At home in Chile

After a weekend of feasts and fiestas, moving in day had arrived.

During my two weeks of studying at Escuela Bellavista, I had arranged to move into a homestay with a lady named Angelica. I had never even clapped eyes on her, but I had her name, an address, and a terribly vague print out from Google Maps. Oh, and I also knew she spoke no English. Deep end, preparing to jump...splash!

I walked past another beautiful Catholic church in Providencia, down a leafy, sun-chinked street and stood outside what I hoped was the right apartment block. The traffic from the main street was forgotten as I said "hola" to the man selling flowers in black buckets on the side of the road, opposite.

Angelica wasn't home, but thankfully Megan - from Australia and also a student a Escuela Bellavista - was there to welcome me to the apartment and show me the ropes. The apartment was so homely, inspired by shelves full of meaningful trinkets, mismatched furniture and fabrics and a well-loved kitchen stacked with gem-coloured, glass bottles and old, rusting biscuit tins holding newly-purchased food.

Then there was my room, adorned with dusty rosary beads, a broken television set, brown and orange-striped sheets and a wooden bookcase full of forgotten treasures from past guests and old friends. As I put away my backpack under one of the beds and closed a drawer full of my clothes, I realised this was the closest thing to home I had experienced in seven months.

There were plenty of charming quirks to remind me I was so very far from home though: last minute invitations to evening meals at 11pm; numerous failed attempts to light the boiler with a match; coming home at 4am to find the Angelica and her nephew moving furniture;

misunderstandings followed by exaggerated hand gestures similar to those used by children's television presenters; and much laughter, sometimes with me, usually at me.

Breakfast was always an entertaining start to my day. Just like my grandparents do, Angelica set up the breakfast table the evening before, with two table clothes (one being the 'nice' one for the day, the other on top to catch crumbs and spills), and various old tins and jars. Every day we had pan (bread), with mantequilla (butter) and mermelada (jam). On some days there was also pate and jamón, and on one day we even had tuna, a prickly pear cactus fruit full of small pips.

But everyday, without fail, there was powdered milk for tea and coffee. I never got the hang of this, always swallowing bland lumps of milk powder as I sipped my tea. Still, it was a gesture of kindness as Angelica sat with us (Megan, Claudia (from Brazil) and I) and suffered our varying levels of bad Spanish.

That moment of peace and universal etiquette was quickly destroyed as we all then flung ourselves into various pockets of the apartment to get to school/work and then yell "hasta leugo!" or "buenas dias!" as the front door slammed.

Megan and I would then walk through the park to Escuela Bellavista, Claudia always on Brazilian time and trailing 15 minutes behind. At just 9.30am, couples, young and old, would be locked in passionate embraces on every street corner and park bench. Santiago is one of the most sexually charged cities I have ever seen. But also one of the friendliest.

Angelica is a very warm and welcoming woman who works hard to keep her modest apartment near the city centre and provide for her family.

Her son, Carlos (with his own 1 year old, gorgeous Nicolas), would come and go and spoke good English so understood my initial, broken attempts at conversation. I felt at home here but also like I was living in an almost silent world in the apartment, except for chats with lovely Megan who understood what it felt like to be living on the "outside".

I arrived with almost no Spanish at all, which made my first outing to tango lessons with Angelica, Claudia and Megan an intimidating yet, in many ways, highly motivating experience. I understood very little and it was only my ability to quickly pick up dance steps that saved me.

The dance hall was bursting with men and women speaking in a thick, Chileno trill, all dressed elegantly in what I imagine to be their Sunday best. Flutters of conversations drifted by me, settling on me in much the same as wet snow settles on warm pavements. Whoever says you can just 'be' in a country and learn the language is telling fibs, or has never heard the mumblings of Chilenos at a tango lesson.

I had many people teaching me to tango that night - proving it doesn't just take two to tango, more like seven. Most of them barely reached my chin (many Chilenos are quite short, except those with German heritage) and so the next day I had back pain from where I had awkwardly tried to make myself shorter and, therefore, a better dance partner.

On another evening, I also accompanied Angelica to a traditional, Chileno dance hall for tango, salsa (which I thankfully had danced before) and a whole collection of other dances I was equally clueless about. Various people got me up for a spin around the dance floor - I was grateful that the band was too loud to hear what anyone was saying as I was sure I wouldn't understand them if I could.

Still, I enjoyed my first tango experiences and felt even more motivated to grasp the language; I wanted to turn those evanescent, snow-like drifts of conversation into sturdy, grinning snowmen.