Chileen in Chile

Hello hello hello! Before I dive too deeply into the good stuff, I would like to take a special moment to wish two of my loyal followers a happy birthday! As of Friday, Haley "Harold" Ladd-Luthringshauser is 24! I love you with all of my heart, and I am honored to have a big sister like you to look up to and emulate. The second birthday shoutout goes to Layla Susan Varkey, who, on this day 20 years ago, changed the world forever. I love and miss you chica. And with that... greetings from my new home in Ñuñoa! Yesterday, orientation officially came to an end, and all fifteen of us Tufts in Chile kiddos moved in with our new host families around Santiago. We all scattered within four different neighborhoods situated to the southeast/east of the city (Ñuñoa, Providencia, Las Condes, and La Reina). I was very much ready to move off of my top bunk and out of the Happy House Hostel (as much as I loved being with my fellow room 19-ers, we all needed to unpack desperately). It was ...

Hello my lovely friends and family. This week has been a harder one for a variety of reasons. I want to preface this post by saying that it is not a very upbeat one as this week has not been an upbeat one overall. That being said it has been one with a tremendous amount of learning and reflection on the history of an incredible country. Thank you for coming back to read  Chileen in Chile  :) As more families and travelers that shared Happy House Hostel with us move out and continue on with their journeys, we remain. We are all antsy to move in with our host families this coming Saturday, to finally unpack our oversized suitcases for good, and to stop having to climb up to the top bunk (in eight of our cases). Beyond our housing situation, this week has been filled with 10 different lectures on topics of Chilean history in addition to various bus rides and field trips. Not only is it quite exhausting to sit through two hour lectures on history to begin with, it is ever more e...

Hello from Happy House Hostel! In case you want to mooch off of our very unpredictable wifi, the password is 1829182929. After a long two flight journey, the team made it to Santiago on the morning of July 13th. We got through customs with only one jar of Russian honey and a day old apple being confiscated! We were all given different amounts of paper/Visa directions at the Chilean Consulate (19 Lanark Rd in Brighton if you want to write a complaint), but somehow all made it out of the airport. After a quick pit stop at the Happy House Hostel to drop off our oversized luggage, we hit the town to begin the immigration process. Bureaucracy is REAL in Chile my friends. 10/10 do not recommend hanging out in el Registro Civil for 4 and a half hours just because one of your photocopies does not have your middle name printed on it even though every last letter of your crazy long last name is there. 'Twas quite an experience that felt oddly similar to the Zootopia scene with the sloths ...

Hello to all you amazing friends and family! I'm so touched and happy you have found your way to Chileen in Chile ! For the next 5 and a half months, I will exploring the amazing South American country that has 6,435 km of coast line (fun fact: that is the 19th highest in the world  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_length_of_coastline ), and I thought that it would be a lot of fun to document my journey, classes, and experiences with anyone who is interested! (I would like to make a special shout out to Madame Chista Irani here who thinks that I could personally grow just as much in Medford. Love and miss you honey bunny.) My goal is to post an update every week at the minimum. I think Sunday evenings sound quite nice. I just do ask that you all please be a little patient with me please as I 1) have never had a blog before and 2) am no English major. I honestly did not even know how to log in to write posts until this morning when I Googled it. But I think th...