monday:
We started off this week attending International Student Orientation Day at the University of Chile (La Chile). Had a fun-filled morning in the auditorium learning how to register for courses, how to use the libraries, hearing about why U. Chile is the best university in the world, etc etc.
One presenter was quite interesting because he spoke in Spanish, but his powerpoint presentation was written in English. Unfortunately, it was definitely not proofread very closely. However, the funny spelling mistakes (cooper instead of copper, engieneiring instead of engineering, etc etc) provided some entertainment to keep us alert during the endless presentations and introductions.
Met some people from other programs who are studying in Chile as well - people from California, Spain, Germany, Japan...everywhere!
Went on a tour of a few of the campuses of La Chile. Yes - not only do we have to master 2 universities (University of Chile and Pontificia Catholic University), we also have to figure out their numerous campuses scattered around the city! Boy oh boy it feels like these orientations are never going to end.
Toured around the very interesting (and not very pretty) buildings and saw just a glimpse of La Chile's token liberal flair. Even though classes haven't even started, the campuses are already decorated with protest banners, murals and grafitti all over the place. Vibrant, but kind of sad how they treat their school property.
Monday night went to a local shopping area with some friends. A few of my friends were on a desperate search for boots and I just browsed looking for some warm clothes. Found a few cute things, but soon realized that I won't be buying much while I'm down here. Most stores only carry shoes up to size 40 for women (I wear a 42-a 10 in the US). And most clothes sizes are way smaller than their US counterparts. Oh well- guess that's a good way to prevent me from buying stuff.
Tuesday:
Last day of orientation class. Sad, but a relief to be done with at least one class. Learned about social movements in Chile. At least, kind of learned about them...the lecturer was hard to understand. Then watched a great documentary about the Rebellion of the Penguins. Showed some nasty scenes of police using violence against the kids - quite disturbing.
As one of our last projects for our class, we went to the Plaza de Armas - a crowded square- in Santiago and talked to random people to hear their thoughts on Chile/Chilean politics/American politics/etc. My group was nervous at first, but we found two couples who each talked our ears off - each going on for about 30 minutes about all of their grievances. One of the couples had just returned from living in Canada for 6 years and they complained about discrimination in Chile. For example, here it is required to include your date of birth and a photo of yourself with any job application because there is apparently age discrimination and ethnic discrimination (judged purely on skin color). We were also told numerous times not to associate with Peruvians because they are "dirty lazy money-stealers." Yikes.
Came home and got a little sick. I think because I drank a good amount of tap water today- probably a bad idea. Although I thought I had acquainted myself with the water already, apparently I didn't do an adequate job. Things are better now, but last night was pretty miserable. From now on, I'll just stick with bottled water...
Wednesday:
This morning we had an oral and written exam to test our level of Spanish. The oral exam was short and sweet- my group only had to talk about the theme of women in power for about 5 minutes. However, the written exam was harder than I anticipated. It lasted a good hour and a half and just asked questions in a strange way. Oh well, we'll see what happens.
In the afternoon we went to the CIEE office to look through the La Chile and La Catolica course catologs to figure out our classes for the coming semester. I was pretty overwhelmed all afternoon because there are SO many factors we have to consider in choosing courses. For example:
-will my home school give me credit for this course?
-will I be able to understand the professor who teaches this course?
-Is the material in this course the appropriate level for my understanding of the subject?
-does this class conflict with any of my other classes?
-will I have enough time to travel from this campus to my next class' campus?
-will I enjoy this course?
-will this course have too much work?
I think I've found some good classes to take so far for La Chile. Now I just have to cross my fingers that I get into those courses! Now I have to repeat the process for La Catolica. And then I have to figure out which courses to drop so that I'm taking some at La Chile and some at La Catolica. Ahh what a puzzle this is.
Tonight I returned to the office of ComunidadMujer and read through a bunch of documents to orient myself with CM's Women in Political Leadership training seminars that they put on this past April and June. My main project is going to be compiling the information from this event to create a "how-to" guide for women who want to enter into politics. CM's facilities are really nice and they do everything with very professional quality. Logos and designs are all professionally made, their staff includes a communications director with a journalism background - I was very impressed to see a nonprofit managed like a for-profit organization.
Came home, had artichokes for dinner (I'd never eaten a whole artichoke before...yum!) Victoria ate hers with mayo. I had mine with vinegar. Yum yum. At dinner, Marcela and Victoria called someone a "tulululu." I didn't quite get what it meant, but it's a funny thing to call someone.
Gotta get up early. Night night.
Ciao,
Lindsay
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
si, po
So instead of adding 5 new vocab words to each post, I decided to put a list along the side of the page. So check there for some chilean slang/vocab I learn along the way.
Along those lines, one interesting thing that Chileans do when they talk is add "po" after sentences. I think it's supposed to be short for "por supuesto" (translation: "of course") but I'm not totally sure...
Thursday:
Learned about education in Chile. Most interesting part was the discussion about La Rebelion de los Pinguinos (The Revolt of the Penguins) that took place down here in 2006. Chilean schoolchildren are called penguins because their black and white suit and tie uniforms make them look like little packs of penguins as they wobble to and from school every day.
So although these little penguins look innocent and feeble, apparently they're pretty smart little things. Two years ago, after a rise in price of the PSU (Chilean version of the SAT), a decrease in school transportation funds and the implementation of a system that would privatize Chilean schools (among other things), a group of Chilean high school students organized a nationwide revolt. Over 1 million students from 1,000 schools across the country participated in marches and demonstrations to show the government that they would not tolerate any more negative government intervention on their education system and to get their voices heard. And boy were they heard loud and clear. Citizens from around the country- of all ages, from all occupations, from all political parties, responded in resounding support of the pinguinos' requests. Apparently some of the kids who organized the revolt made a very good impression through Chilean media- the lecturer was telling us about one 15-year-old boy who was being pressured to disclose information from a closed-door meeting with the Minister of Education and the student responded "I'm not at liberty to disclose that information." Haha - precious.
Although the government responded positively to most of the requests, it seems that many students are still unhappy with the education system. Many people have told me that they think there might be another uprising - or at least a few protests- this schoolyear...so I'll keep you updated as I learn more.
Later that afternoon we were split into the groups with which we'll be taking our Spanish oral exams this coming week. We had to decide on a discussion topic and one kid in my group brought a very interesting perspective to the table. As we browsed through the list of questions, one girl in my group (not me, surprisingly) said "Why don't we talk about number 15- "Discuss the current role of women in leadership in Latin America." While most of the group nodded in agreement that it would be a good topic with a lot of information to discuss, one boy chimed in, "But what about that period thing?" I wasn't really sure I heard him correctly, so I just ignored the comment, but another girl in our group asked him to clarify. So the boy went on, in complete seriousness, to say "You know- how when women are on their period they can't think clearly and stuff, so they don't make good leaders."
I desperately wanted to start either a) laughing hysterically or b) ranting about why that was such a preposterous and politically incorrect statement; however, I restrained myself and just rolled my eyes instead. Fortunately, the other boys and girls in the group were on the same page as me and we quickly agreed that were were DEFINITELY using this for our discussion topic - at least it would make for a lively debate!
At lunch I went for a walk with my friend Marni and we both agreed that we wanted to improve our Spanish as much as possible and it was hard to improve with all of the American students speaking English to each other. So we made a pact to speak Spanish with each other at least - which is good b/c she's the person I've been spending the most time with so far.
In the afternoon, our tutor took us to the Cultural Center of La Moneda - an underground Art/Cinema center located in what used to be Pinochet's bomb shelter. Saw some really fun modern art of famous artists from around the world. Although I never really understand the complete meaning of modern art, I always enjoy trying to solve the secret code of what the artist is trying to communicate.
Came home and had dinner of charquican (basically a pureed version of the dinner from the night before) which was carbonada (a stew with carrots and corn and potatoes and red meat and such). The day before that, we had chorrillana (fried potatoes+egg+meat). Why do all of these dishes sound the same?! (at least fairly similar...)
Friday:
Started off the morning learning about Chilean cinema. Apparently, along with a lot of other aspects of pop culture, Chileans typically rely on American cinema to fill their theaters. However, recently there has been a surge in Chilean cinema (now that they're allowed to actually make movies after years of no cinema during the dictatorship). We watched one example of a popular Chilean movie, called "El Chacotero Sentimental" (literal translation: "The Sentimental Feeler." Other translation: a nickname for the male reproductive part).
The movie was divided into three different parts - each telling a different story but all of them relating to similar themes in modern Chilean culture. A bit scandalous but quite entertaining.
Later learned about Chilean music, from folklore to protest musicians to their copycat versions of Elvis Presley and the Beatles.
Went to dinner with he CIEE group to a big restaurant with Chilean food (sopapillas, ceviche, meat kabobs, salad, fish, meat, etc). The point of the dinner was for us to meet with our "Chilean ambassador" - a student who would show us around their university and introduce us to their friends and stuff so that we could adjust easier to campus life down here. My group's ambassador is named Andres and he is very friendly - should be fun getting to know him even better.
When the dinner was over, my tutor (a late 60s year old man who wears the same sweater two days in a row then switches) came over to say goodbye and gave me the customary cheek kiss. although it's a normal custom for every occasion, our tutor had never done the cheek kiss in class (maybe the wine at dinner made him loosen up). But anyhow it just felt weird and gross and now i'm going to forget it happened.
Came home around 10 and Victoria had a friend over for coffee. Went to bed at 1AM and they were still chatting away! My host mom sure knows how to chat.
Saturday:
SKIING IN THE ANDES!!!!
Sorry...the whole day was just so surreal that I still can't get over it. thank goodness i didn't miss out - I was supposed to meet up with my friends at 7AM and work up at 645. Luckily, I had prepared everything the night before and made it to the metro station by 7:02. Hooray. Met up with a group of about 14 of my classmates and we rode a bus up and up and up the mountain for about an hour and a half. Felt miserably ill as we ascended up the mountain, turning back and forth on roads that basically folded on top of each other. I was sitting backwards on the bus which was part of the problem, plus I was staring out the windows the entire time (I couldn't help it - every five seconds there was a new breathtaking sight!). Then I was worried that part of the illness was from altitude sickness, which might have ruined my plans to ski; however, luckily once we got out of the van at the top of the mountain I felt a gazillion times better.
On the bus ride, we met a group of guys in the marines who are currently serving as security guards for the American embassy in Chile. Got some good insight into places we should visit while in Chile and heard their perspectives on what the military should be doing/should have done in Iraq.
