highs and lows

Thursday:

-Ate sushi for lunch. I´ve been surprised by the fair number of sushi restaurants around the city--apparently they´ve all popped up within the last three years or so. The food was tasty - my friend and i split a combo with an assortment of fairly simple rolls, with the exception of the california roll- which was wrapped with perfectly ripe pieces of avocado (aka palta). mmm Chile sure does know how to grow some darn good avocadoes.

Gave a presentation introducing the subject for my semester-long project in my sustainable development class. My partner and I are going to investigate waste management/landfills in Santiago and in cities around the world with the hopes of finding a system that creates minimal impact on the environment. As strange as it sounds, I´m actually pretty excited to learn about trash. It´s one of those systems that plays a huge role on our everyday lives, yet few people really understand the complex logistics behind the system.

Mountaineering class was much less cheerful than usual. Unfortunately, last Monday a former mountaineering student passed away, after spending months in a coma due to a tragic fall during a mountaineering trip last semester. Quite a tragic occurrence and quite a sticky situation for the university. Our professor was very open and honest about the whole situation - told us about his conversation with the academic director, who questioned whether it was worth the risk for the school to offer the course. Then the mountaineering professor shared his philosophy - first, he asked all of the foreigners how many of us had a mountaineering course at our home schools. Unsurprisingly, none of us raised our hands. Few American schools would ever take on the liability of letting kids go off on weekend expeditions in the wilderness. Plus, few American schools are located in an area completely surrounded by mountains. Our professor went on to explain that he would actually prefer to teach mountaineering through a government-mandated program rather than through university. In a country like Chile, where the mountains are a visible and physical part of everyday life, he thinks that everyone should be educated on the basics of mountaineering. But in the mean time, it´s up to the universities to educate the kids they can.

Thursday night, went to el Oasis. Played English charades at Cafe a lo Gringo. Later Mark gave a great talk about the difficulty of understanding God´s plan in our lives. Gave a nice analogy that has stuck in my mind all weekend-- sometimes God is like your grandma, sitting in her rocking chair and knitting away something for you. When you look at what she´s knitting, it might seem ugly and you might have no idea what exactly she´s creating...but you have to trust that the final product will be beautiful and will be a perfect fit.

Friday

Found an amazing park near my house. Went running there in the morning and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was fairly deserted. Much different than parks in the US, which are often filled with housewives and their kids on weekday mornings. One day I will take pictures of this park to show how cool it is, but here are some of its attributes:
1) the coolest jungle gym ever. think a bunch of plastic nets and fun things to climb through and on and around.
2) a giant birdhouse
3) a bmx/roller skating stunt park
4) outdoor exercise stations with little instruction stands to tell you how to work out at the stations
5) a greenhouse
6) a garden with a labyrinth maze running through it
kind of forgot i was running while i was enjoying the scenery.

Met up with a friend to go to the top of Cerro San Cristobal - the tallest hill in Santiago, from the peak of which you get an incredible look at the massive city. Fortunately, it rained the night before, washing away the smog and welcoming in our first day of beautiful spring sunshine. 

To get an idea of the difference between Santiago with smog vs. Santiago without smog, check out these pictures of Beijing.

Rode a gondola up to the top of San Cristobal, saw the giant statue of the Virgin Mary and then just stared in awe at the endless expanse of buildings and the circle of mountains encompassing the metropolitan region.

Afterwards, we grabbed a cup of coffee at an adorable cafe called Vincent (after Mr. Van Gogh). Each table was decorated with a different Vincent painting. Adddorable.

Then walked and walked throughout the city, exploring some bookstores and finding new little treasures on side streets. By the end of the afternoon, I was definitely on a Santiago high -- every person on the street and every little newspaper stand put a smile on my face. Unfortunately, my high didn´t last long...

Met up with another friend to see ¨La Buena Vida¨- a movie about different perspectives of Chilean/Santiagan life. It was one of those movies like Crash - where all of the characters tell a separate story, yet each of their stories intertwine with the other characters´stories at some point. However, it was also a fairly tragic depiction of life in Santiago. Went through stories of illness, teenage pregnancy, loneliness, economic struggles, divorce... definitely shattered my rose-colored glasses.

After the movie we tried to go to dinner at this Peruvian restaurant, but as soon as we walked in we received snooty stares and were asked if we had a reservation. Looking at the 10 empty tables, we were kind of curious why we needed a reservation...but then we looked at the menu and decided the restaurant was out of our price range anyways. Kind of bizarre for Peruvian food to be considered gourmet after I ate so cheaply in Peru last summer. Also kind of bizarre considering the Chileans are kind of racist against Peruvians in general...

Ended up eating at a sushi restaurant (yes again, but it was the only thing around). I had salmon teriyaki that was deelish.

Sat

In the morning, ran errands with Victoria. We went to this cosmetics store called Oriflame (apparently its a pyramid-scheme, Mary Kay-type company) and she stocked up on cosmetics. Then we split up and I headed off to go explore Santiago a bit (taking advantage of actually being home for the weekend!) The day was fairly hot, thanks to the first day of lovely spring sun (hooray!)

Ate at a cute little vegetarian restaurant called El Huerto. Had a salad with grilled veggies. It was kind of disappointingly bland, but at least it was vegetables.

Wandered around, went into a vintage clothes store and saw a bunch of used American t-shirts being sold for like $12! Crazy. Also saw a Phillies baseball t-shirt which made me miss Philly.
Then headed to the neighborhood of Nunoa's annual book festival. I was hoping to find cheap books, but alas I did not. It was mostly overpriced kids books. And lots of boring no-name titles. Sad sad.

Saturday night went to my friend's host brother's friend's house (confusing, yes) to hang out with some Chileans and gringos. One of the Chileans actually brought her exchange sister from Japan, so it was quite an eclectic mix of people. Had some good conversation, drank some interesting beverages (Fanta and beer...together...didn't do anything for me) and thennn the chileans started up a spontaneous dance party. The boys taught us merengue and just basic Latin American hip swaying technique. Made me never want to dance with an North American boy again.

Sun
Went for a looovely run at the aforementioned excellent park near my house. took a different route to get there and passed by an equestrian park! This neighborhood has everything i tell ya.

