Escuela, escucho and Escudo

My escuela (school) was in the vibrant, bohemiam part of the city, Barrio Bellavista, near the foot of Cerro San Cristóbal - a hill with a 22m-high white statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary that looms over the highrises and rises out of the smog.

In 2011, Chile was named the ninth metropolis in the world with the fastest growth, and new, gleaming multi-storeys are shooting up, slicing up the skyline, as I write.

But Bellavista stays true to the old Santiago and it's crumbling heart: single and two-storey buildings with flat roofs, painted orange with deep blue doors or hot pink with green windows; riverbeds coloured by artistic murals and dogs lazing in the heat of the day; rusting tables and unchanging menus litter uneven walkways; and crumpled papers linger in the gutters, all that remains of the recent, student protests.

Meanwhile, standing as a reminder that this was no ordinary city in no ordinary continent, the backdrop to all of this is one of hazy, snow-capped mountains seen above a skyline of pick 'n' mix skyscrapers.

Bellavista was once the home of Chile’s Nobel Prize winning poet - Pablo Neruda - and there is now a museum, and spontaneous street art, devoted to his memory

down a peaceful cul-de-sac, lined with colourful houses.

Lessons were more fun than I had ever imagined, with our brilliant teachers Baba and Daniela breaking up taxing grammar lessons with language jokes and Chileno argot (slang). And then continuing our lessons for free over Escudo cervezas, pisco sours and the humdrum of fellow drinkers in the evenings.

Learning Chilean Spanish (and trying to translate English into Spanish in your head) helps you gain a new perspective on your own culture and language.

It reminds you just how many English words and phrases make no sense whatsoever and do not directly translate into another language. From words like "cheeky" and "posh", to phrases such as "sod's law" and "not my cup of tea". My mind was working faster than it has had to in many months and I even started to muddle the order of English words when chatting to friends.

There are also plenty of opportunities for error when learning Spanish, including mixing up words that should not be mixed up. For example, it's perfectly normal to use caliente to talk about hot foot, but it is definitely not acceptable to use caliente when you are personally hot. Especially over breakfast.

I also kept referring to Med as mi polola (my girlfriend), when I should have been saying mi pololo (my boyfriend). I'm walking through a Spanish-speaking minefield.

What's more, Chileans are notorious for speaking fast and actually quite badly. They hardly every pronounce the “s”; they skip “d” in nouns and adjectives (like estado and complicado), making the endings sound like “ao” instead of “ado"; and they pepper their speech with colorful phrases and plenty of swear words. Anyone under the age of 35 adds huevon or huevona to the end of almost every sentence. Huevon is the Chilean equivalent of dude, but literally derives from the slang word for testicles!

The Mapuche were the indigenous people living in Chile before the Spanish arrived. As the two cultures mixed, the Spanish adopted many Mapuchan words: cahuín (gossip or party), guata (belly), and malón (potluck). In class, we were taught the South American words; out of class we heard the Chilean.

I was fortunate to meet many young, Chileno people in my few weeks in Santiago and we had no trouble understanding each other, even if I still didn't have the right words. They listen to the same music, watch the same films, and spend their time on the same internet that we do. Of course, even if Chile as a whole is considered the third world, Santiago is most certainly first world. It is comprised of business people, those going to university, and people everywhere on iPhones and Macbooks (except me, I didn't even have a phone).

Yet, with all this familiarity, there was plenty of the weird and wonderful: hot dancing halls, dog houses built in the park and our daily game of 'food lottery' where we gambled with confusing menus and hoped we'd picked something relatively edible.

Many long lunches and even longer evenings in Bellavista peppered our Spanish lessons, and we followed the Chileno students to the cheapest lunch places and coolest bars. Chileans appear to have an amazing capacity for alcohol but no 'off switch'. Bellavista’s as chaotic as Soho, with live folk venues fighting for space alongside neon-lit clubs, hot dog joints, and salsa hangouts.

Then there was the karaoke after a few vinos de frutillas; I can now claim to have received a standing ovation from a room full of Chileno people - most over the age of 60.

As part of our course with Escuela Bellavista, we were taken on a (very long) tour of the Cementario de Grand Central - one of the largest and oldest graveyards in South America. 85 hectares of land in the city were set aside for the cemetery (almost 80 football fields), which features many earthquake-damaged ornate mausoleums and crypts, millions of dedications by the living and other displays surrounded by palm trees.

In this well-loved, colourfully adorned and artistically wonderful cemetery, it struck me once again how other countries deal with death with much more flamboyancy and openness than we do.

Many of Chile's past presidents and heroes are buried here, except of course Augusto Pinochet (Chile's dictator who killed and tortured thousands). Fresh flowers line endless walls stacked with small, square tombs and the rows of elaborate mausoleums influenced by Aztec and Egyptian architecture.

The tombs that fascinated me the most were flooded with flowers, Christmas decorations, various other gifts and thousands of scribblings in permanent markers.

These were the people who had been taken too soon, by car accidents or murders for example. It is thought that there souls remain here and the living should give gifts to them, in return for a favour. Some tombs are for money prosperity and job success, others had notes asking for luck in love and marriage.

As the fast Spanish words of our tour guide, Lidia, washed over me, I considered leaving my own gift and message. If these lost souls can make people rich, surely they can give me a tiny, helping hand with my Spanish?

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.