Arrived at Valle Nevado around 10AM and began teaching ski school to a few of my friends who had never skied before (boy do they have a cool story to tell: "yeah, I learned to ski in the Andes"). The morning was a bit slow - we had 7 girls, half who knew how to ski, half who didn't - all trying to stay together and wait patiently as the slower ones made their way down the mountain. Then one girl lost her phone, so we had to go on a recon mission to search for that (no luck, unfortunately). Then, another girl's bindings were too loose so we had to solve that problem. By lunchtime, everyone understood the basics and felt comfortable on the mountain and on the chair lift.
After lunch, my friends and I who knew how to ski decided to get our money's worth out of the day. We parted from the rest of the group and went on some tougher runs. My favorite was this cool natural halfpipe that was fluffy enough that I didn't lose control on it. The weather was absolutely perfect - sun shining and reflecting off the snow - it was so warm I even took off a layer of clothing (such a relief after fearing that I'd be frozen all day).
Valle Nevado was a really cool resort with a lot of interesting runs and endless amazing views; however, I think the main area is poorly designed. At the bottom of the hill where basically all of the runs pool together, you don't ski into the main entrance to the park w/the bathrooms and lockers and stuff. Instead, you have to take a lift to get back up to that area. And unfortunately, it's a two-person lift that gets stuck every 3 minutes or so! Gah- annoying. But probably only for impatient people like me.
Came home, had dinner with Victoria + Marcelita's family. Felipe was back from vacation and this time when we talked I was able to understand him a lot better than last Saturday. Hooray for progress in Spanish!
Sunday:
Met up with a friend to visit a Protestant church. Got a little lost trying to find the bus stop, but eventually found my way. Part of the struggle I've had in getting around the city is the incredibly strange way that the Santiago map handbook is laid out. Fortunately, I think I've finally cracked the code of how it works, so hopefully I'll be able to find things more easily now.
Anyways, the church we went to was really welcoming and had lots of music and was filled with people...it just felt wonderful to be there. The sermon was about Jesus turning water into wine - a story that probably meant a lot more to the Chileans (imagine a wedding without wine! what a catastrophe!).
After the service, I heard two guys talking in English and so my friend and I went over to introduce ourselves to them. Turns out that they lead a college ministry (more of a focus on reaching out to Chileans - but they said we're welcome to come too) and one of the guys graduated from Georgia Tech! Small world!
Came home, had lunch with Victoria and Vecita, then walked a mere 4 blocks to get to the outlet mall area. (This is going to be dangerous having cheap shopping so close!). Victoria picked up a few things at Falabella (Latin American department store...they have evvverything!). She bought me a thermos so that she can pack warm lunches for me when I go to school and had them gift wrap it as a present--haha so adorable.
Tonight I went to say goodnight to Victoria and saw that she was watching a movie with Jake Gyllenhal so I decided to stay awhile. Ended up watching an entire movie called Zodiac - about this serial killer and a little cryptographic game he played with California newspapers. Good movie but crappy ending (but I think it's based on a true story, so I can't blame the moviemakers for the ending I guess).
Okay school tomorrow- time for bed. Hasta luego.
Un besito,
Lindsay
Along those lines, one interesting thing that Chileans do when they talk is add "po" after sentences. I think it's supposed to be short for "por supuesto" (translation: "of course") but I'm not totally sure...
Thursday:
Learned about education in Chile. Most interesting part was the discussion about La Rebelion de los Pinguinos (The Revolt of the Penguins) that took place down here in 2006. Chilean schoolchildren are called penguins because their black and white suit and tie uniforms make them look like little packs of penguins as they wobble to and from school every day.
So although these little penguins look innocent and feeble, apparently they're pretty smart little things. Two years ago, after a rise in price of the PSU (Chilean version of the SAT), a decrease in school transportation funds and the implementation of a system that would privatize Chilean schools (among other things), a group of Chilean high school students organized a nationwide revolt. Over 1 million students from 1,000 schools across the country participated in marches and demonstrations to show the government that they would not tolerate any more negative government intervention on their education system and to get their voices heard. And boy were they heard loud and clear. Citizens from around the country- of all ages, from all occupations, from all political parties, responded in resounding support of the pinguinos' requests. Apparently some of the kids who organized the revolt made a very good impression through Chilean media- the lecturer was telling us about one 15-year-old boy who was being pressured to disclose information from a closed-door meeting with the Minister of Education and the student responded "I'm not at liberty to disclose that information." Haha - precious.
Although the government responded positively to most of the requests, it seems that many students are still unhappy with the education system. Many people have told me that they think there might be another uprising - or at least a few protests- this schoolyear...so I'll keep you updated as I learn more.
Later that afternoon we were split into the groups with which we'll be taking our Spanish oral exams this coming week. We had to decide on a discussion topic and one kid in my group brought a very interesting perspective to the table. As we browsed through the list of questions, one girl in my group (not me, surprisingly) said "Why don't we talk about number 15- "Discuss the current role of women in leadership in Latin America." While most of the group nodded in agreement that it would be a good topic with a lot of information to discuss, one boy chimed in, "But what about that period thing?" I wasn't really sure I heard him correctly, so I just ignored the comment, but another girl in our group asked him to clarify. So the boy went on, in complete seriousness, to say "You know- how when women are on their period they can't think clearly and stuff, so they don't make good leaders."
I desperately wanted to start either a) laughing hysterically or b) ranting about why that was such a preposterous and politically incorrect statement; however, I restrained myself and just rolled my eyes instead. Fortunately, the other boys and girls in the group were on the same page as me and we quickly agreed that were were DEFINITELY using this for our discussion topic - at least it would make for a lively debate!
At lunch I went for a walk with my friend Marni and we both agreed that we wanted to improve our Spanish as much as possible and it was hard to improve with all of the American students speaking English to each other. So we made a pact to speak Spanish with each other at least - which is good b/c she's the person I've been spending the most time with so far.
In the afternoon, our tutor took us to the Cultural Center of La Moneda - an underground Art/Cinema center located in what used to be Pinochet's bomb shelter. Saw some really fun modern art of famous artists from around the world. Although I never really understand the complete meaning of modern art, I always enjoy trying to solve the secret code of what the artist is trying to communicate.
Came home and had dinner of charquican (basically a pureed version of the dinner from the night before) which was carbonada (a stew with carrots and corn and potatoes and red meat and such). The day before that, we had chorrillana (fried potatoes+egg+meat). Why do all of these dishes sound the same?! (at least fairly similar...)
Friday:
Started off the morning learning about Chilean cinema. Apparently, along with a lot of other aspects of pop culture, Chileans typically rely on American cinema to fill their theaters. However, recently there has been a surge in Chilean cinema (now that they're allowed to actually make movies after years of no cinema during the dictatorship). We watched one example of a popular Chilean movie, called "El Chacotero Sentimental" (literal translation: "The Sentimental Feeler." Other translation: a nickname for the male reproductive part).
The movie was divided into three different parts - each telling a different story but all of them relating to similar themes in modern Chilean culture. A bit scandalous but quite entertaining.
Later learned about Chilean music, from folklore to protest musicians to their copycat versions of Elvis Presley and the Beatles.
Went to dinner with he CIEE group to a big restaurant with Chilean food (sopapillas, ceviche, meat kabobs, salad, fish, meat, etc). The point of the dinner was for us to meet with our "Chilean ambassador" - a student who would show us around their university and introduce us to their friends and stuff so that we could adjust easier to campus life down here. My group's ambassador is named Andres and he is very friendly - should be fun getting to know him even better.
When the dinner was over, my tutor (a late 60s year old man who wears the same sweater two days in a row then switches) came over to say goodbye and gave me the customary cheek kiss. although it's a normal custom for every occasion, our tutor had never done the cheek kiss in class (maybe the wine at dinner made him loosen up). But anyhow it just felt weird and gross and now i'm going to forget it happened.
Came home around 10 and Victoria had a friend over for coffee. Went to bed at 1AM and they were still chatting away! My host mom sure knows how to chat.
Saturday:
SKIING IN THE ANDES!!!!
Sorry...the whole day was just so surreal that I still can't get over it. thank goodness i didn't miss out - I was supposed to meet up with my friends at 7AM and work up at 645. Luckily, I had prepared everything the night before and made it to the metro station by 7:02. Hooray. Met up with a group of about 14 of my classmates and we rode a bus up and up and up the mountain for about an hour and a half. Felt miserably ill as we ascended up the mountain, turning back and forth on roads that basically folded on top of each other. I was sitting backwards on the bus which was part of the problem, plus I was staring out the windows the entire time (I couldn't help it - every five seconds there was a new breathtaking sight!). Then I was worried that part of the illness was from altitude sickness, which might have ruined my plans to ski; however, luckily once we got out of the van at the top of the mountain I felt a gazillion times better.
On the bus ride, we met a group of guys in the marines who are currently serving as security guards for the American embassy in Chile. Got some good insight into places we should visit while in Chile and heard their perspectives on what the military should be doing/should have done in Iraq.
Arrived at Valle Nevado around 10AM and began teaching ski school to a few of my friends who had never skied before (boy do they have a cool story to tell: "yeah, I learned to ski in the Andes"). The morning was a bit slow - we had 7 girls, half who knew how to ski, half who didn't - all trying to stay together and wait patiently as the slower ones made their way down the mountain. Then one girl lost her phone, so we had to go on a recon mission to search for that (no luck, unfortunately). Then, another girl's bindings were too loose so we had to solve that problem. By lunchtime, everyone understood the basics and felt comfortable on the mountain and on the chair lift.
After lunch, my friends and I who knew how to ski decided to get our money's worth out of the day. We parted from the rest of the group and went on some tougher runs. My favorite was this cool natural halfpipe that was fluffy enough that I didn't lose control on it. The weather was absolutely perfect - sun shining and reflecting off the snow - it was so warm I even took off a layer of clothing (such a relief after fearing that I'd be frozen all day).
Valle Nevado was a really cool resort with a lot of interesting runs and endless amazing views; however, I think the main area is poorly designed. At the bottom of the hill where basically all of the runs pool together, you don't ski into the main entrance to the park w/the bathrooms and lockers and stuff. Instead, you have to take a lift to get back up to that area. And unfortunately, it's a two-person lift that gets stuck every 3 minutes or so! Gah- annoying. But probably only for impatient people like me.
Came home, had dinner with Victoria + Marcelita's family. Felipe was back from vacation and this time when we talked I was able to understand him a lot better than last Saturday. Hooray for progress in Spanish!
Sunday:
Met up with a friend to visit a Protestant church. Got a little lost trying to find the bus stop, but eventually found my way. Part of the struggle I've had in getting around the city is the incredibly strange way that the Santiago map handbook is laid out. Fortunately, I think I've finally cracked the code of how it works, so hopefully I'll be able to find things more easily now.
