Class?!

Never again will I complain about having to sign up for classes at WashU.

I have the opportunity to take classes at two universities, one La Católica, a private University, and the University of Chile. Católica is a bit more organized, and La Chile, not at all. This week classes started only at la Chile, and as of this past monday or Tuesday, many of the classes not only didn't have assigned classrooms, but also didn't have a schedule. It is very difficult to try and visit classes that don't have professors, schedules, or classrooms...

Tuesday I attempted to go to a class. After I got off the metro, I looked for the bus that could take me closer to campus. I saw two younger guys standing at the bus stop and asked them if they knew which bus went to the campus. I think the fact that they didn't understand me/took a very long time to respond should have been my indication they had no idea. But, they told me oh, it's this bus right here, so I get on. 10 minutes into the ride, one of the guys again asks me where I'm going, and then a lady on the bus tells me I'm going to wrong direction. I walk up and ask the driver of the bus, who is unfamiliar with the campus, the street, and anything related to the campus. I finally get off the bus and cross to the other side. I ask the new bus driver if the bus goes to the campus, which of course he doesn't recognize, but he does recognize the street. I eventually end up on campus, but have no idea where my class is. I spent about 15 minutes searching for the office of the exchange student coordinator, and I find it and the door is locked. I ask the secretary and finally get the room number. I am now 25 minutes late to class, and although I probably could have just walked in, it was a 15 person class and I didn't want to...I called the department of the other two classes I was planning to visit that afternoon. The first number that I had found in the course book as of course wrong, so I was given another number. This new number was the post-grad division, so I was given a third number. After being on hold, I find out that one of the classes doesn't start until Thursday, and the other one might not start at all because there aren't enough people interested. Just great, now I'm 0/3.

Wednesday we had a meeting with the coordinator again, and I planned on going to a class afterwards. I saw that this class, which on my list said met Monday and Wednesday, on the main list said Monday and Tuesday. I got this checked out, and of course it meets Monday and Tuesday, so I missed the class. 0/4

Yesterday I actually did make it to a class! It was a comparative economics class about Chile, Argentina and Mexico. I could understand probably about 60% of what the professor said, and impressive statistic on my part. He would speak loud and slow for most of the lecture, but then when he started thinking fast his speech got fast and mumbled, and I had absolutely no idea what he said. I think he made some jokes too, because people around me were laughing. I did make a friend though, who explained a bit of the syllabus to me, and then helped me get out of the building and to the metro because I got lost.

Up for next week: visiting way too many classes at La Católica and La Chile, and traveling among about 5 different campuses. Upside: I'm getting a lot better at the public transportation...

COLD aka trip to Pucón

One word to describe our trip to Pucón: cold. It wasn't even that cold outside, but I never realized that winter without heat is a lot colder than winter with heat. Despite this, it was still a really cool trip.

Until this trip never had I ever...

*seen snow in July

*climbed a volcano

*used crampons and piolets and all of this other fancy equipment to climb this volcano

*slid down a volcano as if i were sledding--but without the sled

*worn long underwear, sweatpants, sweatshirt, two pairs of socks, a 20 degree sleeping bag and two blankets...to go to sleep.

*worn only a bathingsuit in about 40/30 degree (I don't know exactly, but very cold) weather...

Aside from the cold, I really liked Pucon. Although in the summer time it is heavily a tourist town, it was a lot of fun in the winter as well. Most of the town is made of wood, so it looked a lot like a ski town, something like I would imagine some ski towns in Colorado would look like, but i've never been skiing in Colorado so I wouldn't know. It is more of a touristy town, so they had a lot of variety in restaurants, unlike some of the small towns we were in last week where our options were a chilean restaurant or...a chilean restaurant. There were more pizza/pasta places on the same block, then I have seen in a very long time. There were also a lot of artisan markets, with more wool hats and socks than I have ever seen...but it makes sense.

It was a lot harder to speak Spanish here because so many people didn't speak spanish. In our hostel there were people from Switzerland and Holland, and they spoke to us in English. There were also a lot of other tourists who didn't really speak any Spanish at all. It was a nice little English break, but now I'm back in Santiago and it's spanish time.

On our second day we did a canopy tour, which is kind of like a series of ziplines. We ziplined across a river which was really cool. I did something like this in Costa Rica but that was about 6 years ago. It also reminded me of the high ropes courses I used to do at camp, with harnesses, helmets and the whole deal.

