First semester over..

Hey guys,
How are you? How is everything going?

Im very good, last week I finally finished my first semester at university and actually Im quite happy about the results and that I
don´t have to repeat any course. From now on, I will have a 2 weeks holiday until the 16th of August (!!)

Next week I will be working almost every day and on Saturday, the 7th of August, Im heading first to San Pedro de Atacama and then to Bolivia - im really looking forward.


But let me tell you first something about the previous semester:

Well, when I went to university the first weeks, obviously everything was quite exciting, everyone very friendly, etc. But what I really didn´t like was that I had almost too much freetime and too little money. I actually didnt expect to be able to work, but our french teacher invited us for an job interview at the company where he was / is still working: www.turistik.cl

We had to learn something about the history and sights of the city and express ourselves (other classmates and me) in English - and if I remember well in the beginning of May they accepted me and now Im working part-time (3-4 times a week) at the already mentioned company.

My job is to attend to all the turists who enter the red double-decker buses, give information about the city, help if they have any questions. Compared to Germany, my earnings are quite low (~ € 2,50 an hour), BUT anyway its a good practise working in tourism, speaking different languages - and additionally I can get some credits as an internship at my university. So you see, there are just advantages and even though I wont get rich, its a nice feeling to earn my own money - and in the end of the months it is about having € 200 extra or not (that you realize how much Im working actually)...

At university I wrote my first exams in Spanish, gave the first presentations in my life in Spanish AND English, and additionally was starting to learn another language - FRENCH !! Last week I went to a group in Santiago who is meeting once a week to just speak french and I honestly was surprised about how much I could already express myself - I hope I will have enough time to go there in the future again ! I really like french, its an interesting language !

About the other subjects: I was going to the English advanced classes quite a while, I enjoy(ed) the company a lot as I really like the teacher and the small group of other students. But I got to a point where I said to myself that I didnt really need those classes as I got always the best marks, so I spoke with the teacher and we made the agreement that in the future I just have to come once a week and also for the exams. So I have another day available for going to work, what I really appreciate ;)

My worst mark I got in geography which was simply a lot of material to study and in general many many new words for me in spanish. But still I passed the course with a 4,8 (best mark is a 7)...

Algebra was the only subject I was really disappointed by. The only difficulty in the beginning was to understand the questions in spanish. The material we did remembered me of the 6th class in Germany when I was like 13 years old. The teacher and the classes sometimes were just ridiculous. In the end we did at least some more sofisticated stuff and I was free of the final exam: mark 5,9 !!

About turism itself I learned a lot in "Introduction to the turism industry" where I actually don´t have my final result yet

The administration classes werent that interesting, but in the end I got a remarkable 6,0 =)


But I also had a life outside of university:

The first months I didnt do a lot of sports as I was either working or having classes at university almost every day. It must have been around the middle of June when I realized that I have to go out to play some soccer again, what was not that easy actually. I went to a place to ask for an amateur soccer club close to the house where Im living, but it was more difficult than I expected. At university the service was quite bad as well, as the guys at the reception just gave me an E-Mail-adress and then no one responded my mails asking about the days when the soccer team is playing.
Where Im working people are meeting every 2 weeks to play some soccer, what I actually enjoyed a lot, but one of the problems in Chile is, that everyone tries to commercialize as many things as possible - in this case charging for renting a soccer field ( ~ € 3,00 - 4,00 per person per hour)...

So I knew a lot of people who were asking me all the time to play soccer, but I just didnt want to pay everytime for it as Im simply not used to pay for playing soccer or in general doing sports (except of going to a gym)...
Fortunately I discovered a beautifull park close to my place where a public soccer field is located. Only last week I went there 3 times and every time I enjoyed it more =)
The first two times I went there with one the best friends I made from university called Mehdi, a guy from Marocco. Every time we got to know other people playing together great matches. And last time we both met with other guys from university just playing amongst us. The soccer ball we bought was definitely one of the best investments of the last weeks =)

One of the highlights was definitely our 3-days trip at university to the central coast region, where I have never been before. There we had to analize a lot concerning touristic sights, attractions, restaurants, etc. but I also had the chance to get to know some class mates a little bit better outside of the university.

To summarize the first semester with the party I had last night at my place, I have to say that I definitely got to know the chilean culture in a very deeply way, I learned a lot about turism in general and in Chile, could improve not only my Spanish but also my English and French language skills and by the way made very good friends - Im feeling good in Chile !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here I`ve got a video from a city-tour I made with some couchsurfing-people: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2Lh8T1Kvg0


Take care guys,
I hope I get some answers from you, because Im also quite interested in what you are doing, how you are, etc..

Bye bye


Sven Bornemann

Elena Blanco 993
Providencia / Salvador
Santiago de Chile

+56 9 84 98 46 48 (mobile phone)
+56 2 69 23 00 (landline telephone I)
+56 7 61 83 16 (landline telephone II)

svenbornemann87@gmail.com (E-MAIL I)
svenbornemann@gmx.net (E-MAIL II)
www.sveninsantiago.blogspot.com (my BLOG)
redman87@web.de (MSN)
svennaughty (SKYPE)