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