Friday was my favorite day in Pucon. We woke up at around 6:30am, earlier than i've been up in a very long time, and put on so many layers, and went to hike the volcano. They gave us pants and jackets, but my jacket was so big there was probably enough space for another person. We also got boots, helmets, snow axes, crampones, which are kind of like spikes you put on the bottom of the boots to make walking on ice/snow a lot easier. Pretty intense. As we walked, despite the fact that it was a snow covered volcano, I was warmer than when I slept in our hostel. We hiked for a while, it turned out no one was able to climb to the top because there was too much wind. Going down the volcano was a lot more fun than climbing up. We wore these, I guess kindof like aprons, but we wore them backwards and slid down parts of the volcano. It was like sledding, and in some parts the snow was really deep so I got stuck, but most of the time it worked pretty well.

Later that night I went with one of my friends to Los Pozones, which are hotsprings. There were at least two pools, well we only made it to two of them. One of them was so hot. The pool was steaming, and when I first stepped in it was so hot that it almost hurt. It was definitely a nice change though, and very relaxing. While running from one pool to another was cold, the water was very very warm.

After looking for the movie theatre that burnt down 2 years ago, eating to pass the time, drinking more hot chocolate, and a 10 hour bus ride back to Santiago, we arrived at the metro before it opened at 8am, which is pretty embarrassing. A true sign that no one should be up at before 8 on a Sunday morning. At 8:20 I arrived back at my apartment and went back to bed. It was very nice to be able to sleep without socks on...

Vacaciones del Invierno 1!

Bus Travel:

This was the first time I've gone on an overnight bus ride. Considering, it was pretty comfortable. We sat in the front row of the second level, and it was like being on a rollercoaster, it looked like we were going to hit everything,

Bus travel unique to Chile:

When engines of buses don't start, some s

trong men go to the back and push.

People stand in the aisles of coach buses, if there are 3 seats left, at least 8 people will be let on

Buses stop every five minutes, letting people off at their houses on the side of the highway/dirt road

Not unique to Chile, but still as annoying:

The snapping, humming, singing man who decided a one man band at 1 am was a good idea.

Small children kicking seats, playing music without headphones ( an extensive repertoire of about 5 Michael Jackson songs)

We spent about 5 days in La Serena, about 6 hours from Santiago. There were a lot of little towns nearby, and since there wasn't that much to do in each town, we traveled to four. It was a lot of bus rides, but fairly easy.Every town had a plaza de armas, and in these plazas were more little motorized cars than I have ever seen in my entire life. It is a four-year-olds paradise, with all of them driving their monster trucks and barbie jeeps. In the artisan markets, they had a lot of very interesting things such as aloe vera jam, papaya rum, rose petal alcohol, as well as bags not only that I have seen all over Santiago, but in places all over the world.

One of the towns, Vicuña, is where the famous poet Gabriela Mistral, the famous poet lived. There's a museum there, streets named after her, and also a creepy huge statue of just h

er face staring up at the sky. One night we went to a planetarium and got to look at Jupiter, and learned all about the 'andean cosmovision' We looked at a lot of really cool things in the telescope, I had no idea what I was looking at though. The Andean music show at the end was a plus, but the fact that the coffee shop was closed and it was freezing outside, not so cool.

Another town, pisco Elqui is home to a pisco distillery, pisco a type of alcohol made in a similar way to wine. We took a tour, watched a thrilling video about the tough life of a grape being made into pisco, and then got to use our souvenir glasses to try a little bit.

The last tour, Coquimbo, is a big port city, but was probably my favorite. We walked around for a while and almost walked into a 'mens only' cafe, at around 4pm. It was a Sunday, so more things than we realized were closed, but it was a town that seemed like it would be very busy if it was not a Sunday...we'll just have to come back.

Tonight it's off to Pucon, colder, rainier, but hopefully with some thermal baths/volcano walking. And maybe some young people? Maybe it'll be our lucky day...

Done!

Done with class! I've heard that everyone works really hard during the intensive spanish class, and after that, no one does anything until about the last month of the semester. I am looking forward to this whole not-doing-work thing. I don't think there's ever been a time when I felt good about doing no work...hopefully I can pull it off this time.