Anyways, the church we went to was really welcoming and had lots of music and was filled with people...it just felt wonderful to be there. The sermon was about Jesus turning water into wine - a story that probably meant a lot more to the Chileans (imagine a wedding without wine! what a catastrophe!).
After the service, I heard two guys talking in English and so my friend and I went over to introduce ourselves to them. Turns out that they lead a college ministry (more of a focus on reaching out to Chileans - but they said we're welcome to come too) and one of the guys graduated from Georgia Tech! Small world!
Came home, had lunch with Victoria and Vecita, then walked a mere 4 blocks to get to the outlet mall area. (This is going to be dangerous having cheap shopping so close!). Victoria picked up a few things at Falabella (Latin American department store...they have evvverything!). She bought me a thermos so that she can pack warm lunches for me when I go to school and had them gift wrap it as a present--haha so adorable.
Tonight I went to say goodnight to Victoria and saw that she was watching a movie with Jake Gyllenhal so I decided to stay awhile. Ended up watching an entire movie called Zodiac - about this serial killer and a little cryptographic game he played with California newspapers. Good movie but crappy ending (but I think it's based on a true story, so I can't blame the moviemakers for the ending I guess).
Okay school tomorrow- time for bed. Hasta luego.
Un besito,
Lindsay
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
que fome
So back in Philly, I work for an organization called Women's Campaign International. It's a non-profit that helps train women for political leadership positions in various countries around the world (Sri Lanka, Colombia, Ethiopia, etc). While I was talking to one of my bosses about studying abroad in Chile, she told me about an organization in Santiago that approached WCI about collaborating on a project at the end of last year. Unfortunately, WCI didn't have the resources to help them at the time; however, my boss gave me the contact information of the executive director of the company. Not expecting any response, I sent the woman an email a few months ago and asked if she might have a project I could help out with during my stay in Chile. To my surprise, I received a warm invitation to an interview when I arrived in Santiago.
Tuesday morning, I had this interview with Sra Carey from CommunidadMujer (awesome website for a non-profit organization, in my opinion). We began the interview in Spanish, but within a few minutes Sra. Carey paused and declared "we can speak in English, if you want." Although I should be speaking Spanish every second of every day so that I can improve, it was nice to focus my energy on the interview questions instead of my grammar and accent.
Apparently things went well because Sra. Carey invited me to work with her on developing a program to train Chilean women skills for political leadership. Although they've already conducted a trial program in this capacity (which Chilean President Michelle Bachelet attended!), CommunidadMujer wants to figure out where to focus their efforts (local government vs. national government; new political leaders vs. current political figures) to best serve Chile- where only 15% of current members of congress are women. I'm really looking forward to this project. Perhaps I can even use the program back in the U.S., where women comprise a mere 90 out of 540 members of Congress (16.67%) and 8 out of 50 state governors (16%). And people say that women are treated equally in the United States? At least in Chile they admit that they live in a machismo society...
Pues, my morning started off on the right topic because in class on Tuesday we talked a bit about the Chilean system of government/elections/etc. Learned about the different political parties (which still confuse me muchisimo - all of the parties try to appear moderate, so they say they are center-left even when they are extremely left or vice versa. Ay ay ay.
Interesting facts about Chilean government:
-presidents are not allowed to run for re-election (for fear of another dictatorship/military takeover)
-they elect Congress through a binomial election which is fairly complicated and kind of silly in my opinion
Umm later that afternoon we watched a fantastic movie called Machuca. It's in Spanish but has English subtitles if you don't mind reading your movies instead of just watching them. The story focuses on the integration of lower-class Chileans in a private Catholic school and explains the rise of Pinochet through the eyes of two little boys. The movie is very touching, but also a bit heavy towards the end...so prepare yourself. The movie is really important for Chile because it was prohibited to make movies during the reign of Pinochet - so this film is filling in a lost period of Chile's cinematic history.
Learning about some of the terrible things that have happened in Chile has been pretty tough emotionally. When we leave class every night, we walk by La Moneda - where Allende was attacked - and we all get goosebumps down our spines. We also feel a bit paranoid - as if another golpe de estado could occur at any minute. Obviously, this is crazy talk considering the reign of Pinochet is long gone, but imagine walking through the Gettysburg battlefield every day - wouldn't you feel a bit uneasy too?
Tuesday night, went to the mall with a group of friends. My friend's host brother drove us there and we discovered the coolest thing in the parking garage: when you drive onto each level, there are illuminated signs that point you to open parking spots! Each parking spot has a sensor and a light above that turns green when it's free and red when it's occupied. Then apparently the sensors send a message to the sign which points you to the closest open spot! Amazing!!!
The initial reason for going to the mall was to go ice skating, but due to winter vacation, the ice skating rink was filled to the brim with little kids. So instead, we went shopping. I got a hair straightener (finally!) and then just window shopped. This mall is absolutely ridiculous. Along with an parking spot notifiers, an ice skating rink, a huge movie theater, a benihana, and a tgi fridays, they also have a grocery store and outdoor fountains. and on tuesday at 8pm, it was so crowded that you would have thought it was a saturday afternoon during tax-free weekend.
Came home, did homework, went to bed.
Pause - i'm trying to improve my vocab as much as possible so i'm going to include some new words in every post from now on. Here are today's fun Chilean words/phrases
-Que fome! - how lame/boring
-guagua (pronnounced "wawa") - baby
-coche - baby carriage
-auto - car
-cachai? - you know what i mean?
-cache - i know what you mean
Wednesday:
Decided to walk to school. Walked for an hour and a half and only got about 2/3 of the way there! Makes sense considering my metro stop is about 12 stops from where I had to go. Tomorrow I think I'll just go running and then take the metro instead of arriving at school all sweaty.
Learned about literature, art and theater during the dictatorship of Chile.
One really interesting "artist" we learned about was called CADA - the Collective of Art Actions. Because traditional art would have just been destroyed during the Pinochet regime, the artists of CADA performed different actions as a form of art in order to make political statements. For example, they in an effort called “Oh, South America” (1981) they flew six planes in the same route as the ones that bombed La Moneda in 1973. However, instead of dropping bombs, these planes dropped 400,000 papers with poems and encouraging phrases over the whole city. For example, one phrase was: “Each individual who works for the expansion of the space of his or her life (even if mental) is an artist.”
Another action of CADA occurred in 1983, when groups of people covered the city with the phrase "No +" (indicating "no mas" or "no more"). The effort was supposed to encourage the people of Santiago to fill in the rest of the phrase - "no more dictatorship" "no more hunger" "no more suffering" etc.
Very simple ideas, but very powerful messages.
That afternoon, we visited La Chascona - Pablo Neruda's house in Santiago. Pablo Neruda was a Chilean poet/author/politician that won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. He was a fascinating character and had an incredible house to prove it.
Apparently, Mr. Neruda was very fond of collecting things. His house was filled with all kinds of paperweights, souvenirs from his worldly travels and a lofty collection of awards and medals. However, Neruda didn't just collect material objects...
If you've ever read Neruda's poetry, you probably know that he was quite the romancer. Not surprisingly, his beautiful words won him a handful of wives and lovers. Therefore, he had to maintain a few different houses to keep his ladies from getting jealous about one another. This house, La Chascona, was built for his third wife- Matilde (secret lover while he was married to his second wife).
The house is decorated in a nautical theme - all the furniture is from ships and the walls are covered with antique cartographer's maps (one of which shows the United States as two long islands - the east coast as one island and California as another!). The walls also bear numerous personalized gifts from his close friends (like a portrait of Matilde painted by Diego Rivera and numerous other gifts from people like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Edgar Allen Poe, Walt Whitman...you know... no-name people like that).
Apparently Neruda was a funny character too- he had a secret passageway in which he would enter the dining room to surprise guests, his salt and pepper shakers were labeled "marijuana" and "morphine" to see if people paid attention and he collected really strange, eclectic things (like a giant pair of shoes that were apparently used for shoe stores to put outside their door to indicate what they sold (in an era where a fair number of people didn't know how to read). Strange strange.
Ah must sleep but now I'll leave you with my favorite Neruda poem (spanish then english)-
Soneta XVII
Sonnet XVII
I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving
but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.
Un besito,
Lindsay
Tuesday morning, I had this interview with Sra Carey from CommunidadMujer (awesome website for a non-profit organization, in my opinion). We began the interview in Spanish, but within a few minutes Sra. Carey paused and declared "we can speak in English, if you want." Although I should be speaking Spanish every second of every day so that I can improve, it was nice to focus my energy on the interview questions instead of my grammar and accent.
Apparently things went well because Sra. Carey invited me to work with her on developing a program to train Chilean women skills for political leadership. Although they've already conducted a trial program in this capacity (which Chilean President Michelle Bachelet attended!), CommunidadMujer wants to figure out where to focus their efforts (local government vs. national government; new political leaders vs. current political figures) to best serve Chile- where only 15% of current members of congress are women. I'm really looking forward to this project. Perhaps I can even use the program back in the U.S., where women comprise a mere 90 out of 540 members of Congress (16.67%) and 8 out of 50 state governors (16%). And people say that women are treated equally in the United States? At least in Chile they admit that they live in a machismo society...
Pues, my morning started off on the right topic because in class on Tuesday we talked a bit about the Chilean system of government/elections/etc. Learned about the different political parties (which still confuse me muchisimo - all of the parties try to appear moderate, so they say they are center-left even when they are extremely left or vice versa. Ay ay ay.
Interesting facts about Chilean government:
-presidents are not allowed to run for re-election (for fear of another dictatorship/military takeover)
-they elect Congress through a binomial election which is fairly complicated and kind of silly in my opinion
Umm later that afternoon we watched a fantastic movie called Machuca. It's in Spanish but has English subtitles if you don't mind reading your movies instead of just watching them. The story focuses on the integration of lower-class Chileans in a private Catholic school and explains the rise of Pinochet through the eyes of two little boys. The movie is very touching, but also a bit heavy towards the end...so prepare yourself. The movie is really important for Chile because it was prohibited to make movies during the reign of Pinochet - so this film is filling in a lost period of Chile's cinematic history.
Learning about some of the terrible things that have happened in Chile has been pretty tough emotionally. When we leave class every night, we walk by La Moneda - where Allende was attacked - and we all get goosebumps down our spines. We also feel a bit paranoid - as if another golpe de estado could occur at any minute. Obviously, this is crazy talk considering the reign of Pinochet is long gone, but imagine walking through the Gettysburg battlefield every day - wouldn't you feel a bit uneasy too?
