Monday, April 19, 2004

The Castillo Family

I met a family here- the are Amercan Chileans (Chilean blood, American raised) and they have been a second family for all of us. After living in Florida for about twelve years, they had to come back to Chile because they were unable to secure citizenship.

I was at their house this past Saturday night until about three a.m. just talking with Natalia (daughter, 19) and two other Rotary Scholars (Meaghan and Leah). It is so easy to forget that I am in Chile when I am able to spend such quality time with Americans.

Lack of Friends

Yeah, so I still don´t have many Chilean friends. I think that the large city really isn´t conducive to making good friends. Groups of friends aren´t very apt to invite to to join their group. You aren´t anyone that special if you are international, because there are a bazillion gringos here. What I have found (and many other international students as well) is that international students end up being friends with each other, although I think that it might be a different case, depending on the living situation. I think that if someone lives with a Chilean their age, they might be more apt to have more friends. Since I am living with someone the age of my grandmother, I haven´t really made many friends through her. :-)

But I really am not bitter or anything. I really like the friends that I do have. But I could be getting this amount of Spanish in Florida (or so I have been told....maybe I will move there when I graduate from college. I think Miami would be a good place for a person with an international business and finance degree, who also speaks Spanish...)

posted by Rebecca @ 4/19/2004 04:02:00 PM