Came home and had lunch with Victoria, Vecita, Marcela, Rodrigo, Felipe and Roro. After lunch, we sat around talking and listening to the radio, which was playing a lot of traditional Chilean music because it's Independence Month (September 18 = Chilean Independence Day!). Apparently, the week of September 18 (they call it "Fiestas Patrias") is absolutely crazy - like July 4 spread out over four days. Lots of red, white and blue flag waving, but with fewer stars and stripes and more food and more dancing and more drinking. Should be verrry interesting.

Anyways, one of the highlights of fiestas patrias is that people dance the cueca (the national dance) in the streets. The cueca is a very traditional dance, where the woman wears a big flowery dress and waves around a little scarf and the man does a lot of boot-stomping and clapping. Rodrigo was in a crazy mood during lunch, so he decided to start showing us his cueca moves...but then apparently someone made a comment about how Rodrigo was a bad dancer (just joking around I think); however, Rodrigo got really upset and stomped out of the kitchen. Definitely an uncomfortable situation. Luckily things were resolved later on and Victoria started dancing with Rodrigo and then they both taught me some moves, which I of course mastered in a jiffy (haha...)

So after our dancing I thought that Marcela + company would be heading back home, but boy was I wrong. I snuck away to my room to do homework, but the family ended up staying til like 9PM! They sure do love their family togetherness.

Monday:

Class. Work. El Oasis. Made friends with a Chilean who is going to teach me how to dance cueca and merengue. 

Tuesday deserves a separate post. More to come soon...

Un besito,

Lindsay

fly me to the moon

This weekend, my study abroad program took us on a trip way up north to the Atacama Desert. It was a good 2 hour flight that brought us close to the border of Bolivia. I was happy to go so far north because a) I was desperately craving some warm weather and b) I'd to cover as much of the longitude of Chile as possible during my time here.

After coming home, I wanted to get a little perspective on exactly where I've been traveling Chile thus far, so I decided to make a Google map pinpointing my Chilean destinations [along with a few important locations in the states :)] I'll try to remember to update it as I go along.

So yes, back to the trip.

Friday we left the Santiago airport around 2:30. Flew on Sky Airlines, which we all immediately fell in love with when they passed around little hard candies after everyone boarded the plane! Such a small gesture, but something we all appreciated, especially when companies like American Airlines are making you pay to avoid dehydration. We were also served a meal, which was served in pleasant bright green plastic containers. Although it probably tasted the same, the food seemed better than the food served in Delta's dreary grey containers.

After a brief stop at the Antofagasta airport, we landed in Calama around 5:30. Getting off the plane felt like we had landed on the moon - plopped in the middle of the desert with nothing surrounding us but rocks and dirt. Drove a good 2 hours north to get to the super-touristy town of San Pedro de Atacama. Checked into the very nice Casa de Don Tomas and then went for a walk to orient ourselves with the town. However, before we went to admire the adobe and artisans, we took some time to admire the absolutely incredible night sky. Never in my life have I seen such magnificent stars - hundreds upon hundreds of them filling up every inch of the view up above. PLUS, cutting across the sky was a line of cloudy murkiness, which turned out to be the Milky Way! Superbakán. Definitely tried to take pictures but I don't think it was possible with my camera. And if it was possible, I was just too photographically-illiterate to know how.

Ate dinner at a touristy restaurant because there weren't many other options. Had delicious salmon and quinoa (a local, couscous-like grain, known as the "mother of all grains" for it's rich protein content).

Saturday we woke up bright and early and boarded a bus to go exploring. This whole weekend was quite a treat because a) we didn't have to pay for it (theoretically we paid for it through the program cost though..) and b) we didn't have to plan any of the logistics. So basically when I boarded the bus on Saturday morning, I had no idea where we were going for the day and I was perfectly fine with that because I knew we were in safe hands with our trusty tour guide Claudio.

So we're driving and driving and driving through the desert and it's quite bizarre looking out the window and seeing miles and miles of pure nothingness (unless you count rocks and dirt and mountains and volcanoes). Occasionally we'd come a cross a line of trees, which pinpointed the route of the few rivers in Atacama. Occasionally we'd also pass by a random desert village. Seeing those places really blew my mind, considering most of the towns did not have cars, gardens or visible water sources. However, one of the towns did have a full-size dirt and pebble soccer field. I definitely would NOT want to be a goalie diving for saves in that town!

After driving for awhile and taking a few "Japanese tourist breaks" to take run out of the van to pictures (Claudio's term, not mine!), we eventually arrived at our first destination: el Salar de Atacama (the Atacama Salt Flat).

As if I'm not already disoriented enough about the weather right now, this trip to the salt flat tripped me up even more. Why? Well in my head, it is August, so therefore it must be super hot and humid. But in Santiago, August means wet, cold winter. However, for the weekend, we're in the desert, which means it is hot and dry. BUT, this salt flat makes it look like there is snow and ice on the ground, so I kept thinking I was going to slip and fall onto cold ground. See why I'm so confused?

Another confusing thing about the salt flats was the wildlife inhabiting the area - the flats are home to what else but FLAMINGOS! How bizarre. Spent awhile admiring the 3 different species of flamingos. Even watched some of them in flight!

But soon we were back on the bus again, this time taking a brief stop in a desert town to see an artisan shop and learn about desert irrigation systems. Carefully touched a cactus. Went inside an adobe church (that stuff really insulates! while it was toasty out in the sun, we were freezing inside the church!). Saw an artisan making alpaca sweaters on a loom adorned with a bull skull. And saw the biggest lemons I've ever seen before - almost the size of my two fists together!

Drove back to San Pedro de Atacama for lunch, then got back on the bus to see Valle de la Muerte (Valley of the Dead) and Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon). Spent the afternoon hiking through various rock formations and admiring the wind-shaped creations. The entire day felt like a trek through different movie sets. We traveled through Apollo 13, Star Wars, Lion King (saw a rock that looked like Pride Rock!).

And then finally, we were in Aladdin. Around 5PM, we trekked to the top of a sand dune (MUCH harder than it looks - almost like walking uphill in the snow, but harder. Then waited at the top so we could watch the colors of the sky reflect on the mountains and valleys all around. Afterwards, a few of us ran/slid down the dune, just to make sure we got as much sand as possible in our shoes.

Back to San Pedro for a delicious pizza dinner. Then to bed around 10PM so we'd be able to hear our 4AM wake up call...