Tuesday night, went to the mall with a group of friends. My friend's host brother drove us there and we discovered the coolest thing in the parking garage: when you drive onto each level, there are illuminated signs that point you to open parking spots! Each parking spot has a sensor and a light above that turns green when it's free and red when it's occupied. Then apparently the sensors send a message to the sign which points you to the closest open spot! Amazing!!!
The initial reason for going to the mall was to go ice skating, but due to winter vacation, the ice skating rink was filled to the brim with little kids. So instead, we went shopping. I got a hair straightener (finally!) and then just window shopped. This mall is absolutely ridiculous. Along with an parking spot notifiers, an ice skating rink, a huge movie theater, a benihana, and a tgi fridays, they also have a grocery store and outdoor fountains. and on tuesday at 8pm, it was so crowded that you would have thought it was a saturday afternoon during tax-free weekend.
Came home, did homework, went to bed.
Pause - i'm trying to improve my vocab as much as possible so i'm going to include some new words in every post from now on. Here are today's fun Chilean words/phrases
-Que fome! - how lame/boring
-guagua (pronnounced "wawa") - baby
-coche - baby carriage
-auto - car
-cachai? - you know what i mean?
-cache - i know what you mean
Wednesday:
Decided to walk to school. Walked for an hour and a half and only got about 2/3 of the way there! Makes sense considering my metro stop is about 12 stops from where I had to go. Tomorrow I think I'll just go running and then take the metro instead of arriving at school all sweaty.
Learned about literature, art and theater during the dictatorship of Chile.
One really interesting "artist" we learned about was called CADA - the Collective of Art Actions. Because traditional art would have just been destroyed during the Pinochet regime, the artists of CADA performed different actions as a form of art in order to make political statements. For example, they in an effort called “Oh, South America” (1981) they flew six planes in the same route as the ones that bombed La Moneda in 1973. However, instead of dropping bombs, these planes dropped 400,000 papers with poems and encouraging phrases over the whole city. For example, one phrase was: “Each individual who works for the expansion of the space of his or her life (even if mental) is an artist.”
Another action of CADA occurred in 1983, when groups of people covered the city with the phrase "No +" (indicating "no mas" or "no more"). The effort was supposed to encourage the people of Santiago to fill in the rest of the phrase - "no more dictatorship" "no more hunger" "no more suffering" etc.
Very simple ideas, but very powerful messages.
That afternoon, we visited La Chascona - Pablo Neruda's house in Santiago. Pablo Neruda was a Chilean poet/author/politician that won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. He was a fascinating character and had an incredible house to prove it.
Apparently, Mr. Neruda was very fond of collecting things. His house was filled with all kinds of paperweights, souvenirs from his worldly travels and a lofty collection of awards and medals. However, Neruda didn't just collect material objects...
If you've ever read Neruda's poetry, you probably know that he was quite the romancer. Not surprisingly, his beautiful words won him a handful of wives and lovers. Therefore, he had to maintain a few different houses to keep his ladies from getting jealous about one another. This house, La Chascona, was built for his third wife- Matilde (secret lover while he was married to his second wife).
The house is decorated in a nautical theme - all the furniture is from ships and the walls are covered with antique cartographer's maps (one of which shows the United States as two long islands - the east coast as one island and California as another!). The walls also bear numerous personalized gifts from his close friends (like a portrait of Matilde painted by Diego Rivera and numerous other gifts from people like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Edgar Allen Poe, Walt Whitman...you know... no-name people like that).
Apparently Neruda was a funny character too- he had a secret passageway in which he would enter the dining room to surprise guests, his salt and pepper shakers were labeled "marijuana" and "morphine" to see if people paid attention and he collected really strange, eclectic things (like a giant pair of shoes that were apparently used for shoe stores to put outside their door to indicate what they sold (in an era where a fair number of people didn't know how to read). Strange strange.
Ah must sleep but now I'll leave you with my favorite Neruda poem (spanish then english)-
Soneta XVII
No te amo como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio
o flecha de claveles que propagan el fuego:
te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras,
secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma.
Te amo como la planta que no florece y lleva
dentro de sí, escondida, la luz de aquellas flores,
y gracias a tu amor vive oscuro en mi cuerpo
el apretado aroma que ascendió de la tierra.
Te amo sin saber cómo, ni cuándo, ni de dónde,
te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo:
así te amo porque no sé amar de otra manera,
sino así de este modo en que no soy ni eres,
tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mía,
tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño.
Sonnet XVII
I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving
but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.
Un besito,
Lindsay
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Saturday night:
I desperately need to work out...Chileans definitely do NOT eat a healthy diet. They love mayonnaise and butter and put them both on everything. Ham and cheese sandwich? Served with hunks of butter instead of mustard or low-fat mayo. Lay's potato chips? They come with a packet of Hellmann's mayonnaise attached so that you can accompany your grease-soaked chips with some more fat. What do they sell on street corners? How about some sopapillas (deep fried dough covered in sugar) or completos (hot dogs with HEAPS of mayonnaise, guacamole, ketchup, mustard, etc). That's another thing -- they LOVE hot dogs here. When I went to the supermarket the other day, I walked past the hot dog case and I thought I was seeing double, nay - quadruple! While an American supermarket might have, say, 5 varieties of hot dogs, this case had at least 50 varieties of hot dogs! Honest to goodness- an entire 8-foot by 4 foot refrigerated case filled to the brim with every type of hot dog you could possibly imagine. Weird.
So although I have avoided most of these decadent dishes, it seems nearly impossible to avoid gaining weight down here. However, Victoria is becoming more understanding when I tell her that I've had enough to eat. The main problem I'm presently facing is the lack of affordable exercise options in the city. Although I would love to join the gym that I visited on Saturday, I looked into prices and discovered that it would cost about $80 a month! Ridiculous! And running outside is not a good option b/c 1) the air pollution is absolutely terrible and 2) winter means that it gets dark around 6, which is when I've been getting home from class. Gah! One of my friends heard something about a discount for American students, but we'll see if that works out...
Later Saturday night, Victoria and I watched "Recount" - a movie about the US Presidential election of 2000 and the recount mess that ensued. It was interesting talking to Victoria about her perception of the event and it was also interesting to look back at the election as a historical event. I, like most Americans, didn't pay much attention to the chaos at the time/got sick of hearing about the recount and was just happy when a decision was finally made. Looking back, I'm embarrassed that I wasn't more ashamed of the way things were treated. This weekend, I was talking with Marcela and Rodrigo about the apathy Americans have towards politics and they brought up a really interesting point -- in Latin America, people are more aggressive with their opinions. If they have a problem with government, they don't just complain to their neighbors and petition their congressmen - instead they hold protests, they go on strike, they start a ruckus. Although their system is a bit less sophisticated than that of the US, at least they care enough about issues to take real action. If something like the 2000 election were to happen in a Latin American country, you can bet there would have been many more angry voices taking action rather than allowing Bush to take the presidency and whining that he didn't deserve it.
But regarding the movie - it's a biased, but intriguing look at just one of the events that proves our Constitution doesn't always provide justice for all.
Sunday:
In general, Chile is a fairly conservative, fairly Catholic country. My host mom is Catholic; however, she hasn't gone to mass much in the past few years. But apparently a few days before I arrived, Victoria prayed to St. Theresa (one of the special saints of Santiago) and some miracle occurred (she explained all this to me on the first day, when I couldn't yet decipher everything she said). So because of this miracle, Victoria made a promise that she would go to mass every Sunday for an entire year, starting with this week. Although I'm not Catholic, I hadn't yet found a protestant church in Santiago and I wanted to experience a Chilean Catholic mass, so I accompanied Victoria to church.
Now although Victoria made this big promise, I'm not sure how well she'll follow through with it because her first Sunday did not start the year off well. We got out of the house around 10 and started walking to the church, which I assumed started mass around 10:30. However, when I asked Victoria about the church's schedule she responded "I don't have the church schedule - we'll just go see if this one is open and if it isn't, we'll find another one." Typical South America - don't plan ahead...just go with the flow and things will work out.
Things did work out eventually, but only after walking to one church that was closed, finding another church and sitting through the last ten minutes of the 10:00 mass, then finally attending a full 11:00 mass. Silly silly. The mass was hard to understand, but very interesting to observe. Later, Rodrigo asked me about my religion and wanted me to explain Protestantism. Once I gave a brief summary, Marcela exclaimed - "oooh, that's what religion I think I am!"
As we walked home from church, a man stopped and asked Victoria for directions. Victoria gave him a brief answer, then we quickly walked away as she muttered a comment about him being Peruvian. Although our teacher had mentioned that there was discrimination in Santiago, this was my first time witnessing it first hand - and it surprised me that sweet Victoria would say anything derogatory. Trying to be as politically correct as possible while still satisfying my curiosity, I asked Victoria why there was tension between the Peruvians and Chileans. She explained that many Peruvians have come into Chile in search of jobs and a better standard of living. Many Peruvians work as nannies or house cleaners here (both are very common in Santiago). But I get the feeling that Peruvians are treated like lower-class citizens...perhaps similar to how Mexicans are often treated in the US.
My professor tried to explain that Chile's racism is a result of it's isolation from the rest of the world. Since Chile is bordered by desert to the north, the Andes mountains to the east, the Pacific Ocean to the west and glaciers to the south, the country is almost an island - without much contact with other countries, at least until the last 20 years or so. Now that Chile is interacting with other countries, it will take some time for them to understand and appreciate different cultures. It's hypocritical of us to criticize Chileans for being racist considering the US has been home to people of various ethnicities for over 200 years, and we're still guilty of racism.
Since I made it through one touchy subject with Victoria, I decided to keep going and ask her about her dislike of Michelle Bachelet. She basically explained that at the beginning of Bachelet's term, Chile was in the best economic position that it had ever experienced, thanks to a rise in copper prices. However, Bachelet made some poor economic decisions (namely, investing millions in TranSantiago - a metro/bus system that is undergoing constant revision). Furthermore, commodities in general are just more expensive than before (according to Marcela, you can spend 20,000 pesos and purchase 5 things where as before you could purchase 10 items with the same amount.
Came home and Victoria prepared a huge lunch. First empanadas + red wine. Then chorrilleno (fried potatoes + steak + fried egg + fried onion= heart attack). Then fruit w/ice cream. Then tort w/dulce de leche. I only had an empanada and a bite of the chorilleno and was stuffed (estoy llena! is all i ever say) - but everyone else ate everything!
As we ate, we talked about the US presidential election and Rodrigo and Marcela told me "Obama is our candidate!" It wouldn't surprise me to find out that foreigners are more educated about American politics than Americans.
