September

What I just will never get used to while being in Chile:

- Randomly seeing a person sleeping on the street
- I've seen people using the street as their toilet, and I see (homeless?) people hiding their bags in the street drainage and drunk homeless people and beggars...
- The metro and the buses at rush hour: literally every one of your body part is touching someone else's body parts, and you get pushed into the bus or metro like this:

- People full on making out in these crowded buses and metros, people have explained to me that because many people live with their parents until about 28, these are the places they can have their "privacy" without their parents watching

- How cold the houses are in the winter/spring

- The amount of cars, people, air polution in a city like this 

Haha so yes probably quite a few more things, which of course makes sense with me not having grown up here. It's interesting to see what life is like here and to really experience it for six months, but it's definitely made me realise that I do not ever want to permanently live in a large city. 

The last 2 weeks I have had quite a few down moments, but overall I am staying positive and making the most of my time here. I still haven't found a friend who I would spill all my secrets to yet, (not that I have many seeing as I'm an open book) I think that's been the hardest. My colleagues forgot to invite me when they went out for lunch last week, and although they realised 5 minutes after they left, those kind of moments just make me miss the familiarity of family and friends back home. But not to worry! I make sure I make myself happy again by distracting myself or making great Dutch cheese pancakes or anything like that haha. 

I also have some great moments of course, like last night I went to see a lovely girl Barbara, who I am getting to know better each week, perform in a play. I went with my two roommates and it was a nice evening and we ended just chatting the rest of the evening when we got home, and yes so those times are nice. Just relaxing and chatting. I also still really enjoy going to the biblestudy group on wednesday nights and church on sunday mornings. Also overall my colleagues are just a great laugh and I enjoy their company, so I am very lucky with that as well. 

What has really cheered me up is  receiving post from some of you, first of all thanks for your patience as it takes 5 to 6 weeks to reach me, but most of all thanks so much for the effort, I appreciate it lots! 

11th of September is a protesting day in Chile of something that happened in 1973. see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d'%C3%A9tat It usually involves people getting violent/aggressive, so most people are allowed to leave their work early, around 4pm, and then get recommended to just go home and don't leave the house, because of the violence outside. Leading up to this day, some of you might have read it on the news, also some bombs exploded in Chile, one in Santiago leading up to 14 people being hurt. I got home okay and nothing massively impacting happened during the night either apart from the expected fires or fights. 

The upcoming week are the days which are the Chilean's highlight of the year. They get more excited about this than Christmas or any other festivity. It always start on the 18th of September and then goes until and including the weekend, so this year we have a 4 day weekend which is great! All the national foods will be sold everywhere on the streets, massive barbecues are held in many parks and it's just one big party for these 4 days, so very curious of what it will be like exactly! 

Everyone is very excited about it being September because it means the worst of the winter is gone and, the clocks got changed last weekend so lots more light now! 

Ronja, a good friend from university in Holland who is doing her placement in Rio de Janeiro, is coming over the weekend after, which is very very exciting. And, of course, Philip the weekend after that, so I have lots to look forward to:)

I thought by showing some photos, you can all imagine what it's kind of like here.

Where I live:

What I wake up to every morning:)

Near my house: 

The Metro

My colleagues