Sunday meant time for Geysers del Tatio. Woke up bright and early so we could see the geysers in their emerging beauty. The ride up was kind of a challenge too- the altitude change and unpaved roads really got to some people. I got a nasty headache which luckily passed after sipping on some coca leaf tea.

The day before, Claudio warned us to dress warmly because the outside temperature at 5AM would be around 5-10 degrees CELSIUS below zero. Too bad we weren't warned about that when we were packing! Fortunately, I brought some pretty warm clothes, but unfortunately they were not quite warm enough. Seeing the geysers was really cool, but pretty hard to enjoy when my toes felt like they were going to fall off. Most of us took quick pictures then ran straight to the bus to defrost.

Eventually the sun showed it's beautiful face and a few kids from my program took a dip in the hot spring bath. I forgot my bathing suit, so I skipped out on this adventure, but I'm definitely planning to enjoy other hot springs in future expeditions.

Umm yes so then we stopped in yet another desert town, where a lady was selling llama-kebabs! I shared one with a friend and am now looking for somewhere to invest in llamas because I'm betting it's gonna be the next great culinary craze. Mmmm the meat was so delicious and tender..tasted like lamb but less lamby. SO good.

Unfortunately, right after we digested our llama, we stopped on the side of the road to take pictures of a herd of live llamas. I don't think the vegetarians in our group were too excited about this series of events. I definitely felt a little guilty, but then again I was also wondering where I could find llama meat in the states...

Came back to San Pedro, ate a yummy vegetarian sandwich with goat cheese (mmm) and then we headed to the airport.

Uploaded pictures from the trip and other adventures here if you care to get visuals on the aforementioned travels.

Got home around 10:30 and recounted the weekend's adventures to Victoria and Vecita (who just moved out of her apartment and is now living with us for good! hooray!) Victoria told me about her adventures at the casino in Vina del Mar on Saturday (boy does she love casinos) and how although she didn't win the jackpot, the trip was "free" because she earned enough money to cover the cost of travel. Haha...cute cute.

Monday:
In my "Feminine in God" class, our teacher informed us that our Wednesday quiz would not be covering just 3 readings, but in fact 7 readings. Oh goodness. Then she assigned us a reading from one of Laura Esquivel's works called Intimas Succulencias, a novel which I happened to randomly pick up in a bookstore the other day! What a coinky-dink. Esquivel wrote Like Water for Chocolate which I read senior year of high school and loved, so when I saw the book the other day, I picked it up for pleasure reading. Now I'm zooming through it-- I think I might even like it better than Like Water for Chocolate...

Went to work, worked on this manual thing. Came home early and went for a run in the beautifully warm weather outside. Found a cool path near my house that should make for more nice runs when the weather gets permanently warm.

Monday night = Donce at El Oasis - the Christian fellowship I've been going to. Had a good time as always and my table won the trivia game for the night [unfortunately, I was no help-- we had to finish Chilean phrases and I didn't know a single one :( though last week I did help out matching popular song names with their respective bands (good thing I know my Backstreet Boys and John Mayer).

Tuesday:
Watched "Una Verdad Incomoda" (An Inconvenient Truth") in my Sustainable Development class. It was quite funny listening to Al Gore dubbed in Spanish.

Wednesday:
Had my first quiz in my religion class. It was only 6 short answer questions, but still tough...especially since on one of the questions I didn't know a word and hence might have interpreted the question wrong...yikes. We shall see what happens.

Grabbed a to-go cup of coffee and of course the store didn't have any lids because why in the world would someone walk around with a cup of coffee? The only places I've found with real carry out cups of coffee are Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts. And I hate going to those places, but sometimes it is just necessary.

Mkay time for homework.

Ciao!

Lindsay

cafe sin piernas, porfa

Wednesday:

First real day on the job at CommunidadMujer. They gave me a desk and a working computer and everything! Compiled a list of potential program funders and started putting together a draft of a leadership handbook that they're planning to make. Then halfway through the day Susana (the executive director) told me that she wanted me to put together a proposal for a long-term leadership program to encourage women to get involved in politics so that they could present my idea to some potential funders in a week. Wow...that didn't take long to earn her trust. Oh and she also invited me to join them for their annual luncheon on September 2 so that I can hang out with Madame President Michelle Bachelet (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). This had to be the best first day of work ever.

Later that night, met up with Marni to go to a free salsa class at La Chile. Although I thought the class would be infested with gringos, we gladly danced the evening away with all Chileans! I was also surprised to find out that Latin Americans are NOT in fact born with the natural ability to dance and shake their hips like Shakira. In fact, Marni and I picked up on the dance steps a lot faster than some of the people in the class! When it came time to pick partners, I was quickly approached by a nice guy named Eduardo who definitely knew his salsa stuff and patiently helped me as I tried to figure out the turns. So so so funnnn.

Thursday:

In my bright and early Latin American politics class, learned about Latin American political parties. A little confusing trying to distinguish between the numerous parties of each country, especially coming from a 2-party system. Also a little confusing because my mind likes nice orderly chronological explanations of historical events and my profe likes to explain things by leaping back and forth across decades...makes for a nice challenge at least!

At noon I was supposed to have my sustainable development class, but after waiting for the profe for about 15 min the janitor came in and told us that our class had been cancelled for the day (yet the profe had failed to mention this on tuesday - come on, communication people!)

So then my after-class lunch buddy and I headed off to get a bite to eat an hour early. As nice as it was not to have class, this gift of time that we received actually turned against us. You see, normally my lunch buddy and I go to the same little hole in the wall restaurant. It´s right next to our campus, it´s cheap and it´s yummy. However, with the longer break, we decided to explore other cuisine options.

After searching for awhile, we found what appeared to be a quaint little cafe advertising cheap lunch specials. Upon entering, I realized that this locale was in fact not so quaint. In fact, it was what Chileans like to call "un cafe con piernas" (literal tranlsation: Cafe with legs) (further translation: a hybrid between Starbucks and Hooters. and the REAL Cafes con Piernas are a hybrid between Starbucks and a gentleman's club). Loooovely.

So the frustrating thing was that I had wandered around this area an awful lot (it's really close to campus and I'm always seeking places to get coffee in a to-go cup...more on that later). Anyways, I KNEW that the area was infested with cafes con piernas. However, most of said cafes blatantly declare their services.