Two days ago, instead of spending an hour in a café doing homework with a friend, I spent an hour listening to a family try to convert us into Jehovah's Witnesses. They seemed very nice, the son told us of his crush on Megan Fox, among other things It's funny how an at-first conversation about our impressions of the city turns into our opinions on religion and later a conversation on whether we'd like to go to an international Jehovah's Witness conference of over 80,000 people. Let me tell you, they were very insistent. They went so far as to ask for our phone numbers so they could call us about tell us about upcoming events. Instead the mother gave us her e-mail, but I can't truthfully say that the sheet of paper made it home with us. This was the first time I've ever been approached by one of them, aside from through the window of my house. They sure can talk; we did not get any work done, we sat for an hour with our grammar books open. We got through one exercise and had to go. So much for getting things accomplished...

Vacation time! Tonight we're off on a 5 day trip to La Serena, about 6 hours north. It's supposed to be really pretty, it's the home of Gabriela Mistral, has a lot of cute towns, an observatory, and also the place where they make a lot of pisco. It should be really fun, it's also the first time we've planned a trip by ourselves with hostels and everything...it should be very exciting. We have to come back for a one day for orientation for the Universidad de Chile, but after that we're off again to Pucón, which is about 10 hours south. In the summer, it is a very touristy, but i've heard in the winter it's really cool as well. There are volcanoes, thermal baths, possibly some snowshoeing? I'm not really sure, we'll just play it by ear of course with the help of the Lonely Planet Guide book.

Back on the 26th!

Interesting facts: Since last Tuesday, I have watched 5 Chilean movies. Apparently, there are about 10 chilean movies worth watching, I am well on my way to seeing everything I need to see in the near future. Also, there are also about 5 chilean actors/actresses. Every movie I have seen has at least 3 actors I have seen before, those 5 actors, well they're quite lucky. For all other aspiring chilean actors, it doesn't look like there's much hope. The movies are actually really good. One, La Buena Vida, is very similar to the movie Crash. Another, Machuka, is the story of two boys one from a wealthly family and one from a very poor family, and it's the story of their friendship before and then during the military dictatorship.

In Santiago, there is PDA like I have never seen before in my life. It makes everything i've ever seen in the US seem so tame. Culturally, things are just different here. People live with their parents through their 20s and sometimes until they're 30, and boyfriends/girlfriends are generally only allowed in the main parts of the house (kitchen, living room) So for many young people, it seems that out in public is more socially acceptable. For me, it seems a little strange, but people here definitely don't seem to mind...

Subway etiquite...very questionable. When a train stops, people waiting to get on stand right infront of the train, making it very difficult for people to get off. Because of this, it takes much longer than it should for people to get off the train, leaving a lot less time for people to get on. The doors begin to close, and people shove, as in literally push the people infront of them, to get on the train, and I end up literally in some random person's face without anything to hold onto (because no one actually moves into the train). Then we stand like sardines, about 15 more people on the train then can actually fit push onto the train, until we get to the next stop.

Today we had another walking tour of Santiago, we went to a couple of museums and then walked around one of the main plazas, 'Plazas de Armas.' It is really nice out today, and there were a lot of people around, and the plaza was really cool. We went and ate at the famous bar/restaurant called la piojera. At this restaurant, the 'traigo de la casa' es called a 'terremoto' which means earthquake. It has wine, pisco, icecream, and possibly other things I just don't know. My host dad told me one terremoto, fine but two...bad idea. I didn't have my camera but we took some very nice pictures especially ones with the guitar players who entertained us at lunch.

So I have some photos to show that i've actually been doing things since i've been here.  Friday night we had our welcome dinner with us four and our mamás. It was an extremely long dinner, not surprising considering everything takes a very long time here.  A well-known dish here is chicken or beef 'a la pobre' which means poor men's chicken or beef. It's a piece of meat with fried eggs on top, with french fries= a lot of fried food in one place. Not necessarily the most appetizing of things, but maybe it's something I have to try. 

This weekend we had a walking tour of Santiago. We went to one of Pablo Neruda's house, which was actually really cool, and a zoo at the top of a mountain.  It was cold outside, a pretty depressing day for the zoo and none of the animals were outside, but there were some pretty cool monkeys and flamingos. 

