Santiago, Chile

On Sunday morning, after 13 hours of airplanes and airports, Amelie and I found ourselves in Santiago, the capital of Chile. We were greeted by a sea of taxi drivers, family members and hosts, including Señora Solice, the mother a Chilean friend of Amelie´s back in Chicoutimi, who we found holding a sign that read "Ameli CANADA". Señora Solice is genrously feeding us and letting us stay in her little appartment in the residential neigbourhood of Macul. The houses of Macul are all quite small and colourful and the dirt roads are surrounded by large beautifully leafy trees. The area is full of children and stray dogs, all of which seem to fill the streets as soon as night falls. Falling asleep is quite a challenge for those of us unacustomed to the constant cry of barking dogs and yelling kids.

Santiagos newest metro line (only one year old!) is quite close to Señora Solice´s appartment making it easy for us to get around. In comparison to Canada, the houses, streets and buildings seem to be from another era, but the sparkling metro (and it really does sparkle) makes the ones in Montréal and Toronto look like the dark ages! My Spanish teacher told me that in 1975 when the first metro line was built, speakers inside the trains played the subliminal message "el metro es de todos cuidero" (the metro is for us all so take care of it). By the time the second line was built in the 80´s, human rights enforcers banned the message. However, a strong impact had already been made on the collective Santiago conscience, and all four metro lines are still, 30 years later, completely spotless!

Yesterday we began five days of Spanish classes at la Ecela Latin Immersion in the neighbourhood of Providencia. The Spanish school is quite nice and confortable with tons of open windows and a great outdoor patio. The students come from all over the place. Amelie and I seem to be among the few Canadians. There are a whole lot of people from Brazil, Switzerland, and Germany.

I´m already getting used to switching from one language to another, speaking to Amelie in French, to other students in the school in English and then in Spanish to everyone else. Amelie and I are trying to speak together in Spanish as much as possible, which is difficult with our limited vocabulary. Our English/Spanish and French/Spanish dictionarries are always close by. Throughout our months here, not only will we both learn tons of Spanish, my French is bound to improve as is Amelie´s English.

Oh, and Chile is NOT in the same time zone as Toronto and Montréal like I thought. It´s two hours ahead... woops!

Photos to come soon...