A Semester in Santiago de Chile: CAE, mundial and license

Hello again!

So I know that once again it’s been longer than a week… sorry about that but there’s some pretty cool stuff that I’ve been doing!

So first of all on Sunday the 8^th we the exchange students went to Mariana’s house. She’s our biology teacher and the one we went to Tongoy with! We wanted to thank her again and decided that cooking with her was a good idea. So we made Älplermakarone’ it turned out great and we had another nice day with lots of talking and I’m pretty sure Mariana and her family liked it as well.

Then we had another week of school. Lea hurt her foot – it’s broken this time and it looks like she won’t be doing any sports for a while. But that just means we have to find lots of things you can do with crutches around the city. : )

On Wednesday I had the CAE which is a Cambridge English exam. It basically just means that I had tests all day long at some hotel in Santiago and was super tired in the evening. But we were a group of students from my school so it was also fun to hang out with them. The tests went ok I think. I have to wait for like a month and a half until I get my results though.

It had been raining A LOT and lots of parts of the school were flooded. It was really crazy how much it had rained. The streets always just turn into giant puddles as well.

Thursday we watched the opening game of the mundial (world championship) in sports at school. At the end most of the school was watching. Then Catherine and I went to the pastelería and then to Lea’s house because we decided that we can’t just eat our 16 weeks cakes without Lea – she had to stay at home for a couple of days because of her foot.

On Friday after driving class I went to gymnastics. This evening Chile played their first soccer game against Australia. It started at 6pm, so I was walking along the streets while the game was going. It was the WEIRDEST thing ever! There was NO ONE out! Barely any cars and hardly any people walking. Everyone was at home or somewhere watching the game. The thing you are supposed to do for the games is have a ginormous TV and watch the game with your whole family and then have a barbecue. Soccer is WAY important for the Chileans! Like really it’s hard to imagine!! Catherine and I watched the last 20 minutes of the game at gymnastics (Chile won!). And really it’s pretty hard not to get enthusiastic when everyone around you is just freaking out about the game. Then we had practice but Catherine and I were the only girls – normally there’s between 6 and 12ish of us. After practice I got picked up and joined my familia at the barbecue they were at.

The weekend I spent most of the time at home studying. Sunday was ‘día del padre’ (father’s day) and we had a big lunch at our house, Ignació and María José (older kids of Andrés) joined us as well. The mountains were super pretty though because of all of the rain in the last couple of days.

Yesterday I had another two hours of driving classes and then today I went to the driving test!!

Well at the end I ‘aprobé’ which means that I GOT MY LICENSE!! : ) I’m really happy but also quite a bit surprised that I ended up getting it. Today I had to be at the Municipalidad de Macúl at 8:30 in the morning. There was a lot of waiting involved the whole day long - always between all of the different tests– it wasn’t too bad though. First we had the theory test – I got 36 out of 38 points but I think I would have passed with just 30 as well. Then after some more waiting there was a reaction test and two more of that sort of thing. After that I had to get my eyes and ears checked. Afterwards it was time to go outside and do the actual driving test. I had to wait my turn, because there were 4 people already waiting in front of me. Today was a REALLY hot day (for winter)! Really in Santiago it gets really hot really fast as soon as the sun gets through the clouds! Well then I drove the route that I had already practiced a couple of times – I had to drive on a couple of streets I didn’t know about though. When we got back I didn’t know if I had passed or not but the guy told me to sign and then wrote ‘APROBADO’ (passed) on the paper. I had to wait for a little while longer and then got my license right there.

I don’t know if my Chilean license will help me in Switzerland, but the classes will help lots no matter what. I might be able to get my ‘Lernfahrausweis’(permit) right away though without having to take the theory test. We’ll see I guess.
Still I’m really happy I passed! I spent quite some time studying lately - first for both the CAE and the driving theory and then just for the theory. Now I’m all done and don’t know what to do with my time. :D No not really – there’s plenty to do and lots that I’ve been wanting to do that I can finally get done now.

Anyway tomorrow Chile is playing again – Andreu gets to leave school at 1pm because of it. The older kids we’ll watch the game at school. I’m pretty excited to see how 140 teenage kids will react to the game!

We only have another 2.5 weeks of school, 17 days until the holidays– it’s the weirdest feeling ever! Although life in Chile isn’t always easy, I’ve really gotten used to everything and it’s going to be weird to leave! I’m going to miss lots of things like the school, gymnastics, and my crazy crazy host brothers. J

See you all soon!

Lena