Saturday night I went with two of my friends to a Karaoke bar.  Not only were we the only gringas there, but we were younger than pretty much everyone by at least 20 years.  We have yet to find the places where the young people hang out in Santiago.  The newest plan is to find a young person on the street and then follow them in hopes they go into a bar or someplace with other young people. Whether this is such a good idea, I don't know...but perhaps it's worth a try.  At this karaoke bar, my two friends and I first sang an embarrassing version of A'int no mountain high enough. Unbeknownst to us, there are many different versions, and this was not the version we were familiar with. We awkwardly tried to sing to a tune we didn't know, and when we finished, the only applause was from the enthusiastic bartender. We later tried to appeal to the half-empty crowd with a Jackson 5favorite 'ABC' which was better (it couldn't really get worse).  It was really hard to compete with all of the off-key depressing Russian love ballads everyone else was singing. We did our best though. It was a valiant effort.

After this we went to a salsoteca, which is kind-of like a dance club that plays salsa music.  Once again, we were the only ones there probably under 30/35, but my host brother and his cousin joined us. I was asked by an old guy to dance, and I embarrassingly made a fool of myself by my lack of knowledge of salsa. The dancing was fun but short-lived as I think it's not as fun trying to dance with a clueless person. My friends and I are planning on taking salsa lessons, so that next time, I can hold my own on the dance floor. 

Gringa

Yesterday my host brother explained to me the easy ways to spot a gringo. As if I didn't already know that we would stick out here, I also learned that everything I do, I do like a gringa. 

-The clothes I wear= gringo. Especially my shoes.  Aside from my converse, all of my other shoes are gringo shoes.  Sperry's= especially gringo.

-My backpack. First of all, Northface=gringo, and also the fact as a girl I use a big backpack. Chilean girls all have really small backpacks, or wear bags over their shoulder. If they happen to have big backpacks, they only wear them on one shoulder. Wearing your backpack on both shoulders, well that apparently is a gringo thing.

-The way I walk and the way I sit. I don't even know what that means...

-Hooded sweatshirts, especially with University names on them, at that point I of course pulled out of my closet a WashU sweatshirt. 

My host brother did say though that I don't have the face of a gringa. Meaning if someone were to look at only face, and if i didn't talk, walk or move, I couldn't be identified immediately as a gringa. How exciting!!

In unrelated news, in this country I've definitely had to learn and understand patience. Dad, I think you'd go crazy, at least in the beginning. Things here just take a lot longer. I went to a pharmacy to buy hand sanitizer a few days ago, and I had to take a number like you do to get meat in the grocery store so that I could pay. It took me about 15 minutes just to pay one item, because of course everyone in line in front of me was ordering prescriptions and asking questions that took a very long time. When I went to go get my student ID card, we waited for over 2 hours plus almost an hour for transportation both ways. And after all that, I have to go back another time to pick it up in two weeks. We were 1 1/2 hours late for class so I guess something good did come out of it...

It's July and I'm in class. I'm also wearing a fleece and a scarf. I don't know which is weirder. I also have to leave a half hour before class starts in order to get there in time. Quite the change from when I would leave my dorm at 9:58 to be at class (hopefully) before 10:07. Class isn't that bad though, it's only the 4 of us in my group which a professor who is really nice.  She talks slow and I can actually understand her, which is almost as exciting.  It's also not that much work, and we get to talk about contemporary chile, which is interesting. Today we talked about Michael Jackson. I feel like everywhere I go that is an important conversation topic.  I think people here miss him more than in the US. I'm not there, so I don't know, but we've definitely talked about him more in the past 5 days than I've ever even thought about him in the past 20 years. 

Yesterday I went to dinner at an Indian restaurant close to my apartment with some people from the summer program. We went at around 7, earlier than any chilean would ever eat dinner. But the biggest mistake we made was to try and go to a restaurant when it was raining.  We walked into this restaurant and it was dark.  We asked if it was open, and technically it was, but because it was raining, none of the waiters or chefs came to work. Apparently, when it rains, Santiago shuts down. The roads flood and no one wants to go anywhere. It wasn't even raining that hard, but apparently it was enough.  We waited about 15 mins, the chef and a waitress came to work, and we ate our dinner.

Big news for today: I bought an adaptor. I brought the wrong ones, so today I went into a store near my apartment and bought one all by myself. The guy behind the counter understood me, and I understood him. It was extremely exciting. It's almost as if I'm starting to understand things! It's also nice out today, I think it's around 55 degrees but it feels warmer. Although it's cold, being winter, I think it's warm. Nothing like a Boston/St. Louis winter. However, I won't really have a full summer until 2010...