 |
| huge mall! |
 |
| Chocolate |
 |
| Lea and I |
 |
| uniforms |
 |
| first day of school |
 |
| 'Schultüten' |
 |
| Plaza |
Hello once
again!
Here’s
what’s been going on since my last post:
I went to a
mall with Cata and José Ignació on Wednesday, apparently it is the biggest mall
in Chile, and it sure is huge! We went to the cinema there too and we only had
to pay 1500 Pesos per person. That’s about 3$, or 2.50Fr. It wasn’t an old
movie or anything either! We watched ‘the wolf of Wall street’, none of us got
the point of the movie though. Well it was fun anyway!
Then on
Wednesday I finally got to see Lea! She lives really close to the school; it
only takes her like 4 minutes to walk!
She lives on the 8th floor of an apartment building. We talked a lot and
I got to meet her host family. They’re all really nice and said I could come
over any time and sleep over too. I think I’m going to take them up on that
offer at some point. : )
After some
ice cream we went to the school. They showed us around and talked about rules a
little. We also got our uniforms. The uniform is blue jeans and then a T-Shirt
from the school in blue or red. In winter there’s a sweatshirt. For sports they
to wear a red shirt and black
shorts(from school).
Then I went
back to Lea’s place for a while, later my host mum picked me up.
We had
dinner pretty late and I was in bed later than I had planned too.
The next
morning, my first morning at the Colegio Suizo (Swiss School) I was pretty
tired and nervous! Paula my host mum drove us to school the first morning. I
got to my class (P4) and one girl told me to sit next to her, I was really
glad! Her name is Sofía.
This week
everyone only had school until 1pm on both days, I was very happy about that!
After three hours of school I was really really tired, I don’t think I could
have gone any longer!
The first
day we the intercambios(exchange students) were presented in front of the whole
school.
I also had
to present myself in front of my class. Other than that, the teachers talked
about what they’re going to do this year and we didn’t actually start with any
real work, except for Philosophy there the teacher talked really fast during
the whole class and I had absolutely no idea what was going on! I think it’s
going to get easier every day though.
Us the
intercambios are going to have private Castellano (Spanish) classes 4 times a week. I really like them, and they’re more relaxed
and the teacher doesn’t talk quite as fast! When I got home yesterday I didn’t
do much at first, I was too exhausted.
On the
first day when the little kids have their first day of elementary school they
get 'Schultüten', like they have in Germany - apparently they think that's
swiss! : ) Most kids use backpacks that roll, I'll have to take a picture for
you at some point, because I think they're pretty hilarious!
Later I
played some Ligretto with the boys and Tamara. The boys absolutely love that
game, and I think it’s kind of cool that I brought that game to Siri and Sten
in Portland and now to José Iganció and Andreu here in Santiago.
Later they
showed me a playground that is in a little park, well not really a park, but
there’s some grass and benches and then the playground. I really like it and
it’s very close by too. They call it the plaza.
Today was
my second day of school, everything was a little easier. I did have two hours
of math though. I like the teacher but I had no idea what they talked about. We
also had art, and the intercambios had another class of castellano. After that
I had two hours of castellano with my class. I don’t really know what was going
on, but they again talked about the PSU a lot. My class is going to finish
school this December, before that they’re going to have this huge test called
the PSU. Well it’s a really big deal here, school is altogether. They have 45
hours of school every week. My class in Switzerland has 35 classes a week. And
it’s not like they don’t have any homework, they have to study lots too and my
math teacher for example told the class that they’re going to have 2.5 hours of
homework every week. Every test here is very important, every single test of
the last 4 years counts towards your graduation grade, so you can’t really have
a bad day or anything like that!
Today was
also the first day that we went to school with the furgón escolar. It’s like a
little bus, for about 15 people. We get picked up by Orlando the driver at
7:20am the bus is already have full by then, I think there’s a girl from my
class in the bus too but I’m not sure. : ) After we pick up some more kids we
should get to school around 7:45, and then school starts at 8am.
On the way
back it’s pretty much all little kids, the older ones take the bus home do
other stuff before going home. I’m going to take the furgón escolar both ways
for March and then in April I might take the public bus home. I don’t think I’m
going to take the public one to school though, that one takes even longer!
On the way
back we’re also the last people Orlando drops off, so we weren’t home before
2pm. It was nice to listen to music though and I got to see some more of
Santiago too.
All in all
I'd say the school is more like the one in Portland than the one in
Switzerland. Except that it's a very small school, there are only 400 students
in the whole school. And because they grow up together everyone knows each
other. The last 4 years there are only 2 classes per grade and there's between
13 and 25 kids per class. Another thing that I really like is that there are
little kids from age 5 on or so in the school too, so really it’s a huge mix!
This
afternoon I slept for 3 hours and then went to the plaza (the little park)
again.
Well now
it’s finally weekend – I don’t know what we’re going to do though. I guess
it’ll be very spontaneous as usual.
Lena
Lena