Either
a) all of the windows are covered in black so that you can't see what is going on inside
b) the window has a picture of voluptuous women/female silhouettes
or c) the place has a name like "Cafe Risque" that forewarns you about what you're getting yourself into.

UNfortunately, this particular establishment was not so kind. It was called something mundane like "the corner cafe." It had glass windows with cute little plaid curtains. And there were neither pictures nor silhouettes nor warning signs of scantily-clad women that we'd be facing in the near future.

So my lunch buddy (a boy, I might add) nonchalantly walks in the cafe and I mindlessly follow behind, preoccupied with walking whilst frantically reading a Neruda poem in preparation for my next class. Thus, I don't realize what is going on until I turn to listen to the dainty voice asking for our drink order - and lo and behold I'm greeted with Pamela Anderson's chest squeezed into a preteen-sized tube top. In complete and utter embarrassment, I lower my head - but alas, there I see that our waitress somehow lost the rest of her jean skirt--because she's only wearing about 6 inches of it. In fact, I think the length of her skirt just might have been equivalent to the hight of her high heels. Ay dios mio...

Don't ask me why, but for some reason we decided to endure this place for an entire 10 minutes or so. (I think we were scared of getting robbed by a pimp or something if we left). We ordered the only option on the menu- soup and salad- which turned out to be the nastiest meal I've ever eaten. The soup was just a broth with like one pepper floating around in it, but it was a greasy broth. I couldn't take more than one spoonful. And then the salad had a scoop of BROWN tuna on it..tasted like they had just blended tuna guts instead of the actual meat. Ugh so gross.

So as I moved around the food on my plate and tried with all my might to stop myself from laughing or staring. As if that didn't take enough energy, I also tried to make some sort of intelligent conversation, but all that really came out was "soo...ummm..." (giggle, blush, stare at the floor). It was painful. The whole time, my lunch buddy sent me apologetic looks and insisted on paying for this lunch and another lunch to make up for it. (We also decided that we probably had to leave an extra big tip for the "attentive" waitress...and I was NOT about to support such gross objectification of women.

After what seemed like hours, we sprinted out of that place and almost fell to the floor laughing once we got outside. At least we can check another authentic Chilean experience off the list...

The strangest thing about the cafe was that although most of the customers/clients were single men, there was one married couple sitting together, enjoying their coffee just like it was any other normal coffeehouse. Absolutely bizarre.

Thursday evening I departed for a weekend trip to a little town called La Serena. Met a friend at the bus station at 9 and we left around 930 for a 7 hour bus ride to the north. If you've never been to South America, then you might not understand their obsession with/reliance on long-distance buses. Essentially, buses travel anywhere and everywhere on this continent. It is not uncommon for people to take 24-hour bus rides to get from one locale to another. And there are buses for every economic status -- they have executive buses with nice (i think) leather seats, they have cama (bed) buses where you can make the chair lie completely flat, and then have your standard "semi cama" (half bed-- in actuality, just reclining seats) coach buses. On most trips, you have the pleasure of watching a terribly dubbed D-list American film (i've seen Ice Cube star in "Are We There Yet" and then I watched the Rock star in "Gameplan"). Then you drive and drive and drive, stopping occasionally to pick up and drop off passengers along the way. Sometimes the bus driver also picks up a snack or gadget vendor -- someone comes on the bus with their basket full of candy bars or pencil kits or pastries and then they start chanting their sales pitch (such as: "Super ochoooooooo, cien pesos, cienciencienciencien" or "pasteles pasteles pasteles pasteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees, compra sus pasteles, solo 500 pesooos"). It's quite amusing.

I must say that I still much prefer driving in my own car or taking a plane to get from one place to another, but I'm learning to adapt to the bus culture down here. Although I had great plans of sleeping soundly through our overnight bus ride, I unfortunately could NOT get comfortable and could not fall asleep with the bumpy roads. So when we got to La Serena at 4:30 in the morning, I was not a happy camper.

My friend and I tried to catch a wink of sleep in the bus station while waiting for the rest of our group to arrive (they were an hour behind us). This time, our bodies were in a comfortable position, but we were absolutely frozen so the shivering prevented us from relaxing very much. Darn.

Friday:
Around 5:30 AM, the other 6 girls arrived. Our English speaking and our blond hair attracted a random lone traveler from Idaho, so she decided to tag along with us for the day as well. We celebrated with some coffee at the bus station and then set off in search of the ocean so that we could sit on the beach to watch the sun rise. I used my map navigation skills to guide everyone to the beach and we had fun singing songs and picking up new friends (in the form of stray dogs) along the way.

Celebrated on the beach, watched the sun rise, then found our hostel to drop off our stuff. Next goal: find someone to take us to the Humbolt Penguin colony (the main reason for the trip). Went in search of the tourist center, but since it was a national holiday (some Catholic Saint's day), they weren't open. Thanks to my handy dandy Moon guidebook, found a nice guy who we thought was just giving us a ride but ended up being our tour guide for the day. Drove us to the supermarket to pick up lunch supplies for a picnic, drove us through the flowering desert, stopped along the side of the road to teach us about cool desert plants and animals (including the guanaco- kinda like a llama or alpaca) and then finally brought us to a dock where we got on a boat to see the Humbolt Penguin Reserve!!

During our boat ride, we saw the following animals:
-Humbolt penguins (miniature little things! so adorable)
-Lobos del mar (seals!)
-Dolphins!
-Nutrea (water rats...we used to see them running around the golf course in Sugar Land!)
-20 legged starfish
-sea urchin
-a bunch of cool birds

It was really neat to see the animals in their natural habitat, especially watching the seals climb up the sides of a cliff with their little fins! And the water was the most incredible crystal blue...ah so wonderful.

Drove back to La Serena and cooked dinner in the hostel. Had an incredible meal of rice and stir-fried vegetables, something we'd all been craving since most of the veggies here are doused in salt or oil or served with mayonnaise (one of my friends had mayo-covered broccoli one night! yuck-o)

That night, we were awakened by the sound of rain drops pounding on our plastic roof. And even after we fell back asleep, the rain kept coming. Woke up at 9 and it was pouring. Fell back asleep and woke up at 11 and it was still pouring. And it kept coming the rest of the day.

