Valdivia!

Hola a todos! I made it to Valdivia with all of my possessions intact this morning after traveling for 36-ish hours. Needless to say, I'm stoked to be here! It's only been a day and I feel like I've learned so much. My host family is WONDERFUL and have been giving me delicious food all day and being very patient with my wack Spanish. Although actually, I've noticed that my Spanish is getting better already, which makes me hopeful. Sometimes when I hear people speak here it just sound like "ablahblahblahblahblahblah," but it's getting easier to understand my family at least, and easier for me to talk, although I'm pretty sure I make a grammatical error every time I open my mouth. Pero esta bien!

Today has been pretty chill. It rained all morning, which was fine because all I wanted to do was eat and sleep, and I did. After eating a HUGE lunch, I bummed around for awhile more until my host sister Edu showed me around Valdivia a little. We took a micro (tiny busses that run all around town. They're strange to me because there aren't designated bus stops- you just stand on the street that they go down and the bus stops for you) to her university and then we walked around el centro for awhile. She showed me the mall and forewarned me that it wasn't very big, but turns out it's THREE STORIES. She was shocked when I told her that the mall in Longmont is only one story.

One thing that I think is hilarious is that they basically listen to the same music that we do in the US. During dinner Edu & I listened to Top 40 radio and it was mostly US music, with a little reggaeton thrown in. It's so funny to be in a new country, speaking a new language but still listening to Ke$ha and Lady Gaga on the radio. Edu also told me that Justin Bieber is pretty popular, especially with younger girls, and Twilight is big here too. Oh, and Edu showed me the movie theater and all the movies are US movies. So there's definitely some familiarity here. OH! And at her university they have a TV in the dining hall (called a casino, weird) and some students were watching MTV with Spanish subtitles, which is apparently pretty popular.

The language barrier is pretty weird, as expected. I know enough to get around and describe simple things, but I tried explaining UUism to Edu today and it was super hard, especially because it basically doesn't exist in South America. But! I think my personality is coming through regardless of my limited vocabulary, and I've learned some Chilean slang, so mostly I'm really excited to practice my Spanish a LOT over the next 4 months.

There's so much more that I learned and saw today, but I need to go to bed so I can wake up early for orientation at my university! And as soon as I take some pictures, I'll post them.