An American in Chile. (Why isn't United Statesian a term?)

Remember that time when I wrote, "This is a blog for now, but don't be shocked if it becomes a list of funny things that happen to me"?

Voilá

So this is what I feel like here in Chile. (No, for real, click it - it's funny. Make sure your volume is up). I'm trying to assimilate myself to the Chilean culture here as much as possible, but sometimes there's some confusion. Here's my unorganized list of those confusions (and other funny experiences I've had).

1.Please tell me how to eat this.
Because soups usually require spoons.
And potatoes usually require forks.
And drumsticks and corn on the cob usually don't require utensils.

This was my first meal here so I didn't know what the table manners were yet. I was able to pretend like I was thirsty for long enough to realize they use a knife and spoon to eat it all. I've eaten it probably four times now and I still suck at it.

2. I'm sure you know what I mean by the smile and nod.
Even when people are speaking me to in English I do this. I don't want to make them repeat themselves or make them stop telling their story, so I just smile and nod, hoping that'll hide my ignorance. As you can imagine, it happens even more when I'm constantly being spoken to in Spanish. Of course it happens less and less as my ear improves, but just yesterday I was eating lunch with my family and my host mom was reminding me about something that happened last week and all I could understand was 'frutilla' (strawberry) so I asked her to repeat it but it didn't help. So I pretended to think about it and then exaggeratedly responded with "OOOH oooh sí!" and then made eye contact with my host sister's boyfriend and shook my head and rolled my eyes to show him that I had no idea what she was talking about. I feel like it's something Kelly Kapoor would have done.

Notice the ceiling. Notice how I'm not standing straight. 

3. Everything seems smaller in Chile, for a variety of reasons. (For more information on that, read my friend's great blogpost). But here I will only be talking about the actual physical size of things.
Examples:
a. Every morning I take a shower where I can't do a 360 without my shoulders hitting the walls. At least the thought of dropping the soap doesn't frighten me because there's no possibility of retrieving it.
b. The second floor of a club I went to had a ceiling barely over six feet tall. This becomes a problem when you yourself are barely over six feet tall.
c. I saw some hats I wanted to buy but upon trying them on, I realized my head was a bit too big. It's too bad though, because they were selling hats that said "Boston Bruins: 2013 Stanley Cup Champions" which made me smile and frown at the same time.


4. I still don't fully understand the way greetings happen here. From what I've gathered, you kiss a girl on her cheek and you shake a guy's hand. You can also hug the guy if he's your close friend. The only time I've seen guys kiss on the cheek was between family members. Getting the kiss right is tough though. I never know if I should also grasp her opposite shoulder, or how hard I should kiss, or when it's appropriate to actually kiss her cheek as opposed to just making the cheeks touch. I'm pretty sure I put more thought into each kiss I make here than I did my first kiss ever - it's that complicated. Plus, you do this twice; once to say hello and once to say goodbye. Plus you have to do it to everyone in the room. It makes it quite a show when someone leaves an event early and has to sufficiently make their rounds. There's no getting out of it. This is also why I try to get out of church as soon as it ends because even just ten seconds of dawdling means you've become sticky fly tape.

John Mayer : Kanye West :: Sam Skold : Chileans

5. If you've been keeping up with the Kardashians me, you'll know that I sometimes get annoyed when people respond to me in English. It's usually with strangers when I ask them the location of a sushi restaurant or the bus terminal or whatever. So I decided to do something about it. One week Colin and I showed up late to church and we must have had super concerned looks on our face because this guy came up to us and said in English, "We just started, you can enter" and I gave him a weird look and said "No entiendo inglés" (I don't understand English). His face went white and he began to apologize profusely in Spanish saying he thought we were from North America. Luckily I didn't have to prove myself because we were immediately ushered into the service, so that worked out well. Is it bad that I'm proud of making someone else embarrassed? #sorrynotsorry

That's not all, but I think that's sufficient for now. Expect more. Expect many more.