Movie Theater Adventures

 

Paintball Jumpsuits featuring Isi

 

Ahì de Gallina (which is Peruvian for the record)

 

Birthday Dinners, Paintball, and the Movie Theater

Guys I've actually been getting out of the house lately and it's been so great. Let's debrief. 

For starters, in my last blog post I mentioned that we would be going out for dinner to celebrate Isaac's birthday and we did end up doing that. He chose this super cute Peruvian place and I ordered Ahí de Gallina which is basically this chicken dish with a special Peruvian sauce and it was very delicious. It came with rice and a little bit of potatoes too and you can never go wrong with that. 

It was a really good time overall, we chatted and laughed and were all together which made me happy. I can't always follow the conversations that are happening because they're so quick and bounce all over the place, but I have noticed that I'm improving and every now and then I can jump in. Side note, but Gonzy, my host brother, was doing silly dances with a napkin to the music they were playing and I just thought it was hysterical. It felt really good to truly laugh. 

A day or two after our dinner out, I got invited to go paintballing with some of my friends from school. I'm not gonna lie, I was a little hesitant about the whole paintball aspect of the excursion but this would be the first time I'd seen some of my school friends since we had started summer vacation and I missed them so I was willing to suck it up. 

They picked me up at my host family's house which worked out great because I didn't need to bother Claudia or Gonzalo for a ride. The paintball place was literally less than 3 miles down the road so we arrived pretty quickly. When I say we, I am referring to myself, my good friend/host cousin Ornella, and our friends Sebastian, Isi, Anto who is Isi's younger sister, and Javiera. 

We split ourselves into teams and I ended up with Seba and Isi which I was happy about because Seba was really feeling the paintball vibes and told me what to do most of the time. We played for almost 3 hours. 

There were a few different variations, one was where you just had to shoot everyone on the other team and the other was where you had to capture their base. Pretty sure that Seba, Isi, and I lost but it was still a good time nonetheless. I got shot in the arm by Javi and still have a lovely bruise. Anto also got me really good right on the butt cheek which we laughed about incessantly at the end. 

Once we were sweating, tired, and out of paintballs we decided to go to the mall to get some food and then head back to Seba's place which is in Boco, another smaller sublet of Quillota that sits adjacent to Rauten, where my host family lives. 

We chilled there for quite a bit just chatting, eating our food, and messing around. My host family ended up picking me up a little later than everyone else which was fine because I chatted with Seba about what his plans are once he graduates high school. He told me he really wants to be a commercial pilot, but heard that it's really hard to get a job so he's not sure. 

He also told me that Ornella mentioned that one of Almendra's brothers aka my host brothers studied to be a pilot but wasn't able to find a job. He asked me if I'd be willing to ask about what his experience was and I agreed, but told him that I had heard nothing about anyone studying to be a pilot. I had to guess though, it would be my brother Nacho. 

Luckily enough, Nacho was the one who picked me up from Seba's house so I plucked up the courage to ask him and I guessed correctly that it was him who studied to be a pilot.  

I'm not going to go into the whole story because it's a bit personal but let me just tell you that Nacho picked me up around 10:30 and we talked the whole ride home and then in the kitchen until 12:00am. 

Obviously the whole conversation diverged from him studying to be a pilot, but it was one of the first times in Chile I felt like I had a conversation that went a little deeper than just a day-to-day interaction. I'm really proud that I'm advancing to that level of Spanish. 

My most recent adventure happened yesterday because Ornella invited me to go to the movies with her, Isi, and Anto to see the new Zootopia movie. I took the bus into Quillota to meet up with her and then her parents dropped us off at the mall to meet with the other girls. 

Before we went to the theater, we hit up the grocery store to get snacks to sneak in just like we do at home which made me smile. The only difference is that here we spent about $12 and got so many snacks that we couldn't finish them all. In the U.S that would buy you one bag of chips and maybe a candy bar. 

After smuggling all our goodies in, we settled into our seats in the way back of the movie theater. I only had to ask a few questions here and there to understand what was happening which was a big win for me because obviously they didn't have the Spanish subtitles on in the theater and without those I get confused a lot easier. 

After the movie we hung out in the mall a little more, Orne bought herself a coffee and we goofed around before Isi and Anto had to head out. After that Ornella and I cruised around a home goods store picking up random things and making jokes before her parents came to pick us up again. 

We went back to her house and chilled for a bit and watched the Hangover in Spanish because my host family went to the beach and couldn't pick me up until late. Molly, Erin, and Mady, please know that she absolutely loved it. 

Fast forward to today and I am going to meet up with Ornella, Isi, Anto, and a few more of our friends to make some waffles and hang out. I'm going to surprise them with a little bottle of maple syrup that I have been saving for a special occasion. I'll keep you posted on how that goes :)

As always, I miss home lots. It's kind of crazy that my exchange is cruising so fast. I will be home in 5 months, hopefully working at Camp Oswegatchie and starting my freshman year at Cornell in the fall. It's all been planned out for a while now, but it's wild to  start seeing everything I've talked about start to play out for real. Please know I am doing well, and am thinking of you. 

Lots of love always,

Anna