Rotary Youth Exchange Update

Things are going pretty well here. I'm on summer vacation and have been since the beginning of December. Weird, huh? Christmas was good, although it didn't really feel like Christmas. New Year's was awesome though. We had a group of about 40 people over at my house for an all-night party/camp-out. It was great. Chileans know how to celebrate! Right now I'm in a tiny town called Vichuquen, with my best friend here, an exchange student from Paris, France. We came with her host family, who has a lake house here. It is beautiful, with the mountains in the distance, and the lake just outside. I'll be here until Sunday, after which I'll go back to my town, Calera de Tango. Then my host mom is taking me to Pichidangui, a beach town about two hours north, where my family has a house. I'll be there about a month, until February. After THAT, we're going on a two-week trip south with the whole family... so my summer is pretty full with vacations. I'll be going back to school the beginning of March. It's so weird for me to be here in the middle of summer, when my whole life January has always meant winter for me. But I'm not complaining... I do NOT miss the snow.

I haven't really gotten a chance to see much of the country so far. There are three Rotary trips here in Chile. One, which already passed, is to Torres del Paine (Google it... it's BEAUTIFUL), another is to the Atacama desert up north, and another is to Easter Island. I would LOVE to go to Easter Island, but each trip is about $1200, so I don't think I'll be able to go. But hopefully I'll be able to see a little more of Chile when I go with my family.

I'm doing pretty well with the language. Still not fluent, but I can communicate easily and don't have a lot of trouble understanding. Only occasionally do I not understand what people are saying. I practice all the time by watching the Chilean tv shows and news, and am starting to read books in Spanish. Hopefully by the time school starts again I'll be able to do all the class work and make decent grades.

Laura