alone in the day. I am used to an amazing mom being home cooking amazing food or watching tennis with me. I´m missing it but looking forward to school and seeing what comes of this situation.

I have been trying to finish this blog for a couple of days. I´m getting timing a little mixed up so I thought I would talk about what has happened recently.

As of yesterday. I hung out with Anastatia, the other exchange student in my town from Oregan, and we went to town on the bus. It was the first time for her on the bus. She had only rode in taxis. It was fun. I needed shoes and we check for some. I had already found them but needed money. We went by ourselves and ofcourse, I couldn´t find the store cause it was just a hole in the wall.

We went back home where she asked my mom if the shoes she had were ok cause they were black but had sparkes on them. My mom "ok"ed them and we went on. Earlier tht day I had been informed that we would be going to a "barbaque" type of reunions with some friends of my cousin´s and sister´s. My cousin told me to invite Anastatia so I did and we went later that night. It was very fun. We ate this ---------->

This is called Chorrillana. It consists of hotdogs, Chorizo Sausage, french fried, fried onion, and some fried eggs. It was weird but I live off weird food and the weirder that better (most of the time). This was probably the most delicious thing I had ever tasted. It was the salt of the meat and fries mixed with the egg taste. YUMMMM!!!! You would have to try it to really get the flavor. Everyone at the gathering was super nice. I mostly just sat and listened but at times I would get involved with the convorsation. They are all very interested in Macchu Picchu and ask me about it. It was great.

Today is saturday and I woke up around 10 and then heard my host mom yelling (dezayunooooooooo!!!) breaaaaakfaaaaastttt! It was delicious today. Toast with butter and salami. And for those that really know, know I love love love salami. We also had hand sweezed orange juice and tea.

My sister took the first shower, then it was me. There was no hot water, so my cousin said that I would take a shower at her house. We all went over there for lunch, consisting of a pork chop with rice and potatoes (que rico), and it was with a big part of the family. There were 5 sisters, including my mother, and4 children, including me! One uncle and the grandparents. It was great. We all ate around a big table and talked talked talked! It was a good time. It rained a lot and hard today so we stayed inside and watched some movies.

I came home thinking I would finish my blog right when I got home but my cousin took over my computer till about 12:30. So I shall finish now takng in the fact that it is almost 2:30 and I think I´m going to meet my other grandparents. They live about an hour away on a ranch with a vinyard. I´m excited. :)

Note to self:

-still need shoes for school

-figure out classes and talk to both moms

Singing out.

Love to all.

Serena

P.S. Sorry for the spelling errors. The world knows I´m bad at spelling and the spell check seems to not be working. Maybe not for enlgish? Not exactly sure.

P.S.S. My upostraphy are accent marks, they don´t exist in spanish

Goodnight :)

Arrival

I have now arrived in Chile. The day that I have been waiting for. Here is a picture of the plane descending into Santiago and the moon is shining onto the mountains with some small cities below.

I have some great stories from the flights here.

We all met at the airport to leave and of course we did our crying and stuff and blah blah blah. I got my toothpaste taken away, great, but everything else went quite well. On the way to the flight I was seated in an isle seat. A woman next to me looked a little stressed and I asked her what was wrong. Turns out she was claustrophobic, so I let her have my seat. We talked and I filled her in on my travels. She was amazed and such a lovely lady. She got me some treats for letting me have her seat. The best part comes next. When we were descending, she offered to all of us to bring us to the Sky Lounge. It was fantastic. We got free drinks and delicious cookies. Mandy: Thank you again and again.
We went to the gate and frantically were searching for blazer. "Blazer? Blazer? Is that a blazer? ..." And then, we saw them. We went to meet with them and learned their: Ricky, Stacey, and Peter. They were from Oregon. I learned that Stacey and I are both going to La Serena and the same school! She plays the violin and I play the piano. Duet maybe?

Moving on.

The plane to Chile was fun too. I sat next to a guy from London. He was into extreme sports and said he was going sand surfing, snowboarding, and some other crazy stuff.
There were two movies shown. 17 Again and Startrek. I hadn't seen either of these movies so I was totally glued to them. It was great. We got dinner: it was gross. I think it was suppose to be like a lasagna but the noodles stuck together and turned into a noodle log. But the brownie, which I thought would be dry, was actually like it had come out of the oven but wasn't hot. Can you imagine that?
I got about 4 hours of sleep on the flight and woke up an hour before landing which was perfect to watch us fly in. (picture above)
Walking through the hallway to the gate, we could all see our breath. It is pretty cold here, but then again, it is winter. We were all not expecting it to be this cold though.
We went though multiply wrong line and finally ended up in a short cut in the right line. We all got through fine. We met the students from Germany and Denmark. Their English is great. We just have to make sure to talk slowly. We finally all got into a van, our luggage in a different van. We drove to a fast food/truck stop place to get some food and I had an empanada with cheese and a hot dog in it. It was good. We then moved on and took a side trip to a near by town. I forgot the name. I decided to take a nap till we got there and told people to wake me up if anything interesting went down. Well, I ended up sleeping till we got there and they left to play with some school kids and visit a church and I was left sleeping in the car with our driver in the front. I was sort of disappointed I didn't get to play with the kids but that nap was nice. I made sure I stayed awake for the rest of the trip. We saw lots of vineyards and amazing snow capped mountains. We finally ended up at the conference center/motel we were staying at. It has no heat and lots of dogs. We had chicken and fries for lunch, and a beef and cheese sandwich for dinner with tea. The food was simple but delicious.