After lunch, Rodrigo and Marcela took me to the mall to buy new clothes for little Rodrigo. While waiting to check out, Rodrigo taught me some Chilean slang (mostly bad words so that I can understand what teenage boys are talking about). Then we stopped in the grocery store to pick up some stuff and we saw a lady handing out free samples of rum! Que loco.
Monday:
Had to go to the international police to register my student visa. Funnn fun. While waiting in line, I read the local newspaper and fortunately understood the majority of it! Quite a nice surprise, considering I never had the patience/couldn't comprehend the newspaper last summer in Argentina. I hope this means my Spanish is improving...
Rode the subway to class and was very impressed with it. Although it is crowded, all of the lines are very clearly labeled and you rarely have to wait more than 2 minutes for a train to arrive. A pleasant change in pace from the Philly system. (Yet people here complain about the metro...maybe it was bad before and now it's finally a lot better, or maybe I just haven't seen the negative aspects of it yet?)
Today we had a lecture about Chile's transition to democracy. It was hard to follow b/c the instructor spoke super fast and because he covered a lot of history, but it was still good to get acquainted with some of the names and events.
After our lesson, we took a tour around la Moneda/the Presidential Palace - the building which was bombed, killing Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973. The building was renovated after the attacks; however, nearby buildings still show scars from the bombings.
Watched a movie about September 11, again only to understand about half of it due to the quick speech and multitude of facts. Went home with an exhausted brain, but regained energy by chatting with Victoria over a bowl of lentils (yum!).
But now, I'm exhausted again. Hasta luego.
Un besito,
Lindsay
I desperately need to work out...Chileans definitely do NOT eat a healthy diet. They love mayonnaise and butter and put them both on everything. Ham and cheese sandwich? Served with hunks of butter instead of mustard or low-fat mayo. Lay's potato chips? They come with a packet of Hellmann's mayonnaise attached so that you can accompany your grease-soaked chips with some more fat. What do they sell on street corners? How about some sopapillas (deep fried dough covered in sugar) or completos (hot dogs with HEAPS of mayonnaise, guacamole, ketchup, mustard, etc). That's another thing -- they LOVE hot dogs here. When I went to the supermarket the other day, I walked past the hot dog case and I thought I was seeing double, nay - quadruple! While an American supermarket might have, say, 5 varieties of hot dogs, this case had at least 50 varieties of hot dogs! Honest to goodness- an entire 8-foot by 4 foot refrigerated case filled to the brim with every type of hot dog you could possibly imagine. Weird.
So although I have avoided most of these decadent dishes, it seems nearly impossible to avoid gaining weight down here. However, Victoria is becoming more understanding when I tell her that I've had enough to eat. The main problem I'm presently facing is the lack of affordable exercise options in the city. Although I would love to join the gym that I visited on Saturday, I looked into prices and discovered that it would cost about $80 a month! Ridiculous! And running outside is not a good option b/c 1) the air pollution is absolutely terrible and 2) winter means that it gets dark around 6, which is when I've been getting home from class. Gah! One of my friends heard something about a discount for American students, but we'll see if that works out...
Later Saturday night, Victoria and I watched "Recount" - a movie about the US Presidential election of 2000 and the recount mess that ensued. It was interesting talking to Victoria about her perception of the event and it was also interesting to look back at the election as a historical event. I, like most Americans, didn't pay much attention to the chaos at the time/got sick of hearing about the recount and was just happy when a decision was finally made. Looking back, I'm embarrassed that I wasn't more ashamed of the way things were treated. This weekend, I was talking with Marcela and Rodrigo about the apathy Americans have towards politics and they brought up a really interesting point -- in Latin America, people are more aggressive with their opinions. If they have a problem with government, they don't just complain to their neighbors and petition their congressmen - instead they hold protests, they go on strike, they start a ruckus. Although their system is a bit less sophisticated than that of the US, at least they care enough about issues to take real action. If something like the 2000 election were to happen in a Latin American country, you can bet there would have been many more angry voices taking action rather than allowing Bush to take the presidency and whining that he didn't deserve it.
But regarding the movie - it's a biased, but intriguing look at just one of the events that proves our Constitution doesn't always provide justice for all.
Sunday:
In general, Chile is a fairly conservative, fairly Catholic country. My host mom is Catholic; however, she hasn't gone to mass much in the past few years. But apparently a few days before I arrived, Victoria prayed to St. Theresa (one of the special saints of Santiago) and some miracle occurred (she explained all this to me on the first day, when I couldn't yet decipher everything she said). So because of this miracle, Victoria made a promise that she would go to mass every Sunday for an entire year, starting with this week. Although I'm not Catholic, I hadn't yet found a protestant church in Santiago and I wanted to experience a Chilean Catholic mass, so I accompanied Victoria to church.
Now although Victoria made this big promise, I'm not sure how well she'll follow through with it because her first Sunday did not start the year off well. We got out of the house around 10 and started walking to the church, which I assumed started mass around 10:30. However, when I asked Victoria about the church's schedule she responded "I don't have the church schedule - we'll just go see if this one is open and if it isn't, we'll find another one." Typical South America - don't plan ahead...just go with the flow and things will work out.
Things did work out eventually, but only after walking to one church that was closed, finding another church and sitting through the last ten minutes of the 10:00 mass, then finally attending a full 11:00 mass. Silly silly. The mass was hard to understand, but very interesting to observe. Later, Rodrigo asked me about my religion and wanted me to explain Protestantism. Once I gave a brief summary, Marcela exclaimed - "oooh, that's what religion I think I am!"
As we walked home from church, a man stopped and asked Victoria for directions. Victoria gave him a brief answer, then we quickly walked away as she muttered a comment about him being Peruvian. Although our teacher had mentioned that there was discrimination in Santiago, this was my first time witnessing it first hand - and it surprised me that sweet Victoria would say anything derogatory. Trying to be as politically correct as possible while still satisfying my curiosity, I asked Victoria why there was tension between the Peruvians and Chileans. She explained that many Peruvians have come into Chile in search of jobs and a better standard of living. Many Peruvians work as nannies or house cleaners here (both are very common in Santiago). But I get the feeling that Peruvians are treated like lower-class citizens...perhaps similar to how Mexicans are often treated in the US.
My professor tried to explain that Chile's racism is a result of it's isolation from the rest of the world. Since Chile is bordered by desert to the north, the Andes mountains to the east, the Pacific Ocean to the west and glaciers to the south, the country is almost an island - without much contact with other countries, at least until the last 20 years or so. Now that Chile is interacting with other countries, it will take some time for them to understand and appreciate different cultures. It's hypocritical of us to criticize Chileans for being racist considering the US has been home to people of various ethnicities for over 200 years, and we're still guilty of racism.
Since I made it through one touchy subject with Victoria, I decided to keep going and ask her about her dislike of Michelle Bachelet. She basically explained that at the beginning of Bachelet's term, Chile was in the best economic position that it had ever experienced, thanks to a rise in copper prices. However, Bachelet made some poor economic decisions (namely, investing millions in TranSantiago - a metro/bus system that is undergoing constant revision). Furthermore, commodities in general are just more expensive than before (according to Marcela, you can spend 20,000 pesos and purchase 5 things where as before you could purchase 10 items with the same amount.
Came home and Victoria prepared a huge lunch. First empanadas + red wine. Then chorrilleno (fried potatoes + steak + fried egg + fried onion= heart attack). Then fruit w/ice cream. Then tort w/dulce de leche. I only had an empanada and a bite of the chorilleno and was stuffed (estoy llena! is all i ever say) - but everyone else ate everything!
As we ate, we talked about the US presidential election and Rodrigo and Marcela told me "Obama is our candidate!" It wouldn't surprise me to find out that foreigners are more educated about American politics than Americans.
After lunch, Rodrigo and Marcela took me to the mall to buy new clothes for little Rodrigo. While waiting to check out, Rodrigo taught me some Chilean slang (mostly bad words so that I can understand what teenage boys are talking about). Then we stopped in the grocery store to pick up some stuff and we saw a lady handing out free samples of rum! Que loco.
Monday:
Had to go to the international police to register my student visa. Funnn fun. While waiting in line, I read the local newspaper and fortunately understood the majority of it! Quite a nice surprise, considering I never had the patience/couldn't comprehend the newspaper last summer in Argentina. I hope this means my Spanish is improving...
Rode the subway to class and was very impressed with it. Although it is crowded, all of the lines are very clearly labeled and you rarely have to wait more than 2 minutes for a train to arrive. A pleasant change in pace from the Philly system. (Yet people here complain about the metro...maybe it was bad before and now it's finally a lot better, or maybe I just haven't seen the negative aspects of it yet?)
Today we had a lecture about Chile's transition to democracy. It was hard to follow b/c the instructor spoke super fast and because he covered a lot of history, but it was still good to get acquainted with some of the names and events.
After our lesson, we took a tour around la Moneda/the Presidential Palace - the building which was bombed, killing Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973. The building was renovated after the attacks; however, nearby buildings still show scars from the bombings.
Watched a movie about September 11, again only to understand about half of it due to the quick speech and multitude of facts. Went home with an exhausted brain, but regained energy by chatting with Victoria over a bowl of lentils (yum!).
But now, I'm exhausted again. Hasta luego.
Un besito,
Lindsay
Friday, July 18, 2008
mi hogar chilena
Thursday:
Woke up and headed to a delicious breakfast on the top floor of the hotel. From up there, we had a fantastic view of the city and the surrounding mountains. I was surprised at the lack of skyscrapers for a city of this size (approx 5 million people); however, then I remembered that Santiago is a city of earthquakes. According to the director of our program, Santiago experiences earthquakes every single day (but most are very subtle). I haven't felt any trembles yet, but will likely feel something in the next five months.
For Thursday's orientation with CIEE (the study abroad program I'm here with), we went to a meeting room in the Sheraton (oh yes - more American chains infesting Chile...as far as hotels go, so far I've seen a Sheraton, a Radisson and a Ritz Carlton. Ay, dios mio.)
During our session, we learned about safety in the city and in our host family houses. The first tip was that we should try to dress like the Chileans so that we blend in as much as we can. From what I've observed so far, this means wearing black, black and more black (and the occasional grey/brown/dark purple/blue). Leila - you'd be at the height of fashion. They also dress very conservatively, which is quite a nice change from the scantily clad styles of the US.
For lunch, we ate at the Sheraton and had a surprisingly delicious meal (while hotel food in the US is typically bland and unappetizing, our meal was flavorful and scrumptious). We has salad, salmon, rice and squash, along with an interesting apple dessert. The dessert looked like potatoes au gratin, but it was just layers of apple with custard in between and a pie crust on the bottom. Deliciosa.
