Gringa

Yesterday my host brother explained to me the easy ways to spot a gringo. As if I didn't already know that we would stick out here, I also learned that everything I do, I do like a gringa. 

-The clothes I wear= gringo. Especially my shoes.  Aside from my converse, all of my other shoes are gringo shoes.  Sperry's= especially gringo.

-My backpack. First of all, Northface=gringo, and also the fact as a girl I use a big backpack. Chilean girls all have really small backpacks, or wear bags over their shoulder. If they happen to have big backpacks, they only wear them on one shoulder. Wearing your backpack on both shoulders, well that apparently is a gringo thing.

-The way I walk and the way I sit. I don't even know what that means...

-Hooded sweatshirts, especially with University names on them, at that point I of course pulled out of my closet a WashU sweatshirt. 

My host brother did say though that I don't have the face of a gringa. Meaning if someone were to look at only face, and if i didn't talk, walk or move, I couldn't be identified immediately as a gringa. How exciting!!

In unrelated news, in this country I've definitely had to learn and understand patience. Dad, I think you'd go crazy, at least in the beginning. Things here just take a lot longer. I went to a pharmacy to buy hand sanitizer a few days ago, and I had to take a number like you do to get meat in the grocery store so that I could pay. It took me about 15 minutes just to pay one item, because of course everyone in line in front of me was ordering prescriptions and asking questions that took a very long time. When I went to go get my student ID card, we waited for over 2 hours plus almost an hour for transportation both ways. And after all that, I have to go back another time to pick it up in two weeks. We were 1 1/2 hours late for class so I guess something good did come out of it...