Día Número Dos!!!

Hello again! Now I will tell you all about my second day in Chile! 

I slept in a bit to catch up on my sleep. I went downstairs and had some cereal. It's different than in the U.S. though. Here (aquí!) we have a mug full of hot milk and then we put a little cereal in at a time until the milk is gone. It's actually pretty good.

After breakfast we went to my school. San Ramón Nanoto. The principal is very nice and he gave me a tour around everywhere. He knew that I played the saxophone and assured me that I could play in the school orchestra. An orchestra is for string instruments... but I nodded and smiled anyway. We went to the music room and the teacher gave him a weird look and said "uhhh no this is an orchestra, we don't have saxophones..." Haha. As we were walking around ALL of the students stared at me. And I mean the whole shebang, double-takes, continuous eye contact, stopping what they were doing, and even leaning over the balcony and staring. Hahahaha. I now know what it feels like to be a celebrity(minus the cameras). They consider blonde Americans to be really pretty and random people that I meet tell me that my hair is very beautiful. My self esteem is at a good level here.

After the school (collegio!), my host mom and I went downtown and walked around the plaza and she showed me where the Lds church is. It is about a 30 minute walk from my house. Here's some pictures:

Me by a statue in the plaza

The plaza

Yay for parks!

You guys can tell the kids that I played at a Chilean park :)

 After that, we picked Felipe and Vicente up from school and went to my mom's mother's house. She made us lunch and I think she does it everyday. She is such a sweet lady and an excellent cook. The meals are always very good and have two or three courses.

We dropped my brothers back at school and then we drove to the top of a big hill overlooking Curicó (I can't remember the name at the moment...) 

My mom and I <3

My dad and I

Just a picture from driving around. My family looks at me weird when I take pictures of these palm trees. But we don't have them in Michigan!

 Then, we went to the store! We loaded up on all types (tipos!) of Chilean candy.

Chile's day of independence is coming soon (September 18th) and so most places are decorated with Chilean flags (banderas!) 

Some Chilean candy: They have a few kinds of American candy but not a ton. Oreos, Mentos, Skittles, and Starbursts to name a few. 

 Some American chips. :)

 When we were done shopping we got some ice cream (helado!). It was sooo good. Most things with fruit are better here because it is fresh, unlike the U.S.. Okay embarrassing story of the day: My dad was in a hardware store next door and so my mom gave me my ice cream and his. She said okay so go in there and give him his ice cream and then get the car keys (llaveros!) from him. The double scoop ice creams were getting pretty melty from standing in line with it, but off I went into the hardware store with a cone in each hand. I wandered around for a little bit looking for him. My mom said in Spanish something like go over there to that hardware store and get the keys, so I wasn't sure if he would meet me outside or inside. I found him and went to hand him the ice cream. As I handed it to him, both scoops fell onto the floor and all that was left was the cone. So sad. We just stood there laughing with the other five people that were in line at the checkout. Hahaha.

Then that night we had dinner. Dinner with the whole family is one of my favorite parts of the day. We sit around eating delicious food, talking and laughing. I work on my Spanish skills and laugh when I make mistakes and shake them off. My brother asked me if I always laugh so much. I explained (in broken Spanish) that I try to laugh a lot instead of getting frustrated  At 10 or so we had toast and hot chocolate. (An explanation to come in the food and culture blog that will be coming).

So that's the end of another day! I'm loving it here and it's my fifth day today. I'll get caught up eventually.