After lunch, we were notified of our host family assignments. I was assigned to Clara Victoria Martinez, a single woman (widow, I think) who lives in Las Condes, a very nice neighborhood northeast of central Santiago. At first I was a little disappointed because the picture only showed Victoria and her sister (a widow as well) and most of my friends were assigned to families with brothers and sisters. However, things turned out just beautifully (to be explained later).
After the excitement of finding out about our families, we were briefed on things to expect in our new families. We learned that although Chile is a fairly patriarchal society with machismo prevalence, the home is under the mother's rule. Chilean mothers are extremely caring and want to make sure that every need is satisfied (and they often satisfy above and beyond). Brigitta told us that we shouldn't be surprised if we come home from school to find our rooms completely spotless, with all of our clothes and desk accessories organized perfectly. I must say that I can't argue with that...
After our orientation, two of my friends and I decided to take advantage of the free gym passes that our hotel offered to us. We walked six blocks from our hotel (receiving catcalls along the way, despite our grungy workout attire) to the SportLife - an incredibly modern gym complete with personal televisions on each treadmill and spin classes and all. The only strange thing was the giant dry erase board in the middle of the room listing all of the machines. Apparently, you're supposed to sign in your name and the time of your workout before you get on a machine. I guess this is supposed to prevent people from hogging the machines, but one lady abused this system. My friend (redhead- obviously a foreigner) didn't realize that she was supposed to sign in. So she just started working out on an elliptical next to 4 empty ellipticals and this lady walks into the gym, signs her name for the machine that my friend is using, and tells my friend that she has to move! Silly silly...
For dinner that night, I went out with a group of 6 girls. Our program director pointed us in the direction of a street with many restaurants, and we just chose the one that looked the cutest. We made the mistake of going to dinner at 7:30 and walked into a completely empty restaurant (dinner down here doesn't start til 9 or 10 at the earliest). If only we could get an early bird special for eating dinner at 7:30! The restaurant turned out to be a very quaint Italian restaurant, decorated with American movie posters (Godfather, etc). We shared a pizza and Caesar salad. To my surprise, the salad was actually a true salad- with big pieces of lettuce (rather than shreds) and with real Caesar dressing (instead of lemon juice/oil/vinegar). The pizza was good too, but had very thin crust. After dinner, we wanted to go dancing again, but it was only 9:00 or so -- way too early for the clubs down here. We got ice cream to pass some time and then chatted with the hotel security guards to get directions to a local dance club. Unfortunately, they didn't know of anything close, so we followed another group of friends to a bar (which turned out to be an Irish pub). We got there at 12:30 and assumed that we were again way too early for anything to be happening. However, after sitting there for 2 hours, we just realized that either a) nobody in Chile goes to an Irish pub or b) not many people go out on a Thursday night. Sigh...hopefully we'll learn the ways of this city soon.
Friday:
Met with the CIEE group once again to sign a "language commitment" - agreeing that we wouldn't talk in English to the other American students in our group. It was easy to sign that paper once they reminded us of our aspirations to become fluent and feel comfortable with the language; however, it will be hard to put into action. Pero voy a tratar.
Lunch = chicken + spinach + rice + strawberry juice (they have every juice imaginable down here). Then met with our tutors to have our first lesson for our Chilean immersion class- Contemporary Chile. We talked about our first impressions of Santiago and expectations for the class. I'm excited about the readings and lessons because I'm dying to understand the history of everything in this city.
Friday afternoon, it was time to say goodbye to the hotel and my American friends and time to say hello to my host family! Waiting for them to arrive was incredible nervewracking; however, when I was greeted with a squeal and a giant warm hug, i knew that everything would be just wonderful.
Clara Victoria Martinez (Victoria) is the principal of an elementary school and the mother of three. She has one son (Jorge) and two daughters (Marcela and another woman who lives in Spain). I think that Victoria is a widow because she lives with her sister - Vecita in a lovely apartment in Las Condes - a very nice comuna (neighborhood) of the city. Her daughter Marcela is married to Rodrigo and they have two sons - Felipe (20ish) and Rodrigo (1 year, 4 months). They live in the next neighborhood over (Providencia) and they spend a lot of time with Victoria.
Thus, Victoria arrived at the hotel with Felipe, her cute grandson who spends a lot of time with his grandmother (fortunately, you're supposed to say hello and goodbye to everyone with a kiss on the cheek...). I should have known that even though I was living with two single women, I'd still be spending time with an extended family. Latin Americans put a very strong emphasis on family and it is very common for an extended family to live within ten minutes of each other.
So in the car ride to las Condes, I learn this family history and I'm concentrating as hard as I can to memorize all of these names. However, once I get into the apartment, I receive an in-depth family introduction as Victoria shows me alll of the pictures of her son and daughters and grandsons and other relatives. Then Vecita, Victoria, Felipe and I chat and chat and chat. They've all memorized every detail of the letter I wrote to my hypothetical host family when I applied to the study abroad program (I mention that I have a dog and they automatically respond "si - Sawyer!") and they ask me endless questions about my interests.
Then I give them a gift that I brought from home - an assortment of Southern goodies that I got at Cracker Barrel (a bottle of Coke, pecan pralines, assorted flavors of hard candy sticks, fried apples and a mix to make apple crisp). They love the flavor of the pralines (Que rico!) and are tickled by the flavors of the candies (Que es Root Beer? Cerveza? Que es Tutti Frutti?). And then they are just confused by the idea of an apple crisp. I reassure them that we will make it together and then they'll understand.
At 5, Felipe leaves to get a haircut and I'm introduced to the first family tradition. Whenever someone leaves the house, Victoria and Vecita go to the balcony and wave goodbye as the person drives away. But they don't just wave once - they wave when the person walks out of the apartment building, while they're getting in the car AND while they're driving away. Quite funny considering my story about waving goodbye to my own family at the airport.
Once Pedro left, I started unpacking and arranging things in my new room (where I was welcomed with chocolate covered almonds and a sign that says "Bienvenidos a tu hogar chilena") It has an adorable bright orange bedspread and a big armoir for all of my stuff. And surprisingly, I have my own bathroom (this is better than college!). However, the entire house is absolutely freezing (due to lack of central heating - very rare in Santiago). But it's no problem...now I don't even have to take off my jacket when I come inside!
Finished packing around 6 and Victoria insisted that I eat something for once (pronnounced like the number 11 in spanish: ohn-say) Once is kind of like afternoon tea in the UK - it's eaten between lunch and dinner as a snack/tea/coffee/desert break. While eating a delicious torta of dulce de leche, we chatted some more. I learned some very interesting things: 1) the vans that go to the ski resorts depart from the parking lot across the street from my apartment. AMAZING. 2) although chile grows lots and lots of fruit, the best quality stuff is exported. Although they can get better prices by selling their stuff to other countries, it's a shame that they don't get to enjoy the finest quality fruits that they produce. 3) this family doesn't like Michelle Bachelet. I didn't catch exactly why - I think it's for economic reasons....but hopefully I'll figure out why with more conversations... 4) I learned some new Chilean modismos (slang). Al tiro = right now, immediately. Cachai? = did you understand what i meant? Cache = I understood.It was exhausting trying to understand everything and trying to communicate my ideas in Spanish, but it seems to be getting easier with every conversation.
Helped Victoria prepare dinner a bit and she gave me a pina colada drink to celebrate my arrival.
Around 9, Marcela and her family arrived for dinner. We had so much food - a torta vegetariana which was basically layers of the following: flour tortillas, mayonaise, corn, lettuce and tuna. Strange, yet surprisingly good. We also had shredded carrots + lettuce with lemon juice, potatoes, spinach and a shredded cabbage-mix thing. All of it was absolutely delicious and very flavorful (Shannon- unlike Argentina, they actually season things here! So I don't have to complain about things being bland). At dinner, we celebrated my arrival once again with champagne and white wine. Holy cow do these Chileans drink a lot! Even Roro (little 1 year old Rodrigo) was reaching for his mom's champagne glass!)
After dinner, we played with Roro as he showed us how he could walk across the living room from one person to another (well..half the time it was walking, the other half he was just stumbling and collapsing from onto one couch to another). Roro also amused us by playing with his English-speaking toy - one of those toys that talk when you throw them against the ground. His was an (American) football that said "touch down" "come on!" "ugh" and "i'm open!" Everyone wanted me to explain what the toy was saying and what the words meant.
Around midnight, everyone went home and I went straight to bed (exhausted from all the food/wine/spanish speaking and listening).
Saturday:
As soon as I woke up, Vecita began preparing breakfast for me. She put out cereal, a ham and cheese sandwich, fruit and the last piece of a dulce de leche tort (which they reserved for me from someone's birthday party. She told me that as soon as I eat that piece, she's going to make an entire new cake as my welcome cake! I keep trying to tell her that I don't need it, but she won't listen!). I only ate the cereal and a pear (although I mentioned before that the fruit isn't of the best quality here, the pears here are enormous and delicious!!) and Vecita wanted me to eat the rest of the food too! I didn't want to be rude but I had to say no...otherwise I'm going to come home weighing 300 pounds.
After breakfast, I went to the supermarket with Victoria. On our way, I got a tour of the area and discovered that everything I need is right next door. There are 5 pharmacies within 3 blocks, a dozen different cafes, a few restaurants, and assorted other shops. The supermarket was very nice and organized, and they even had free samples of crackers with hunks of cream cheese on top (promoting American style cream cheese! How funny...)
Felipe came over for lunch and we had lunch of lomo (red meat), mashed potatoes, and shredded carrots and lettuce. As a result of our free sample in the super market, Victoria served us an appetizer of cream cheese covered in soy sauce and sesame seeds, served with saltines. Once again, a strange, but surprisingly good combination that I never would have dreamed of.
Spent the afternoon trying to learn the map of Santiago and figuring out my schedule for the next few weeks. Then asked Victoria if she knew of a local gym where I could get a membership for my time here. She told me that there was a Curves right next door (yes, Nana, a Curves! You need to come test this one out!) but I tried to explain to her that I was looking for somewhere a little bit different. She didn't know of anywhere else so we looked in the phone book and found one nearby. I was planning to walk there on my own, but she insisted on taking me herself. As we walked, Marcela called and Victoria explained what we were doing and then Marcela exclaimed that her gym was the best in town and told us that she'd drive us there. So then Marcela picks us up off the street and drives us to where else but the exact gym I went to on Thursday night. Too funny.
After showing me the gym, Marcela took us on a driving tour of the city. Saw La Universidad de Chile and La Catolica (my new schools), the parks where all the protests occur, the American embassy and the government building.
