Chilean Speak & Webcam

Tuesday, Jan 27

I woke up early this morning and did some cleaning around the apartment. With everything in its place I sat down with my Buen Viaje book and went off on another Spanish Immersion lesson. I’m getting to the point now where I need to get out and talk with people. It’s the only way I will learn and remember things.

I had some practice this morning when the doorman showed up at the door and started rattling off some Spanish. I looked passed him and saw a man standing at our water heater closet and surmised that he must have been an electrician. When Lily moved into our apartment about 2 weeks ago she was having issues with the hot water. She called for an electrician, but with the typical Chilean pace of life he showed up today. In the meantime, however, I was able to fix the hot water a week prior and we told the doormen that we didn’t need the electrician anymore. Not surprising the message got lost somewhere along the way and the electrician was ready to fix our hot water “problem”. I asked the doorman why the electrician was here and he said in Spanish, “Because the water is too cold.” I responded in Spanish that the water is fixed and hot now and he said what sounded like “tambien?” which means "also". I said sí because that seemed like the only word that would fit at that moment. The doorman yelled down the hall “tambien” to the electrician who promptly picked up his tool box and scurried away. This made no sense to me, until I realized that the doorman was saying “esta bien?” meaning “it’s good?”, but had cut off the beginning and mashed the whole phrase together to sound like “tambien”.

This was my first lesson in needing to practice more with the locals…it never sounds exactly like it should in the book and that is what I need to practice. In fact later that night after a walk with Lily we said “como estas?” to another doorman who responded “qui tamo.” Again, I was lost, but we realized he said “aqui estamos” meaning “we are here”. It’s going to take some time & practice to get used to Chilean speak.

I met Lily in town for a bite to eat at a diner called Dane’s. We ran some more errands and made our way up to her office for some internet and e-mail time while she worked. I hopped online to see that my brother was signed on. He brought my family into his room and we had our first online video chat. It took a lot of trial and error with tokbox, gmail video chat, and finally skype, but Skype came through and we had a good talk. Mum and I caught up with the events of the previous week, and I was able to see the dogs and my cousins who all piled into my brother’s room to join in on the chat. After some Simon jokes and a lot of back and forth taunting with the infamous “L” sign we said our goodbyes. It was so great to see everyone and tell them in person how my adventure has played out thus far. Gotta love technology.

Lily and I made our way home and had another successful night in the kitchen. We had planned on grilling, but still had no lighter fluid so we made another round of chicken cutlets with sautéed vegetables, salad, and breaded zucchini from the frying pan. 4-for-4. It really is true. If Yan can cook, so can you!