Everyone is very nice and welcoming. The families that I have met are wonderful and I'm excited to meet mine on Sunday. The trip so far is a success. Not that I would let it be anything else than that.

Buenas Noches
Ill write when I can.
Love to all,
Serena

CLEAN!

This is from when I cleaned everything.

TA DA!!!!

Moving Out

I like the title of this new post because it really describes what I'm feeling right now. Here is a picture of my current project.

<------- (camera phone: bad quality)

This would be a picture of my closet. My mother has asked me to clean out everything. Goes through everything that I have and get rid of what I don't actually use. I think it's a great idea but it is sure a lot of work. Sometime I can be a bit of a pack rat. But so far I have a whole box of clothes that I'm giving away and I have yet to go through all of my junk. It is pretty exciting to have a fresh beginning with all of your belongings and such. Also to think that you might come back with a whole new wardrobe when you come back! (no worries mom, I won't actually do that) 

Back to the title of this post. Moving Out. I like it because right now, I really feel like I am becoming an independent person. Almost like I'm going off to college but not fully. 

When I am away my mom has great plans for my room. Like, a guest room! Who would have thought of that one. So I have to make some room for clothing if people stay, and some draw space also. And a necessity that my room needs is a good dusting. It is clean but the ledge against my window has seen better days, but that is all tomorrow. Tonight I will get my clothes sorted in a way that I can easily through stuff into a suit case and head out that door. Gosh, at this moment, I am more excited then nervous and it is a lovely feeling. Looking at my open suit case gets me excited about the adventures ahead!

(thanks Alicia for your help)

It is now 10 minutes to 12am so I better finish up my room. Clothes today, cleaning tomorrow.

Thoughts of the Future

This is the place that I will be staying at for the next 10 months. It is located in Chile and is called La Serena. It is quite a coincidence that I, Serena Marie Thomas, was placed in La Serena, Chile.

You must not laugh at me right now but this is my first blogging thing ever and I don't really know if i should type like I'm talking to people or just writing things down for myself so that I remember. So here I go.

Chile. For 10 months. Actually, probably more like 11 1/2 months. Not sure yet because I get to choose when I come home as long as it is under 365 days. My ticket only lasts that long. It will be my senior year and very very different.

Right now I am at Concordia Spanish Camp working in the kitchen and having a great time. I love all the people here and have really made some great friends. Being at a Spanish camp would be a great advantage to me because it would give me the opportunity of speaking Spanish and getting caught up on some thing. Ehhh... Well in the kitchen we all speak English unless the campers are around. Also, when the staff go to hang out with the others, we do speak English but when Spanish is spoken, I get a little shy. I hate making mistakes, and I think that since I know that these people can speak English, it doesn't make me actually want or "need" to speak Spanish. So basically what I am saying is that camp is not helping me as much as I thought it might but that is mostly my fault.

10+ months. It still makes me nervous. A new place to live, new family, new school (for the 3rd time), and a new language all in one big package. Hmmmm, I feel like I want to run right to it with open arms but other times I want to run away from it. Luckily, it is more run to it. I feel like it is going to be one of the greatest adventures of my life. I am pretty confident that I will love it and not want to come back until I have to but the beginning will the difficult part. I am glad that I have some what of a head start on my language ability thought. That is very nice.

Leaving home is super exciting to me. I always loved to go to camp and to be gone from home for a month. The bad part is that you have to leave all the great people that are involved with your at the moment and the fact that you don't get to see them till a year has passed. Everyone and everything will be different. People will have become more of who they will be for the rest of their lives, including me, and we all don't exactly know those people will still mesh when we all meet up again. It a difficult thing to think about. Also, the time that I am gone will allow me to miss out on things that pulls my friends closer together. I really hope that I will come home and things will be like old times, but they probably won't. But we will see how that turns out and I'm sure that that will be an adventure of it's own. I can't wait. :)

I know that this blog thing is sort of a weird thing for me to do, but it is a good way for me to let all of those that read it know what and how I'm doing down in the south. So just let me flow. Haha. Ok. First entry: done.