My host family

My host family lives in an apartment on the Avenida Providencia, which is one of the busiest streets in town. On the other side of the house is Avenida Once de Septiembre (September 11), another busy street, so I am going to have to get used to traffic noise at night. We live on the 4th floor. The apartment has four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, a dining room, and a living room. My host mother, Ruth, likes to cook a lot. The daughter, Lorena, works from 9 am until 7 pm at an adoption agency. Jorge, the cousin who speaks good English, is a design student at Universidad de Chile. One interesting thing about Ruth is that when she calls herself my "mama chilena," she really means it. She always wants to make sure that I have enough to eat, that I'm warm enough, etc. Ruth's ex-husband has come by to visit twice. He is very nice, and told me that he had a grandfather who moved from England to Chile, and then got married.

In answer to Amanda's non-Sept 11 questions (see comments):
No, I did not understand everything. My host mom speaks slowly and sometimes says things a different way for me to understand, and sign language is key. A couple of my classes are actually in English, and my host cousin has spoken to me in English.
And yes, I was nervous, especially for the five minutes when I had no idea how to get into my apartment!
The only place where I've seen a lot of mayonnaise was a restaurant where they served us bread and mayonnaise instead of bread and butter.