The rain definitely dampened our plans, however we made the best of it. Luckily we all brought rain gear because rain was in the forecast. And luckily I brought both my rain jacket AND pants so I looked like a big black puffball. But at least I stayed dry!

Went to an artisan market but didn't find anything super cute. Ate a shrimp and cheese empanada that was super rica. Took a bus to a nearby town called Coquimbo that was recently restored and is known for its giant cross that sits on a hill (turned out to be a kind of ugly industrial-looking steel structure...)

The town had some really cute restaurants and shops, HOWEVER everything was closed for some reason (because it was a saturday afternoon? because it was raining? we have no idea...) Then we wanted to see this cool preColombian age cemetery, but that was closed too.

So instead we puddle hopped and forded the rivers that had taken over the streets. Found a quaint little cafe and hung out there for awhile before catching the bus back to the hostel.

Made a delicious tomato pepper chicken rice soup that was oh so wonderful. Mid-preparation, the electricity went out, but luckily we were working on gas burners so we kept cooking. While trying to fix the electricity, the hostel owner came in to apologize and told us that it usually rained in their town 2-3 times a year and they hadn't had rain like this SINCE 1955. Wowza.

Watched some olympic action while listening to the rain continue to pour down. Woke up on Sunday and it was still raining. Eventually stopped around 1130, just in time for us to make the trek back to the bus station to catch our ride home.

Monday:
-class. work. went to el oasis (this christian fellowship thing) and had a scrumptious dinner, but my table lost a trivia competition so we had to do everyones dishes. but we had a fabulous time singing and dancing around the kitchen as we did dishes.

Tuesday:
-class. lunch buddy and i returned to our safe, regular lunch spot. i ate tofu that was delish. for my poetry class we have to write a poem and present it every tuesday. this week my poem was about men who catcall on the street because it's really been annoying me lately. some day i'll post the poems i've written so far. they're all really lame because i always have to make them rhyme (i dont know how to write an non-rhyming poem) but it's been therapeutic writing them.

Wednesday:
-teacher showed up 45 minutes to class b/c of a traffic jam. worked. salsa lesson round 2.

Thursday:
-class. ran a lot a lot in montanismo. hung out at el oasis and made some new chilean friends.

tomorrow i'm heading out to san pedro de atacama (the desert). will return sunday!

ciao,

Lindsay

dia del nino

Thursday:
Went to a class about sustainable development. Teacher has some environmental background, so it looks like most of our focus is going to be on environmental issues, with a little bit about economic development too. Should be a pretty interesting class, especially having smoggy Santiago as a case study for how to clean up a dirty city.

Next was my poetry class. Talked about our impressions of some of Pablo Neruda´s poems and after debating for awhile about the meaning behind the words, our prof basically told us that poems have no specific meaning and it´s up to us to decifer what the poet is trying to say. Although I´ve heard this a thousand times, I still didn´t believe it. I always felt like poems were a Sudoku puzzle layered on top of of a cryptographic code written in a foreign language - they take lots of deciphering, but once you´ve figured out all the clues, you understand what the poet intended to say. However, that perspective was shattered after our prof told us a story about her encounter with Pablo Neruda:

Apparently, she was in a masters program, writing her thesis on a collection of Neruda poems and her advisor somehow arranged a coffee date between Neruda and my professor. So my professor is all excited to get Pablo´s personal take on the poems and she prepares all these questions in advance and when she arrives at Pablo´s house, his wife forewarns her that she can´t ask him any questions about the ¨meaning¨ behind the poems because Pablo HATES people who analyze his poems word by word. So the professor talks with him for a few hours and has a lovely time, but walks away with no further insight into his poetry! Bummer.

After she told us this story, I was quite confused. Surely Neruda made his poetry complex and intricate for a reason- surely he doesn´t want us to just skim over his works and read them like chick lit, right? Was he just sick of people butting into his personal life in attempts to figure out why he described the woman´s eyes as dark brown instead of hazel?

Or was he trying to tell us that we´re supposed to enjoy the poems like we would a beautiful painting...and not zoom in on every miniscule brushstroke, where we might lose perspective of the overall masterpiece?

After all of that artistic pondering, I bolted off to my mountaineering class, where we had our first workout day. We ran and ran and ran some more. It was tough, but felt great to finally get a nice workout in.

Friday:
Wednesday and Thursday I´d been feeling pretty crappy- coughing up phlegm (gross), stuffed ears that made me feel like I was in a bubble and raspiness in my breathing. Sooo I decided to go get some meds at student health, which for exchange students, means going to the U.Catolica hospital emergency room. I was amazed at how efficient the whole process was - my doctor spoke english to me to make sure I understood the important stuff (he diagnosed me with acute bronchitis), whenever I looked lost someone directed me where to go and I was in and out in about 30 minutes.

Spent the rest of the day filling my prescriptions, unsucessfully trying to get a student BIP card (discount for the metro) - apparently they recently changed their whole process and won´t have the new system ready for another few weeks! Gah I´m sick of paying full price for transportation!

Then came home and was pleasantly greeted by Victoria (home early from work) and Katie (the girl who lived with Victoria last semester and recently returned from a month of travelling in Argentina and Brazil). Katie gave me lots of great tips on things to do/things to avoid in Chile and let me know that I don´t need to stress about classes down here b/c even the ¨hard¨ ones are easy by US standards. Thank goodness.

Saturday:
Although I probably shouldn´t have considering my bronchitis, on Saturday I spent the day in Valparaiso with my Chilean ambassador and our little group. Bus ride only took like an hour and a half. Ate at J. Cruz Martínez Casino Social, which apparently has the best chorrillana (french fries, steak, eggs, onions) in all of Chile. The food was good..but how good can that combination of food really get? It´s essentially diner leftovers all piled together and served family style in one massive platter. Apparently the restaurant serves other food as well, but you would have never known because the entire restaurant was eating the same dish. We all decided that a place like this would make a killing on a college campus on Friday and Saturday nights around 3 AM.

After lunch, we wandered around the city and went up a hill in these cool sideways elevators that were constructed in the 1800s. At first, it was kind of scary to watch these creaky wooden boxes jet up the steep elevation, but the ride was actually quite smooth and secure.

