Vergüenza

Most people start their travel blogs off with their first impressions of the new places they've explored or new cultures they've experienced. Maybe they stick with a list of favorite new restaurants, foods, or places. I thought about starting with those, and maybe I will make those blog posts in the future, but I figured that the best way to start off my blog was to get myself out of my comfort zone. I needed to get some things off of my chest in order to honestly show what my study abroad experience is like. 

So I'm starting off my blog with a list of the embarrassing things that have happened to me in the first month of studying abroad in Concepcion, Chile. 

1) Speaking Spanish

I'm going to be honest here, I thought I would be a pro at Spanish within my first week in Chile. After all, I've studied Spanish for more than seven years, I've always done well in my Spanish classes, and I even had a dream in Spanish before! Everyone knows that the minute you dream in a foreign language you become fluent in it!

My dream consisted of me trying (and failing) to conjugate verbs in Spanish. I should have known what was in store for me in Chile. 

My biggest problem is the verb to stop: parar. I'm not sure why, but I never learned this verb in school. This is an issue since I ride the bus all the time and constantly need to ask where the nearest stop is or ask for the bus to stop. The verb parar is where my first embarrassing moment came in to play. 

Cony, my host sister, and I were driving down the street when we saw the police, known in Chile as the Carabineros, on the side of the road. I was bragging to Cony how I was a great driver and had never been stopped by the police. However, my conjugation of the verb parar was proving to be a problem so I just said the first thing that came to mind. "No he parido a un carabinero." I said with a smirk on my face. She just started laughing. What I meant to say was "No he parado por un carabinero."

 By switching the vowel, I told her that I had never given birth to a police officer.

Even though she corrected me, I now never know if I'm saying it right, and spend about half of my time accidentally asking my bus driver if he can give birth to me at the next bus stop.

2. Climbing Hills

I'm scared of hills. I know, I know, this is embarrassing even without a back story to prove it. I don't like having to climb up or down hills, don't like sledding, and don't like rock walls. Why I decided to live in a country that is mostly made up of mountains, I'll never know. However, my embarrassing story is as follows:

At the end of the orientation week for the international students at my university, our Chilean tutors took us to a beach, Playa Lenga, to celebrate. The beach was gorgeous and the seafood empanadas were delicious. Then, for some reason, our tutors decided that we should walk to a hidden beach that had a better view. They failed to tell us, however, that it would be an hour long hike up a mountain in order to get to the hidden beach. 

I barely managed to survive climbing up and down the dirt path as my feet constantly slid out from beneath me, but somehow, I did it. The worst of the hiking was far behind me and nothing but the Pacific ocean lay in front. I was so proud of myself! We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing on the beach until the fateful moment when someone made the suggestion to climb the giant rock hill that overlooked the ocean. I stupidly followed along, after all, how many times do you get the chance to climb a giant pile of rocks in the Pacific ocean?

Do you see how tiny that person is at the top of the hill???

The problem did not end up being the rock hill, rather it was the small rock bridge in between land and the hill. Climbing over the wet rock was difficult, however, I made it with the help of a Chilean guide. The views were admittedly great from the top, and I was happy that I had braved it. This happiness would not last long.

As we climbed back down the hill to the rock bridge, it seemed to me like the waves were getting bigger. Then it hit me, the ocean, unlike Lake Michigan, has tides. I tried to ask if the tide was coming in, but I didn't know the Spanish word for tide, or how to accurately describe it, other than asking if the water was getting taller. Once again, Spanish speaking is apparently not my strong suit!

As I struggled across the rocks, people started to notice my slow movements and frightened squeals. Several people tried to help me find the easiest rocks to jump to, but the water was rising, the waves were coming in, and the rocks were becoming slippery. Just as one of the exchange students took my hand to help me over the rocks, I fell down. Right into the ocean. In front of all of the exchange students and Chilean tutors. I shakily stepped back on to a rock and quickly jumped back to the shore, but the damage was done. I climbed back over the mountain, got on a bus, and rode back to my house in the dark with soaked pants and a waterlogged phone that had been in my back pocket. 

The last photo I took before I fell

3. Using Public Transportation

Both my inability to use the verb "parar" and falling into the ocean contributed to my final embarrassing moment: the night I rode the bus for the first time alone.

At Grand Valley, I ride the bus all of the time, so I thought I was an old pro at public transportation and that I would have no problems using the buses here in Chile, yet again, I was wrong.

Buses in Grand Rapids and buses in Chile are different in several ways, but the main difference for me is that the Grand Rapids buses display the next bus stop on a digital screen and announce the nearest stop, so you always know where you are. Not so in Chile. You just have to know where you are, or be competent enough to ask the bus driver and understand their response. This is really helpful for a directionally-challenged girl whose Spanish could use work.

The same night that I fell into the ocean, I rode the bus home alone in the dark for the first time. After much confusion and briefly walking around downtown in the dark, I finally caught the bus that I knew would take me home. My problem was that I had no idea which stop was mine, and it was very difficult to see my stop in the dark. I had been smart enough to download a map onto my phone in order to track where I was in relation to my house, but I had also been stupid enough to fall into the ocean with my phone in my pocket, making it malfunction to the point of having to shut it off. I just stayed on the bus and hoped for the best.

Twenty minutes into the bus ride, I was the only person left. The bus suddenly slowed down and turned off the road, and it became apparent that I was at the bus terminal, and had no clue how far away I might be from my stop. I frantically tried to call my host sister with my new Chilean phone but I was so nervous that when she did answer, I couldn't understand a word she said.

Desperately, I tried to explain that I didn't know where my bus stop was (but of course couldn't remember the word for stop: parada). The bus driver just looked at me with a mixture of confusion and pity, and finally reached his hand out for the phone. After a brief conversation with my host sister, he climbed out of the bus, and pointed to an intersection down the street. He told me to walk to the street corner, and that my family would come pick me up in a minute. I thanked him and walked away, embarrassed and upset that I had ridden the bus all the way to the terminal, missing my stop. I mentally prepared myself to wait alone in the dark for someone to pick me up.

It was then that I realized everything looked familiar. I wasn't miles away from my house, in fact, I was just one street over. My frantic calls to my host sister and my desperate communication attempts with my bus driver were all because I was a couple feet from my bus stop.

Now I just wait until my bus gets to my terminal to get off. It's much easier.