Living as a Trotamundos

That's right the beach! Well in this case it wasn't actually a beach but a fishing port. I had the pleasure of spending the day with my host mom in Talcahuano. Talcahuano is a beautiful little fishing town that is known for it's population of sea lions. The sea lions gather in the port at the base of boats waiting for the fishermen to through them the scraps. It seems like these sea lions are living the life, free food and easy hunting, I don't think there is anything better. I spent the afternoon with my host mom as the wind played with our hair and we watched the boats. it was a relaxing and much needed weekend. My host mom told me the history of Talcahuano, it is just a fishing town so it is mainly filled with lower middleclass families that work as fishermen or in a factory. In 2010 an earthquake struck the BioBio region of Chile and severely damaged Talcahuano. As we drove through the city we could still see the ruins of old buildings that had collapsed durin...

I have just about reached month three of my study abroad adventure and for my very few avid readers or those just stopping by I want to be honest with you. I want to be honest with how I am doing, with how I have been feeling. Studying abroad is one of the loneliest things I have ever done and there have been a few days when it has taken it's toll on me. I have spent my whole life in one community and I've never left it for more than at most 3 months at a time. My time away was short, there was always an end that quickly came into view. But now I am away, and the end is still a long ways off. I left my community, my family, and my friends. I left all of the people that are my support system and yes they still support me, but they aren't here. I don't have my friends here where I can just go and eat lunch with them, I don't have some one that I can just call up to hang out. And yes I understand that I just have to go out and make friends and I'm doing that, I...

For the past couple of weeks I have rarely had time to leave the university campus. My life has been school, school and more school. I just took my first exam in my Calidad del Agua (water quality) course, and lets just say I tried my best. This course in particular is very chemistry heavy, advanced organic chemistry. In other words pure torture. At the very least just about every other student was struggling right along with me. In a study session I had with the local students they were telling me about how it's their least favorite course to take. But at the end of the day I tried, I studied hard, and I did my best. The exam took two and a half hours to answer four questions, but I did my best. And at the very least now it is what it is. I can't change my grade now and my stress is gone. But a recommendation to all of you out there, if you consider taking Calidad del Agua in Chile you may want to think twice about it. On a little bit of a more fun note in the city there a...