Wandered down the hill, admiring the colorful scenery of Valpo, then we were lured by some smooth talking boaters into taking a boat trip around the bay. Although we were hesitant at first, the boat trip ended up being well worth the $2 per person. Had a great view of the city, rode up close next to big shipping tankers, saw a few napping sea lions, and we were seduced by a guy on another boat who yelled ¨Titanic!¨and tried to motion and convince us that he would be our Leonardo DiCaprio. haha...

Got home around 9 and then we went over to Marcela´s apartment for an asado (read: grill out/meat feast) to say goodbye to Katie. Ate some delicious chorizo and other meats and salads and such. Still wasn´t feeling great but I tried to keep my spirits high between sneezes and coughing fits. But by the end of the night, things got a little hectic. First, Rodrigo fell and bit his lip and started bleeding like crazy. Then someone knocked the table and caused a glass of red wine to fall all over my shirt, pants and shoes (luckily I think it´s all out now...). That kinda killed the party..so then we went home and I crashed into bed.

Sunday:
And then I didn´t leave my bed all day. Felt absolutely miserable- couldn´t speak, couldn´t hear, had body aches...it was rough. I moved all the way to the kitchen table for lunch, but then returned right back to bed for the rest of the day.

Katie left Sunday afternoon and left me with a bunch of things that she couldn´t fit in her suitcase, including: her student BIP card (hooray!), a jar of peanut butter (expensive and rare down here), an adapter and a couple of other things. Felt like Christmas! Actually...it´s funny that I say that because Sunday was kind of like Christmas for other children in Chile as well. Incredibly, the holiday hasn´t yet plagued the US, but the second Sunday in August down here is known as¨El dia del nino¨ (oh yes - Children´s Day- as if every other day of the year wasn´t Children´s day!). Obviously, it´s a big marketing scheme for toy stores to get business during the winter months because it´s pretty much just a day where you´re ¨required¨to buy your child some sort of toy or present. Marcela told me before that she was morally opposed to the holiday and wasn´t going to get RoRo anything, but of course she ended up getting him a stuffed animal. And one of my friend´s host sisters got a live bunny rabbit! Crazy crazy.

Monday
After sleeping all Sunday, I woke up Monday feeling a gazillion times better. Still didn´t have a voice, but at least I could move without feeling pain. Went to my Feminine in God class, which was interesting at first but then got a little off track when people started participating in the discussion and going off on little tangents. Spent the rest of the day working on my essay for my Contemporary Chile class and writing a poem for my Neruda class.

Tuesday:
Went to my LatinAmerican Politics class and the professor was actually there this time. Seems like it will be an interesting class, despite it being full of gringos. Gotta go read some Neruda.

Besos,

Lindsay

the best anti-smoking campaign i´ve seen

Since being down here, I´ve learned to love cigarette boxes. No, I haven´t taken up smoking - I just love the hilarious picture posted on every single box of cigarettes sold in Chile:

Oh yes, it´s a magic picture that shows you just one of the lovely affects of consuming the product inside. What a brilliant idea. Sure we have the Surgeon General´s warning in the US, but how many people actually READ in our country? And isn´t a picture worth a thousand words?

Unfortunately, the Chileans seem to just ignore the picture -- smokers abound in this country -- much to my lungs´ dismay.

Seeing these boxes everywhere got me thinking - what if ALL products gave you a glimpse into your post-consumption future? What if every pack of french fries showed you a picture of your clogged arteries? Or better yet, what if it came with a small congealed sample of the fat that you´d be putting into your body? What if guns came with the story of a weeping mother, mourning the loss of her son after an accidental shooting?

hola, me llamo Lincy

Tuesday (aka- The terrible horrible no good very bad day that got better)

So despite all of my efforts not to take early morning classes AND have a tuesday-thursday class schedule, I´ve realized that the only way to make my classes fit both of those criteria would be to take really lame classes that don´t interest me. Therefore, my new goal is to find a happy medium: take interesting classes monday-thursday with only one 8:30am class. Not ideal, but it works. Plus I only have one class on Mondays, so it wouldn´t be a tragedy if a need for a 4-day weekend ever arises.

So Tuesday was my first attempt to go to a 8:30am class- The LatinAmerican Telenovela. Not only is it an early class, it´s also located on an obscure campus about an hour away. However, the course sounded very interesting so it was worth the sacrifice of sleep. Fortunately one of my friends had a class at the same time and at the same campus, so we decided to navigate our commute together.

Things started off well - we met at 730 at a metro station and boarded the correct bus in the correct direction. However, with so many people on the bus we had trouble reading the road signs and consequently missed our stop and then had no idea where the heck we were. Got off the bus, wandered all over, first relying on our own intuition and map-reading abilities (bad idea) and then asking people for directions (good idea).

After getting lost in many a foreign land with many hours of lost frustration, I´ve finally realized that asking people for help is nothing to be embarrassed about or scared of. Even if people have no idea how to get you to your destination, they can usually give you one little tip or suggestion that will help you along your way and then a friendly onlooker often steps in to contribute a little more knowledge and then usually you´re good to go. Besides, talking to people takes you out of your ¨i´m so frustrated and lost and confused" discombobulated mentality and forces you to calm down. Sometimes when I´m lost and I´ve been staring at the same map for an extended period of time, I just lose all common sense and start running in circles instead of taking a moment to stand still and think logically.

Arrived on campus around 8:45, but then I had to find out where my class was located b/c the room wasn´t posted in our course book. Of course, the rooms are not posted in a central location, so i go to the theater department and they tell me to go to room R1 and i go to R1 and nobody is there and eventually I learn that the class has been cancelled and won´t be offered this semester (GAHHHHH).

So then I make attempt number 2 to go to class. Travel 30 min to a new campus, cant find the building, so I assume I must have confused the street name with the name of another street in a different part of the city. Travel there, then call my friend and learn that my original location was correct- the building is just kind of hidden. So I go back to my original location (after accidentally going the wrong way on the metro) and run into a friend who is heading to the same class as me. We ask the front desk for the room number of the class and it´s not listed on the schedule for this campus! And we eventually find out that the class doesn´t start til Thursday. Fabulous.

Fortunately, the day improved from there. Since we didn´t have class, my friend and I grabbed lunch at a little hole-in-the-wall. A lot of these small restaurants don´t really have menus - they just have a meal of the day and you can choose certain aspects of the meal (soup or salad, fish or meat, etc) Ate salad, salmon, rice, fresh pulpy pineapple juice and chocolate flan for $5. yum yum.

