Schmidt-Diaz Family

Finally I have a picture of myself with my host family. They have been terrific, living with them has been a very good combination of help, conversation, good cooking, and also independence. I enjoy conversing with them and spending time with them, but they also have their own life and I have a lot of friends outside of the house, so it has been working out well.
The family consists of the two parents Wolfgang Schmidt (his grandparents immigrated to Chile from Germany) and Olga Diaz. They have two kids Wolfgang (Wolf) who is 24 and in medical school in Concepcion and Karen who is 21 and is studying Phsychology at Universidad de Concepcion (the larger University in town, not the one that I attend). Romina, Wolf´s girlfriend, is also around the house a lot and has been very friendly and helpful to me (part of this might be because finally I am the first male exchange students, all the rest had been girls and their room had been right next to Wolf. I think she might have been a little jealous :))
Olga cooks me all of my meals which usually consists of a breakfast of tea, bread and crackers with jelly and manjar (the closest thing the US has to manjar is caramel). Lunch is the biggest meal of the day and we usually have one or two plates (soup and then main dish...) and fruit for desert, I sometimes eat at the School cafeteria when it is more convenient although the food is definitely better at home. Once or dinner usually consists of sandwiches and tea.

Week 2 of School

I have now completed my second week of school at Universidad del Bio Bio and I have learned a number of things about Chile, Chileans, and the University.

Showing up to class on time is like coming early. Classes usually don´t start until 10 minutes after they are supposed to.

The dating "rule" for Chileans is half your age plus 5 years. Meaning if you are 20 you can date a girl that is 15. The "rule" in the US is half your age plus 7 meaning if you are 20 you can not date a girl any younger than 17. (Im gonna stick with the US rule)

They love Reggaeton here. The dancing does not begin at the clubs until reggaeton is played. I have also seen a large amount of people wearing New York Yankees hats here and I am told that it is mostly due to the influence of Daddy Yankee (a reggaeton star).

PDA (Public Display of Affection) is the norm here. You really can´t go anywhere without seeing a couple making out.

All in all I am having a good time here. My classmates have been really friendly in inviting me to hang out with them, and I am learning as much Chilean as I am Castillan (Spanish).

Concepcion

This is a picture of the City of Concepcion.
Concepcion has between 200 and 300 thousand residents. However the entire port area including a few other large cities is somewhere around 2 million.
So far the weather has been about 65-75 degrees during the day and cool at night. This perfect weather will not last all year. Concepcion is known for it´s large amount of rain during the winter here and also it´s flooding. But right now I am loving it.

Universidad del Bio Bio

This is a picture of the front of Universidad del Bio Bio.
This school has two campuses, this one (the Concepcion campus) and also another campus in Chillan (about an hour and a half away). Their are about 5,000 students at the Concepcion Campus, and it is mostly Engineering and sciences.

First week of classes at UBB

I am now in the middle of my first week of classes at the Universidad del Bio Bio.
I moved in with my family in Concepcion on February 22nd. I spent the first week getting to know my family and the area a little better before my beginning of classes.
The school had an orientation for all of the International Students (all four of us). Three of us are from University of Illinois, and the other student is from Spain. All of the professors, secretaries, and faculty members that we met were so friendly and I already have a number of their home and cell phone numbers!!

Classes officialy began on Thursday, March 1st, but none of my started until Monday, March 5th. I am taking Ingeneria de Materiales (Mon. and Fri.), Topografia (surveying) (Mon. and Wed.), Tecnologia del Hormigon (Technology of Concrete) (Tue. and Thur.), Cultura Tradiccional Chilena (Thur.), and Danza (dance) Tradiccional Chilena (Thur.).

The classes here are much smaller than the ones that I have had at U of I, most of my classes here have between 20 and 30 students. It is also nice that I am taking mostly Civil Engineering classes because I have a couple of classes with the same people.

I have found my classmates to be very friendly once I introduced myself. I have spent the last two afternoons and evenings hanging out with some of my classmates in Civil Engineering and was even invited to their house for "once" yesterday. (Once is like dinner here, it is much smaller, usually consisting of sandwiches and tea).

I think it will be fun to go to a smaller school for a little while (5,000 students compared to 30,000 at U of I). And even though their is no on campus housing their still seems to be pretty good community amongst the students since a lot of them hang out at school all day.

Fortunately so far I have missed out on the horrible freshmen hazing (Mechoneos) that goes on at all of the Universities in Chile. Usually this event consists of Second year students raiding a class of freshmen and making them turn in one of their shoes, they then cut up their clothes (sometimes their hair), throw paint or ketchup or some other nasty stuff on the freshmen and then make them go out to the town center and beg for money. Once the freshmen has gotten enough money begging they can return to campus where they share a barbeque with their classmates and tormentors. Sounds like a great way to get to know your classmates!!!!! Here is an article with some pictures from a Mechoneos in Santiago. http://diario.elmercurio.com/2007/03/07/nacional/nacional/noticias/8D40F842-B2CD-4E67-997A-8FF5CBA84290.htm

This is all the news for now. Sorry it has been so long since the last post, until this week not much was really happening.