Marcela is absolutely adorable - she talks super fast and acts like my second host mom. She loves my blue eyes and always asks me to pronounce things in English for her. She works as an event planner for big hotels, so she pointed out every single hotel that she's worked at (the Ritz Carlton, the Sheraton, the Hyatt and more). Too funny.
And now it is time for me to help Victoria with dinner. Sorry for the length of this...a lot happens in three days!
Un besito,
Lindsay
Woke up and headed to a delicious breakfast on the top floor of the hotel. From up there, we had a fantastic view of the city and the surrounding mountains. I was surprised at the lack of skyscrapers for a city of this size (approx 5 million people); however, then I remembered that Santiago is a city of earthquakes. According to the director of our program, Santiago experiences earthquakes every single day (but most are very subtle). I haven't felt any trembles yet, but will likely feel something in the next five months.
For Thursday's orientation with CIEE (the study abroad program I'm here with), we went to a meeting room in the Sheraton (oh yes - more American chains infesting Chile...as far as hotels go, so far I've seen a Sheraton, a Radisson and a Ritz Carlton. Ay, dios mio.)
During our session, we learned about safety in the city and in our host family houses. The first tip was that we should try to dress like the Chileans so that we blend in as much as we can. From what I've observed so far, this means wearing black, black and more black (and the occasional grey/brown/dark purple/blue). Leila - you'd be at the height of fashion. They also dress very conservatively, which is quite a nice change from the scantily clad styles of the US.
For lunch, we ate at the Sheraton and had a surprisingly delicious meal (while hotel food in the US is typically bland and unappetizing, our meal was flavorful and scrumptious). We has salad, salmon, rice and squash, along with an interesting apple dessert. The dessert looked like potatoes au gratin, but it was just layers of apple with custard in between and a pie crust on the bottom. Deliciosa.
After lunch, we were notified of our host family assignments. I was assigned to Clara Victoria Martinez, a single woman (widow, I think) who lives in Las Condes, a very nice neighborhood northeast of central Santiago. At first I was a little disappointed because the picture only showed Victoria and her sister (a widow as well) and most of my friends were assigned to families with brothers and sisters. However, things turned out just beautifully (to be explained later).
After the excitement of finding out about our families, we were briefed on things to expect in our new families. We learned that although Chile is a fairly patriarchal society with machismo prevalence, the home is under the mother's rule. Chilean mothers are extremely caring and want to make sure that every need is satisfied (and they often satisfy above and beyond). Brigitta told us that we shouldn't be surprised if we come home from school to find our rooms completely spotless, with all of our clothes and desk accessories organized perfectly. I must say that I can't argue with that...
After our orientation, two of my friends and I decided to take advantage of the free gym passes that our hotel offered to us. We walked six blocks from our hotel (receiving catcalls along the way, despite our grungy workout attire) to the SportLife - an incredibly modern gym complete with personal televisions on each treadmill and spin classes and all. The only strange thing was the giant dry erase board in the middle of the room listing all of the machines. Apparently, you're supposed to sign in your name and the time of your workout before you get on a machine. I guess this is supposed to prevent people from hogging the machines, but one lady abused this system. My friend (redhead- obviously a foreigner) didn't realize that she was supposed to sign in. So she just started working out on an elliptical next to 4 empty ellipticals and this lady walks into the gym, signs her name for the machine that my friend is using, and tells my friend that she has to move! Silly silly...
For dinner that night, I went out with a group of 6 girls. Our program director pointed us in the direction of a street with many restaurants, and we just chose the one that looked the cutest. We made the mistake of going to dinner at 7:30 and walked into a completely empty restaurant (dinner down here doesn't start til 9 or 10 at the earliest). If only we could get an early bird special for eating dinner at 7:30! The restaurant turned out to be a very quaint Italian restaurant, decorated with American movie posters (Godfather, etc). We shared a pizza and Caesar salad. To my surprise, the salad was actually a true salad- with big pieces of lettuce (rather than shreds) and with real Caesar dressing (instead of lemon juice/oil/vinegar). The pizza was good too, but had very thin crust. After dinner, we wanted to go dancing again, but it was only 9:00 or so -- way too early for the clubs down here. We got ice cream to pass some time and then chatted with the hotel security guards to get directions to a local dance club. Unfortunately, they didn't know of anything close, so we followed another group of friends to a bar (which turned out to be an Irish pub). We got there at 12:30 and assumed that we were again way too early for anything to be happening. However, after sitting there for 2 hours, we just realized that either a) nobody in Chile goes to an Irish pub or b) not many people go out on a Thursday night. Sigh...hopefully we'll learn the ways of this city soon.
Friday:
Met with the CIEE group once again to sign a "language commitment" - agreeing that we wouldn't talk in English to the other American students in our group. It was easy to sign that paper once they reminded us of our aspirations to become fluent and feel comfortable with the language; however, it will be hard to put into action. Pero voy a tratar.
Lunch = chicken + spinach + rice + strawberry juice (they have every juice imaginable down here). Then met with our tutors to have our first lesson for our Chilean immersion class- Contemporary Chile. We talked about our first impressions of Santiago and expectations for the class. I'm excited about the readings and lessons because I'm dying to understand the history of everything in this city.
Friday afternoon, it was time to say goodbye to the hotel and my American friends and time to say hello to my host family! Waiting for them to arrive was incredible nervewracking; however, when I was greeted with a squeal and a giant warm hug, i knew that everything would be just wonderful.
Clara Victoria Martinez (Victoria) is the principal of an elementary school and the mother of three. She has one son (Jorge) and two daughters (Marcela and another woman who lives in Spain). I think that Victoria is a widow because she lives with her sister - Vecita in a lovely apartment in Las Condes - a very nice comuna (neighborhood) of the city. Her daughter Marcela is married to Rodrigo and they have two sons - Felipe (20ish) and Rodrigo (1 year, 4 months). They live in the next neighborhood over (Providencia) and they spend a lot of time with Victoria.
Thus, Victoria arrived at the hotel with Felipe, her cute grandson who spends a lot of time with his grandmother (fortunately, you're supposed to say hello and goodbye to everyone with a kiss on the cheek...). I should have known that even though I was living with two single women, I'd still be spending time with an extended family. Latin Americans put a very strong emphasis on family and it is very common for an extended family to live within ten minutes of each other.
So in the car ride to las Condes, I learn this family history and I'm concentrating as hard as I can to memorize all of these names. However, once I get into the apartment, I receive an in-depth family introduction as Victoria shows me alll of the pictures of her son and daughters and grandsons and other relatives. Then Vecita, Victoria, Felipe and I chat and chat and chat. They've all memorized every detail of the letter I wrote to my hypothetical host family when I applied to the study abroad program (I mention that I have a dog and they automatically respond "si - Sawyer!") and they ask me endless questions about my interests.
Then I give them a gift that I brought from home - an assortment of Southern goodies that I got at Cracker Barrel (a bottle of Coke, pecan pralines, assorted flavors of hard candy sticks, fried apples and a mix to make apple crisp). They love the flavor of the pralines (Que rico!) and are tickled by the flavors of the candies (Que es Root Beer? Cerveza? Que es Tutti Frutti?). And then they are just confused by the idea of an apple crisp. I reassure them that we will make it together and then they'll understand.
At 5, Felipe leaves to get a haircut and I'm introduced to the first family tradition. Whenever someone leaves the house, Victoria and Vecita go to the balcony and wave goodbye as the person drives away. But they don't just wave once - they wave when the person walks out of the apartment building, while they're getting in the car AND while they're driving away. Quite funny considering my story about waving goodbye to my own family at the airport.
Once Pedro left, I started unpacking and arranging things in my new room (where I was welcomed with chocolate covered almonds and a sign that says "Bienvenidos a tu hogar chilena") It has an adorable bright orange bedspread and a big armoir for all of my stuff. And surprisingly, I have my own bathroom (this is better than college!). However, the entire house is absolutely freezing (due to lack of central heating - very rare in Santiago). But it's no problem...now I don't even have to take off my jacket when I come inside!
Finished packing around 6 and Victoria insisted that I eat something for once (pronnounced like the number 11 in spanish: ohn-say) Once is kind of like afternoon tea in the UK - it's eaten between lunch and dinner as a snack/tea/coffee/desert break. While eating a delicious torta of dulce de leche, we chatted some more. I learned some very interesting things: 1) the vans that go to the ski resorts depart from the parking lot across the street from my apartment. AMAZING. 2) although chile grows lots and lots of fruit, the best quality stuff is exported. Although they can get better prices by selling their stuff to other countries, it's a shame that they don't get to enjoy the finest quality fruits that they produce. 3) this family doesn't like Michelle Bachelet. I didn't catch exactly why - I think it's for economic reasons....but hopefully I'll figure out why with more conversations... 4) I learned some new Chilean modismos (slang). Al tiro = right now, immediately. Cachai? = did you understand what i meant? Cache = I understood.It was exhausting trying to understand everything and trying to communicate my ideas in Spanish, but it seems to be getting easier with every conversation.
Helped Victoria prepare dinner a bit and she gave me a pina colada drink to celebrate my arrival.
Around 9, Marcela and her family arrived for dinner. We had so much food - a torta vegetariana which was basically layers of the following: flour tortillas, mayonaise, corn, lettuce and tuna. Strange, yet surprisingly good. We also had shredded carrots + lettuce with lemon juice, potatoes, spinach and a shredded cabbage-mix thing. All of it was absolutely delicious and very flavorful (Shannon- unlike Argentina, they actually season things here! So I don't have to complain about things being bland). At dinner, we celebrated my arrival once again with champagne and white wine. Holy cow do these Chileans drink a lot! Even Roro (little 1 year old Rodrigo) was reaching for his mom's champagne glass!)
After dinner, we played with Roro as he showed us how he could walk across the living room from one person to another (well..half the time it was walking, the other half he was just stumbling and collapsing from onto one couch to another). Roro also amused us by playing with his English-speaking toy - one of those toys that talk when you throw them against the ground. His was an (American) football that said "touch down" "come on!" "ugh" and "i'm open!" Everyone wanted me to explain what the toy was saying and what the words meant.
Around midnight, everyone went home and I went straight to bed (exhausted from all the food/wine/spanish speaking and listening).
Saturday:
As soon as I woke up, Vecita began preparing breakfast for me. She put out cereal, a ham and cheese sandwich, fruit and the last piece of a dulce de leche tort (which they reserved for me from someone's birthday party. She told me that as soon as I eat that piece, she's going to make an entire new cake as my welcome cake! I keep trying to tell her that I don't need it, but she won't listen!). I only ate the cereal and a pear (although I mentioned before that the fruit isn't of the best quality here, the pears here are enormous and delicious!!) and Vecita wanted me to eat the rest of the food too! I didn't want to be rude but I had to say no...otherwise I'm going to come home weighing 300 pounds.