Then I successfully went to my first class of the day - Images of Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral. It´s a poetry class about two of Chile´s finest writers, but it´s more geared towards foreign students to help us develop our speaking and writing abilities as we discuss the poems and draw pictures about the poems (sweet!) and write our own poems (yikes). Should be interesting....

And miraculously my next class was a success as well - La Catolica offers a mountaineering class where you learn the essentials of mountain climbing and then you get to go on a bunch of excursions throughout the year. Walked into class and was greeted by this crazy ponytail wearing mountain cracking jokes at everyone and wearing a Wharton Leadership Ventures t-shirt. Apparently, he´s guided the WLV trips to Antarctica and Patagonia and such for the past 6 years, and I can see why -- this guy knows his mountain stuff and he also knows how to keep a group of people entertained. I´m desperately hoping to take this class, but unfortunately, only 20 spots are open to foreigners. Hopefully Ill get in!

Wednesday (aka - Hola, me llamo Lincy)

Despite my attempts to avoid North American chains of all kinds, I simply couldn´t stand the weak excuse for coffee (Nescafe instant mix) that is available at my house. Therefore, after pondering and pondering, I came up with three reasons that would validate my urging to enter the Starbucks that I pass every day.

Reason 1: My dad asked me to look for a Santiago city mug (sorry pops- they didn´t have one. Are they still selling them in other parts of the world?)
Reason 2: I was thinking about looking at globalization/the intrusion of American chains in Chile as a potential paper topic. So I needed to do some field work.
Reason 3: I needed to be awake for class and therefore needed a real cup of coffee.

So I got my soy dulce de leche latte (so much better here b/c its real dulce de leche) in a cup with my name (Lincy) written on it. I think I´m going to start writing my name like that because then people will have an easier time saying it. When they see Lindsay, they want to say Leen-saaay because they don´t pronounce d´s.

Then went to my second class of "The Feminine in God". Once again, it was a good class and I understood the lesson. Hoooray.

Moved to the next campus and thirty minutes later arrived at a class titled "Chilean Political Institutions" that ended up being a second-semester (they just finished winter break, so this is like their spring semester) Chilean Constitutional Law class (why don´t they say that in the course book!!). I thought something was wrong when there were no other foreigners in the class and everyone was staring at me. When the professor started talking going into a lecture about Article 5.3434 of the Chilean constitution, I made my graceful exit and heard an explosion of laughter as I closed the door. Sigh.

THEN since I was having trouble finding ANY polisci classes, I decided to check out beginner´s French (I´ve been wanting to learn it for awhile...might as well start now...). Once again, it´s a mess finding the room and then the teacher showed up 20 min late and then I find out that this is ALSO a second semester class...so it´s not beginner´s french - it´s intermediate french. I leave when the professor starts handing back the french papers that the students wrote from last semester. GAH.

Walked home to release some of my frustration and then did my poetry homework. Had a terrible dinner of¨vegetable torte (layers of flour tortillas, mayo, tuna, avocado, corn and lettuce) and explained to Victoria that I´d prefer less mayo on my section. (her response: "but it´s light mayo!") Well it´s not light when you squirt it on like icing on a cake!

Thursday:
Made an attempt at another 830am class. Got to campus and found out that the class was not going to be offered this semester either. Now I´m in the computer lab killing time until my next class starts (let´s hope it starts!). Better go work on my paper and start my poem.

Ciao!

Lindsay

eres un angelito del cielo

Foreword:
Sorry for getting behind on postings. And sorry for always writing so much. I know it's silly to recap every little detail of every day, but I have to think chronologically through my weeks to remember what I did and then I feel bad if I don't talk about an experience that I had. I don't want to offend any memories by not including them.

Entonces...

Thursday:
Attended orientation at La Pontificia Universidad Catolica. As expected, the campus and the students were a 180 degree turn from La Chile. No graffiti on the walls- but rather, pristine buildings (some of which looked like museums) with fountains and nice tile floors and pretty libraries and the works. No students with dreds or tye-die or funky hair colors - but rather, adorned in your classic Gap styles, with a Chilean twist of course. Unfortunately, the mullet was still present on the Catolica boys. What a shame, what a shame.

Umm the orientation was incredibly boring but luckily went by quickly because I spent the time figuring out potential class schedules. Then all of 40 of the CIEE kids crammed into the tiny 3-room CIEE office to look at past course evaluations and chaotically figure out our schedules some more. Marni and I bailed pretty quickly, wanting to just put the whole class-picking conundrum to rest for awhile, so we wandered around a little area called La Feria de Santa Lucia - an outdoor market filled with artisan vendors of all kinds. I got a fun costume-jewelry-ish ring for $2 and Marni found some cool artwork that she's going to ponder whether to buy or not.

Then went to Fallabella to look for an ipod to replace my dead one (grrrr - I'm so mad it's broken! The other day I went to turn it on and the screen just had funky lines running through it! I'm convinced that all ipod products are made to last 2 years and then just self destruct b/c my last one died after 2 years too...). So anyways, I found the ipods and looked at the price and saw that it was 199,990, which I originally read as $199.99 in dollars - seemed pretty close to what the same kind of ipod costs in the states. Then, I reminded myself that I was in Chile and remembered that I needed to DOUBLE that price to convert it from pesos to dollars. Heck no - I am not paying double the price for the same exact product just because I'm buying it in a different country. And if I wanted someone to ship me an ipod from the states, they'd have to pay all sorts of 30% insurance and tarriff fees and such. And if I want someone to look at the ipod to see if they can fix it, I have to pay $100. So annoying. I'm walking all over the place here and it's lonely and boring without having music to keep me entertained. However, I think my mom's going to send my ipod shuffle soon so hopefully that will solve my dilemma.

Thursday night I just chilled at home watching some random spanish TV while waiting for Victoria to come home. Around 8 she called all flustered and apologized for being late and said she'd be home soon. Got home around 9 and felt super guilty so she took me out to dinner (to a place called "Sport Cafe"...they love their english words down here....)

