Typical day of a Chilean Student

We have now been in Valdivia for three days and have had two full days of school! On tuesday I arrived at school with my host sister and I went to the room that would become the classroom for all of us students from Otterbein. We have a teacher that is teaching us some spanish. She is the teacher that teaches the first graders how to read and write and we have just been doing some simple activities with her. Also on tuesday we had history class with a different teacher. The information was very interesting and he talked about some of the problems that they have in Chile, such as the separation between the upper class and lower class. The next part of the day is the most different for me, we get picked up at 1:00 to go home and eat lunch. Basically everything in Valdivia stops from 1 to 3 o'clock for everyone to go home and eat lunch with thier familes. My family always has a wonderful lunch that the maid makes. I actaully tried some fish, which I know is very shocking, but it is native to this area and I liked it! After lunch on tuesday we went back to school and I had a cooking class. In the class we made cookies, they were like no-bakes. The cookies was made with crushed up graham crackers and some sweet cream and then rolled in coconut. These cookies are a typical dish that the small children really like here. After the cooking class we had an art activity where we made christmas cards for our families. Then after school my sister and I went downt town and got ice cream. The ice cream here is very similar to the ice cream that we have but it is a bit more smooth. The flavors that we have as hard dip are served with the same density as our soft serve. But overall it was still very good and we were able to eat our ice cream and walk around the bank of the river. There is where we saw the sea wolfs!!! These animals are like sea lions but bigger and they are all over by the river, it felt like I was at Sea World but it is normal for them to have them around all the time.
The reason for the sea wolfs is because of the demografic area of  Valdivia. The city is called the city of three rivers. Largest river is called La Calle, Calle. My host family lives on an island across this river. The island is called La isla Teja and we have to take a big bridge to get from the town to the island. However this river makes the area very pretty and useful for having great fish markets every saturday morning.
On Wednessday morning I went to school just like the day before and had classes in the morning. But then we got to go on a field trip the La Universidad San Sebastian. The university is very all different kinds of majors and we were able to talk with some of the students there about the differences in educational systems from the United States and Chile. This was very interesting because we have many of the same problems with inner city schools and lack of education. The morning was basically the same as the day before however after we came back from lunch we didn't have to go back to school for the afternoon. This is the time when most of the sports teams have there practices. One of the main sports here is field hockey and they have teams for both boys and girls. My host sister doesn't play any sport but she is a very good student and she studies a lot. Because we didn't have to go back to school I was able to go to the mall. The mall was very similar to the malls in ohio. If anything it was probably nicer because it was very big and it was kept very nice. When we got back my sister had to study because she has a Biology test on friday and I was able to look at some of her notes. It was very interesting because she is learning about the kidneys and I know a lot about those in english and it was very cool to see how it was put in spanish. The rest of the night was filled with watching the news and I was able to show her some pictures of my family. She thought, to no big suprise, that bobby and my dad look exactly alike and that they were very tall. I also showed her picutres of the dogs and she commented on how old murphy looks (I left out the fact that he is my least favorite).

Overall I am having a great time in Valdivia but is has been a little hard to adjust. The eating schedule is very different because they have such big lunches half way through the day, but then they don't eat very much at all for dinner. However I think this works for them because I have yet to see an overweight person since we have been here. They are much mor conscious about what they eat. Another very interesting this is that at the school they have 2 fifteen minute breaks in the morning and one in the evening when the entire school stops and the kids can do whatever they want. Some of them eat a snack and they go outside to play. I thought it was very interesting that they don't really have a recess teacher that watches them the whole time. These kids are able to play without fighting and they all come inside when they hear the bell. I was trying to understand this concept and I think the kids behave better because they do have this free time when they can get all of their energy out. I don't know exactly but it is very pleasant. We now have two more days of school and then this weekend we are going on a trip to larger city in Chile! Chao :)