Some Final Words for My Beloved City

It was about 2 weeks before I left and I was already ready to leave my second home in Santiago de Chile.  I was anxious to see my family and friends and to be able to wake up under my own roof again.  As much as I loved living with a host family for my …

First Birth – Appreciation for Life Forever Changed

One of my most impactful moments in Chile was during one of my shadowing shifts in a local hospital. I shadowed an OBGYN in a maternity clinic. Initially, I did not know what to expect but I must say that it was definitely a fast-paced experience. After we were shown around the clinic for a tour, we …

Un Paraguay en Chile | A Paraguay in Chile

  As I blogged in one of my first blogs, “It’s Hard to Immerse And Why It’s Okay” I talked about my difficulty finding friends of my age that I could relate to other than my IES classmates. Though I was taking classes at a local university, I only really made acquaintances which was fine …

Chi Chi Chi le le le, ¡Vamos Chile!

I’ve never been prouder than when I saw Chile make it all the way to the finals of the Russian Confederation’s Cup. It was a Sunday morning full of excitement as all of the streets were full of vendors selling merchandise for the game. The game was scheduled at noon so I thought that I would …

My Documentary: “Solitude: A Companion Abroad”

As mentioned in my first blog, I had been planning on filming a documentary for months and had many difficulties such as lack of money for equipment (tripod, camera and lenses) and losing my iPhone 7 that had taken the majority of my shots.  Despite these set backs, I was able to produce something that …

How I Got Lost in the Atacama Desert

Saturday morning started like any other would in the driest desert in the world.  Yes, I was in the Atacama Desert of San Pedro.  It was as if the desert had a thirst so severe that could never be quenched even by its recent heavy rains.  Its travelers feel the same as water is hard …

Health Studies Program in Chile

As I blogged in a previous post, I was part of a health-studies clinical observation program as a part of the IES Abroad program.  In this program, we have a Medical Spanish course that meets 3 times a week, a biweekly public health seminar course and a weekly field placement. My field placement was under …

My Pluscuamperfectos: Si Hubiera… “If I Had…”

So one of the tenses a Spanish student will learn is called the Pluscuamperfecto which is as complicated as it sounds. The structure of this tense usually requires that the user use the past perfect tense in the first clause (I would have…) followed by a conditional perfect tense in the second clause (If I …

Chile at Surface Level: Modismos

So after being here in Chile for so long, I though it would be appropriate that I write an article on some Chilean slang. Phrases Some words in Chile do not exist in Spanish for other countries. Such words make what Chileans call modismos or chilenismos, in other words Chilean slang. Let’s take a look at a few: Cool – …

Chiloe Made Me Fall in Love with Nature

Before you begin reading, I invite you watch this video first. It better explains the title than what I have written below. I always say that a video speaks a million words. I must say that I have always appreciated nature but never was really enchanted as I was by it when I filmed this …