Las aventuras del osito

I never understood the value of a blog as a way of expressing your state of mind during something like a study abroad term. If all you wanted to do was write entries about the impressions you have walking around the street, why not just write them down in a journal. A blog only seems necessary if you are pining after advertisement dollars or something like that. But seeing as everyone is doing some blog and seeing that it could potentially act as my required diary of the experience, vamos. It can't be a bad thing, right?

My first impressions of Chile are varied. I'll give them a point on the whole take-your-time-living-and-not-waiting-in-line-at-Starbucks-and-tweeting-about-your-love-for-Game-of-Thrones thing. But I think I need to subtract at least half a point for the how-they-almost-kill-everything-that-moves-when-they-drive thing. Well that may be a little bit of hyperbole.But they definitely drive with a certain controlled chaos. I have already lost count of the times where I winced at a could be car accident. 

Chileans themselves seem very nice for the most part. They took the European sense of living in the moment and they shed the European sense of look how my shit doesn't stink. This makes a nice combination. I also feel like Chileans have a certain accepted vision of the world that is much more realistic than most Americans. I was talking to my host family's son about the student protests going on in Chile; he works in academia. The answer he gave to the question of whether it was a good or bad things was in the middle. He said that although the students may not see the full picture, the protest is a good thing because the movement's heart is in the right place. I rarely hear a moderate opinion from an American. I feel like in our country we are forced to pick a side, and not just politically. I think that we are a very divided country in more ways than that. To tell the truth I am still finding my way around the fact that I am in a different country for an extended period of time. So you don't have to listen to the bullshit that I am spreading now.

I'm thinking I can end each one of these posts with a parting phrase and a picture. So this week my parting phrase will be "no me acuerdo" because I have been saying that a lot. It means I am not sure. That can also serve as a diagnosis of the time I have thus far spent in Chile, I am not sure what it means, I have yet to make anything of all the cool and strange things that I have seen and felt. It is a mystery, like this big rock head. Hasta mas tarde