After breakfast, I went to the supermarket with Victoria. On our way, I got a tour of the area and discovered that everything I need is right next door. There are 5 pharmacies within 3 blocks, a dozen different cafes, a few restaurants, and assorted other shops. The supermarket was very nice and organized, and they even had free samples of crackers with hunks of cream cheese on top (promoting American style cream cheese! How funny...)
Felipe came over for lunch and we had lunch of lomo (red meat), mashed potatoes, and shredded carrots and lettuce. As a result of our free sample in the super market, Victoria served us an appetizer of cream cheese covered in soy sauce and sesame seeds, served with saltines. Once again, a strange, but surprisingly good combination that I never would have dreamed of.
Spent the afternoon trying to learn the map of Santiago and figuring out my schedule for the next few weeks. Then asked Victoria if she knew of a local gym where I could get a membership for my time here. She told me that there was a Curves right next door (yes, Nana, a Curves! You need to come test this one out!) but I tried to explain to her that I was looking for somewhere a little bit different. She didn't know of anywhere else so we looked in the phone book and found one nearby. I was planning to walk there on my own, but she insisted on taking me herself. As we walked, Marcela called and Victoria explained what we were doing and then Marcela exclaimed that her gym was the best in town and told us that she'd drive us there. So then Marcela picks us up off the street and drives us to where else but the exact gym I went to on Thursday night. Too funny.
After showing me the gym, Marcela took us on a driving tour of the city. Saw La Universidad de Chile and La Catolica (my new schools), the parks where all the protests occur, the American embassy and the government building.
Marcela is absolutely adorable - she talks super fast and acts like my second host mom. She loves my blue eyes and always asks me to pronounce things in English for her. She works as an event planner for big hotels, so she pointed out every single hotel that she's worked at (the Ritz Carlton, the Sheraton, the Hyatt and more). Too funny.
And now it is time for me to help Victoria with dinner. Sorry for the length of this...a lot happens in three days!
Un besito,
Lindsay
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Chile Vanilly
At last the time has come and I have arrived in the beautiful Santiago de Chile. It's a bit surreal that I'm finally down here after all the preparation (from deciding where to study abroad to scrambling to get an FBI background check/HIV test/fingerprints for my visa to packing my life into two suitcases). But alas, I am here, safe and sound and the butterflies that have been raging in my stomach over the past two weeks have finally settled down.
The settling process began once I got through security at the Atlanta airport last night. As I loaded my belongings onto the security belt, I continuously turned and glanced through the glass barricade to catch a few last glimpses of my family waving goodbye. Just before I walked through the metal detector, the man standing behind me commented, "I think you can get one last goodbye in" (I couldn't tell whether he was mocking me or just being friendly). However, I took the man's advice and waved one last time before crossing through the portal.
Although my waving probably was a bit excessive, I couldn't help myself. I needed to do it for closure. I needed to say goodbye gradually. I needed to turn around and see that even though I was walking away, my family was still right there behind me. I've been anxiously awaiting this program for quite awhile, but it's been hard to actually come to terms with the fact that I won't be with my family at all for five months. And saying a bunch of little goodbyes helped my butterflies disappear one bye one rather than chaotically fluttering from one quick goodbye.
Once I got to my gate, things got even easier. I quickly spotted three 20-year-0ld girls whose excessive luggage clued me in that they were on the same program as me. Just like freshman year of college, we went through the typical getting-to-know-you questions and then began listing off our anticipations and concerns about the coming semester. Hearing other people communicate some of the same thoughts that have been spinning through my head reassured me that everything was going to be all right. (How is it that shared worrying can actually ease your worries?) Anyways, our group of three soon turned into a group of 8 and we all wished each other luck as we boarded the plane for our 9 hour in-flight slumber party.
Onboard, I got lucky and had nobody sitting next to me the entire flight. I stretched out and watched the movie "21," (surprisingly good for an airplane flick) then soon fell asleep. Woke up in the morning to an incredible scene out my window - the snow-covered Andes mountains with a cloud blanket covering the valleys and a sunrise coming up through the peaks. Absolutely breathtaking.
Tuesday morning we waited around the hotel as all 40 of the program participants arrived. Walked around the city, which was unusually uninhabited due to a national religious holiday. Almost all the stores were closed and most of the sidewalks were empty. However, we did pass a good number of stray dogs and people walking their pet dogs without leashes. Yet while animals apparently aren't controlled around here, children are. We saw one mother walking her child on a retractable leash! Ridiculous.
As we window shopped, we also realized that things here are quite modern and quite Americanized (the latter much to my dismay). Within 5 minutes, we passed a McDonald's, a Pizza Hut, a Dunkin Donuts and a Starbucks. Gah.
Fortunately, we didn't eat at any of those places for lunch. Instead, we had turkey + rice (the rice down here is amazing- wet and creamy and a little lemony) + a few assorted salad-type things (just like Argentina, they consider shredded carrots w/lemon juice to be a salad).
In the afternoon we had a brief orientation where everyone officially introduced themselves (basically all of us are some Spanish + some sort of International Relations-type major) and people are from all over the country. After learning about each other, we learned about the upcoming weeks and the basics of public transportation in Santiago. During our break, my friend Racquel who has been studying here since February came to say hi and give me a few last minute pointers on what to see and what to avoid in Chile.
Then tonight, we had a celebratory dinner at a local tapas restaurant. The food was absolutely delicious and it kept coming and coming and coming. We ate everything from clam ceviche to sausage and potato casserole to stuffed mushrooms to fresh fruit salad. And we started off the evening with the traditional drink of Chile - a Pisco Sour. Pisco is some sort of brandy made from grapes and the drink was quite tasty- kind of like a less sugary, lemony, iceless mojito.
After our endless dinner, we went to a salsa club to go dancing. We looked ridiculous compared to the locals, but it was fun to see everyone willing to make a fool of themselves. We all keep pinching each other to remind ourselves that we're finally here and we're about to start school in a few weeks. Once again, it's fun to be amongst common worriers and it's even better to be amongst people with common intellectual interests and adventurous mindsets.
Must get some sleep. Miss you all and can't wait to hear about how your summers are going!
Love,
Lindsay
ps-
In case you feel like snail-mailing across the ocean, here's my address:
Lindsay Eierman
c/o CIEE
Servicios Centrales de la Universidad de Chile
Diagonal Paraguay 265
Piso 17, Oficina 1701
Santiago, Chile
Send me your address if you want a postcard!
The settling process began once I got through security at the Atlanta airport last night. As I loaded my belongings onto the security belt, I continuously turned and glanced through the glass barricade to catch a few last glimpses of my family waving goodbye. Just before I walked through the metal detector, the man standing behind me commented, "I think you can get one last goodbye in" (I couldn't tell whether he was mocking me or just being friendly). However, I took the man's advice and waved one last time before crossing through the portal.
Although my waving probably was a bit excessive, I couldn't help myself. I needed to do it for closure. I needed to say goodbye gradually. I needed to turn around and see that even though I was walking away, my family was still right there behind me. I've been anxiously awaiting this program for quite awhile, but it's been hard to actually come to terms with the fact that I won't be with my family at all for five months. And saying a bunch of little goodbyes helped my butterflies disappear one bye one rather than chaotically fluttering from one quick goodbye.
Once I got to my gate, things got even easier. I quickly spotted three 20-year-0ld girls whose excessive luggage clued me in that they were on the same program as me. Just like freshman year of college, we went through the typical getting-to-know-you questions and then began listing off our anticipations and concerns about the coming semester. Hearing other people communicate some of the same thoughts that have been spinning through my head reassured me that everything was going to be all right. (How is it that shared worrying can actually ease your worries?) Anyways, our group of three soon turned into a group of 8 and we all wished each other luck as we boarded the plane for our 9 hour in-flight slumber party.
Onboard, I got lucky and had nobody sitting next to me the entire flight. I stretched out and watched the movie "21," (surprisingly good for an airplane flick) then soon fell asleep. Woke up in the morning to an incredible scene out my window - the snow-covered Andes mountains with a cloud blanket covering the valleys and a sunrise coming up through the peaks. Absolutely breathtaking.
Tuesday morning we waited around the hotel as all 40 of the program participants arrived. Walked around the city, which was unusually uninhabited due to a national religious holiday. Almost all the stores were closed and most of the sidewalks were empty. However, we did pass a good number of stray dogs and people walking their pet dogs without leashes. Yet while animals apparently aren't controlled around here, children are. We saw one mother walking her child on a retractable leash! Ridiculous.
As we window shopped, we also realized that things here are quite modern and quite Americanized (the latter much to my dismay). Within 5 minutes, we passed a McDonald's, a Pizza Hut, a Dunkin Donuts and a Starbucks. Gah.
Fortunately, we didn't eat at any of those places for lunch. Instead, we had turkey + rice (the rice down here is amazing- wet and creamy and a little lemony) + a few assorted salad-type things (just like Argentina, they consider shredded carrots w/lemon juice to be a salad).
In the afternoon we had a brief orientation where everyone officially introduced themselves (basically all of us are some Spanish + some sort of International Relations-type major) and people are from all over the country. After learning about each other, we learned about the upcoming weeks and the basics of public transportation in Santiago. During our break, my friend Racquel who has been studying here since February came to say hi and give me a few last minute pointers on what to see and what to avoid in Chile.
Then tonight, we had a celebratory dinner at a local tapas restaurant. The food was absolutely delicious and it kept coming and coming and coming. We ate everything from clam ceviche to sausage and potato casserole to stuffed mushrooms to fresh fruit salad. And we started off the evening with the traditional drink of Chile - a Pisco Sour. Pisco is some sort of brandy made from grapes and the drink was quite tasty- kind of like a less sugary, lemony, iceless mojito.
After our endless dinner, we went to a salsa club to go dancing. We looked ridiculous compared to the locals, but it was fun to see everyone willing to make a fool of themselves. We all keep pinching each other to remind ourselves that we're finally here and we're about to start school in a few weeks. Once again, it's fun to be amongst common worriers and it's even better to be amongst people with common intellectual interests and adventurous mindsets.
Must get some sleep. Miss you all and can't wait to hear about how your summers are going!
Love,
Lindsay
ps-
In case you feel like snail-mailing across the ocean, here's my address:
Lindsay Eierman
c/o CIEE
Servicios Centrales de la Universidad de Chile
Diagonal Paraguay 265
Piso 17, Oficina 1701
Santiago, Chile
Send me your address if you want a postcard!
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