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