Thursday, May 6, 2010

The Last Post, 2

As I was saying, there's lots I'll miss about my time in Chile, including (and again, in no particular order)....

Avenida Suecia: This was the street we lived on and as I've mentioned earlier, it was full of gorgeous buildings, one more beautiful than the other. More pics below


Spending time with Fernando: That's my younger brother, and although he lives in Toronto and we do visit quite a bit up here in Canada, the kids and I spent four weeks with him in Chile and it was great. He took us places we wouldn't have gone to, such as the before-mentioned soccer game, and also El Cajon de Maipo (pics below). He and I also reminisced about our childhood in Chile, got caught up with our respective lives, and became much closer than before. 



Taking the metro: I've also mentioned this before, but, it's worth repeating, as Santiago's metro really is something special, a thing of beauty.


The people we met, the friends we made: We didn't meet hundreds of people, maybe more like a dozen, but they were all warm, sincere, lovely. I don't have photos for all of them, like the lady who drove Nick and Carmen to school, Ana Maria Munoz; or Luz Maria Lamas, the woman whose apartment I rented. However, their images are imprinted in my mind and I will always remember them.



And finally, I will miss posting on this blog. According to general blog stats, Suzanne's Chilean Sabbatical got a few hundred hits over the past three months, so, to everyone and anyone who took the time to see what I was up to -- thank you very much, y adios amigos!

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

The Last Post, 1

Hey everyone, so I've come to the end of my sabbatical -- my "gran aventura."

It still feels strange being back in Canada, but it also feels really, really right.

Anyway, as this is my last post on this particular blog, I wanted to write about some of the things I will really miss about Chile, and my sabbatical. And here they are, in no particular order:

Santiago: is a lovely, interesting, incredibly vibrant city. Just like in some parts of Europe, there are people sitting in outdoor cafes, dining out, shopping, taking the metro, and just... walking around, enjoying themselves, at all hours. Not like in.... Guelph, or Toronto, where you can shoot a cannon down University Avenue at 9 p.m. 'cause there's no one around.

Here are a few more pics:
http://picasaweb.google.com/suzannesoto03/SantiagoScenes#

Americo: Okay, so, there was one latin guy I did like, and he is the Chilean singer Americo. I must confess, it was not love at first sight, or sound. I kept hearing his songs on the radio and then saw him perform on TV. I still didn't like him, or his music. Slowly, however, his songs -- played everywhere -- started getting under my skin and I found myself singing along. I ended up bringing 3 CDs of his music with me to Canada.


Here are links to a couple of his biggest hits:
Te vas (You're leaving):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3WF1pPGg-A&feature=related
El embrujo (I'm bewitched):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CuGIDnnzsU

Chilean ice cream: is the absolute best. If you know me well, you know I actually don't like ice cream that much (prefering dangerous pastries instead). However, South American ice cream is fluffy, creamy-dreamy, heavenly. And the selection of flavours... incredible!


I have more things that I will definitely miss about Chile, but will have to post later as right now, I've gotta go! More soon.....

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Oh Caaaanada...!

Overnight flights always seem like a good idea. You board a plane, go to sleep, and when you wake up, you're there!

But it's not like that. Instead, the smells, lights, noise and uncomfortable seating keep you wide awake, often all night, so you arrive completely exhausted.... which is how we were yesterday morning, when touching down at Lester B. Pearson International Airport after our all-nighter from Santiago.

Despite this, we were all very happy to be back at home, and no one more than Carmen, who spontaneously broke into song as we walked from the plane to Terminal 1 (Her song? "Oh Canada"... .yup, I am not kidding.)

One of the things that struck me about being back home is Canada's... bigness. Compared to Santiago's Arturo Merino Benitez Airport, Pearson is HUGE.

Once we got out on the 401 the roads, too, seemed so wide, the houses so tall, the sky so broad. Because from the ocean to the mountains Chile is only about 350 kilometres wide, everything there seems to have been made to fit those narrow parameters.

(That of course is not to say that Chile does not have its own bigness. As I've mentioned before, Chile's mountains are breathtaking... and that's another thing the kids and I noticed as we headed home from the airport -- no mountains in the GTA! Chile's oceans, too, are endless.)

But back to our return, as Peter drove us home, I felt so... relieved. We had made it back! Safely! Despite living in a huge city (a first for my kids), being immersed in a completely different language and environment, and having experienced one of the biggest earthquakes in Chile's history, we were fine.

Actually, some of us were more than fine. As Nicholas spoke on the phone with one of his friends yesterday afternoon, I overheard him say the whole experience had been "awesome."  Of my two kids, Nick was the one who enjoyed Chile the most. He loved Chilean school, asked the most questions about Chile's history and culture, made a couple of really good Chilean friends, and learned the most Spanish.

Carmen had a harder time. She found school boring, and this was mainly because she could not understand her teachers. She didn't make any close friends and compared to Nick, she probably knows about three quarters of the Spanish he does.

So, how much Spanish do Nick and Carmen know? After all, this was the main reason for our trip.

They know a lot, but are they now tri-lingual, if one counts their years of French immersion in there as well? No, they are not.

I thought that three months would be enough for them to learn a new language but I was completely wrong. Nick and Carmen can for sure carry on a simple conversation in Spanish. They also understand quite a bit, but many times cannot answer back.

I realized how hard learning Spanish was for them when Carmen was preparing a presentation for one of her classes in school, and she struggled with verb conjugations. I'd somehow forgotten that all verbs have a past, a present and a future, and this is something that takes years to learn, in any language.

So that Nick and Carmen don't lose the Spanish they did learn, I plan to continue speaking Spanish to them at home; we'll probably go back to Chile in a few years; I also want them to do a proper, school-sanctioned student exchange at some point; and for them to maybe take Spanish classes in high school and university.

That way, maybe in a few years they will be able to conjugate those Spanish verbs, and switch easily between English and Spanish, just like that flight attendant in our Air Canada plane, who not only spoke flawless English and Spanish all night (but also French.... and Portuguese!).

The way I see it now, our last three months were just a start....