We each had a pisco sour and then split fajitas for dinner (fajitas for 2 were $30!! absolutely absurd- no wonder people don't eat out much down here). Victoria downed her pisco sour in a jiffy and when I eventually finished mine, the waitress brought another one (happy hour - 2 for 1!) Once again, Victoria downed her drink but I didn't touch my second one...as much as I like sugary things, pisco sours taste like you're just drinking liquid lemonheads. Plus these drinks were wayyy stronger than the pisco sours I'd had here so far.

Friday:
Went back to the international police for step 2 in the process of getting an international ID card. Had to get every one of my fingerprints taken; however, considering the smudgy mess that I made when I gave my fingerprints, I doubt they'd be able to identify me even if I left fingerprints all over a crime scene.

Saw "El Caballero de la noche" (The Dark Knight -fortunately we found a screening in English with Spanish subtitles rather than a dubbed version) with my friend Erin at a really nice movie theater (with a dunkin donuts and other restaurants inside the theater). I wasn't super impressed by the flick - the story line wasn't very captivating and by the end I was just bored. Heath Ledger was scary, but great...but I definitely liked Batman Begins much more.

Had dinner with Victoria, Vecita, Rodrigo, RoRo and Marcela. They wanted to celebrate so we had rum+coke with dinner. At the beginning of the night, Rodrigo was trying to talk to me in his million-words-a-minute mode of speaking. Although I can understand what he's trying to ask me when I give him my full attention, he often says something when I don't realize he's talking to me and I have to ask him to repeat himself. Therefore, Rodrigo goes on to talk to Marcela about how I can't understand him, and of course THEN I understand every word he says. Gah.

Then Rodrigo started pestering me because I only had one drink (just the same as him I might add - both of us were wimps compared to Victoria's 3 drinks though). I wanted to explain to him that it was already hard enough to understand him and speak in spanish with the rum in my system.

After dinner, met up with some friends at Plaza Nunoa to enjoy the Santiago nightlife. Ended up wandering around and puddle-hopping in the POURING rain, which made for a good bonding experience with some friends. In the taxi ride home, the driver tried to rip us off but luckily we were NOT the dumb gringas he thought we were and we did not get ripped off.

Saturday:
In the morning, wandered around a little outdoor market with vendors selling all sorts of "brand name" (read: fake) shoes and clothes and such. Most of the items were really really bad knockoffs; however, there was a plethora of futbol jerseys, so I decided to buy one so that I could have something to wear when I go see a match. While looking from far away at one stand, a vendor noticed my interest and then...

Vendor: "Ayy que linda! Venga, venga mi amor!" (ahh how beautiful! come here, come here my love!)
[i hesitantly walk towards the booth]
Vendor: "Ayyy eres una angelito del cielo! Mi angelito! Eres la mas bonita aqui!" (you're an angel sent from heaven! my angel! you're the most beautiful one here!)
[man shows me all sorts of jerseys in all sorts of colors, offers me discounts, etc]
Vendor: "Ayyyy tus ojos! Dame tus ojos!" (ah your eyes! give me your eyes!)

This went on for the five or so minutes that I was browsing through the jerseys. As much as I wanted to uphold my feminist values and avoid his piropos (cat calls/flirting etc) and show him that he can't attract customers just by sweet talking them, he did have a jersey I liked and offered me a good price, so I bought it.

Met up with a friend to go to this artisan town outside of Santiago called Pomaire. The bus ride was supposed to be about an hour, but ended up taking almost two hours b/c halfway through the trip, our long-distance bus ride suddenly turned into a community transit system- we picked up random people along the side of the road and they just squeezed down the aisle between the coach seats. A bit strange, but I guess they need some sort of transportation system out in rural areas.

Enjoyed a pleasant afternoon wandering around Pomaire - admiring the clay pottery and 1/2 kilo empanadas that the city is known for and soaking in the smog-free Chilean countryside. I found a pair of super soft alpaca (llama-type animal)-fur socks and Erin got a really cool alpaca fur sweater. We had fun; however, we were ready to go by around 4pm. Unfortunately, when we went to the bus stop where we thought we'd be catching a ride home and found out that we were in the wrong place and needed to walk to the other side of town to get a bus ticket. So then we wandered to the bus station and as the man handed us our tickets he told us that the bus (the last bus of the day) would be leaving at 530. By this point we had seen all the sights in the village so we just sat and people-watched for awhile. Although we were annoyed that the whole bus process wasn't clearer, we were happy that we made it onto the last bus..otherwise we would have had a very interesting time trying to scope out accommodations in pomaire!

Sunday
Went to church with Marni. When I got there, Marni was talking to an adorable elderly couple in English and they were excited to hear that I spoke English too. Turned out that the husband is from Australia and his wife is from Chile, so me being the nosy person that I am asked how they met each other and then had the pleasure of hearing one of the most adorable love stories ever.

A few years back, this man (a widower and former member of the Australian Air Force) was going on an around-the-world trip with his son to celebrate his son's graduation from something. While they were going through security in an airport, the man set off the metal detector and realized he had to take out these metal slits from his Air Force boots. Apparently this Chilean woman thought this was really funny and started laughing at the man. So then the woman goes through the detector and sets it off as well with her jewelry or something and the Air Force guy laughs at her. And then they chat while waiting in the terminal and part their separate ways and reunite a few months later and now they live in Chile together! Precious precious.

At church, met another exchange student from GA Tech (who used to date my friend from high school...small world) and his friends invited me to play frisbee with a group of gringos (apparently Chileans think frisbees are for dogs...)

Met up at a cool park (with actual grass-- quite rare down here) and joined up with some Americans who teach at an International school in Chile. They were a pretty intense bunch with the frisbee, but really nice people in general.

Monday:
First day of school! My tentative schedule doesn't include any monday classes, but today I went to two just to test them out in case my schedule changes. I'm going to try to take a religion class at La Catolica b/c their religion department is supposed to be strong, so my first class was about feminine themes in Christianity. Fortunately, the professor spoke very clearly and slowly...phew! And when we had to introduce ourselves in front of the class I could understand the other students and they didn't laugh at me when I gave my introduction. All very good signs.

The other class I went to was the Introduction to the Bible. Although I thought this would be more of a literary analysis/overview of the different works, the actual course deals more with historical aspects and distribution

It rained all morning and then the sun came out and life was beautiful once again.

Tonight, went to a cool little bible study with gringos and chileans alike. Twas muy fun.

830 am class tomorrow. Sleepytime.

Un besito,

Lindsay