a weekend of fútbol, jazz, y politics

Yesterday I went to my first soccer game! Two of my friends and I went with this group of around 15 people, all of whom I didn't know, but were all nice and fun anyway.  The game was at the estadio nacional, which is one of the major stadims in Santiago (i think). The game was Universidad Católica vs. Colo Colo, two Chilean professional teams. What is interesting about the teams is that the fan base is largely related to social classes. Fans of Universidad Católica are mostly upper class, fans of La U, or Universidad de Chile, are mostly middle class, and fans of Colo Colo are more lower class. Even though 2 of the 3 teams are named after Universities, the players are not university players. I think, however, that the teams are owned by the universities. Colo Colo, which is  supposed to be more like the team that represents Chile  (Colo Colo was a Mapuche (indigenous peoples in the Southern Chile) chief), is owned by Piñera, who is the presidential candidate who represents the right.  Apparently he owns a lot of other stuff as well (television channels etc..,) but I'm actually going to talk about politics a little bit later...
So at this soccer game, we sat on the Colo Colo side, which had a lot more people.  While I really don't understand much about soccer (that might even be an understatement) the game was really fun. The first half was a bit dull, but in the second half it was a lot more active and everyone was getting more excited and anxious. The teams had coordinated cheers, and it felt like I was back at sleepaway camp again.  Coming from Newton South High School, with zero athletic spirit, and the coming to WashU with generally minimal school spirit, I've never really known what it's like to be in a place that appreciates sports or gets excited to watch them, so this was really fun. Colo Colo ended up losing, 1-2. I also heard that they have the most money and buy the best players, but never win...
They only let out one side at a time so that the there aren't any fights.  We took a micro (public bus) back from the stadium and there were Colo Colo fans on the bus, banging on the sides of the bus and waving banners and flags out the windows, considering the fact that there were both Colo Colo and Católica fans on the bus, and there we no fights, I'd call the day a success.

Saturday night I went to see a jazz concert. The singer was the cousin of my friend's housemate. She had a really good voice, and sang in English, Spanish, French, Italian and German. I think she's generally a jazz singer but along with some jazz was some Beyonce and of course, Michael Jackson. While riding the metro last week, I saw a flyer for a Michael Jackson Tribute party...it never gets old does it? We went dancing afterwards at this bar/club that from the outside looked like nothing. If I hadn't been with girls who had been to this place before I would have walked right past it.  It was extremely crowded and the music was okay, but it was still a lot of fun.

Yesterday at lunch was started talking about politics. The Chilean presidential primary is in December, and the deadline to register to vote is in the next two weeks. I've seen posters all over the metro stations reminding people to vote, and in Chile it's mandatory.  Apparently if you don't vote you have to show some sort of medical note or have another valid excuse...I wonder what would happen if voting was mandatory in the US?
If one candidate wins more than 50% of the election in December, they are automatically president, but my host sister said that rarely happens so there's usually the second round in January.  The three presidential candidates are
*Piñera, who I mentioned before, who represents the right,
*Frei, who was president 8 years ago,  and is from the Concertacion, (endorsed by Bachelet, the current president) which is more left and socialist, and then
*Ominami who broke off from the Socialist party and is running more as an independent.

It's really interesting to listen to my host family talk about politics.  I think we have differences in out political beliefs, but it's so fascinating to hear the other points of view. I'm excited to see how everything plays out in the next couple of months. Apparently there's a Piñera rally coming up soon, and maybe some debates/ question and answer sessions with the candidates.

On a side note, plans to Buenos Aires are set! We have flights and a hostel, and are off for 5 days at the beginning of October. Calling Argentina was an adventure, seeing as every country and city has it's own code it's very confusing to know which numbers you have to use, especially since it depends whether you use a landline or cellphone. I attempted to call the number of the hostel about 5 times, each time I found myself listening to the lovely recording of the woman who told me that I'd dialed a nonexistent number.  It's a voice I got to know very well, but since I finally got the hang of making phone calls in Chile, I hadn't heard her voice in a while.  It was good to hear it again. But I finally got through, and the hostel told me I had to book everything online...But now I know how to dial Argentina!

This weekend we're off to San Pedro de Atacama, which is a desert up north which is supposed to be beautiful. We'll be seeing sandunes, geisers, and Sandboarding...I have no idea what it is, but can't wait!

Empanadas & Cueca

Saturday night: empanada and cueca dancing.  I managed to cut onions without crying and cut meat into tiny pieces, even though I was pretty incompetent with the knife. The woman showing us how to make empanadas mixed together a bunch of ingredients and poured about 3 pounds of flour on the counter. Add some eggs, sugar, yeast, water, and mush together.
BUT  BE CAREFUL: pouring hot water into a pot of oil is a bad idea.  It will cause a huge fire and will cause all observers to run in the opposite direction of the fire, which coincidentally happens to a corner with a door we don't notice. Definitely the biggest fire I have ever been close to.
After we all resurfaced from the corner of the kitchen, there was enough dough to make about 1000 empanadas. We kneaded the dough, and rolled it into the size of mini pizza pies, reminding me of when Bertucci's pizza gave out free dough for kids to play with.
We made empanadas de pino which have meat, onion, a piece of a hard boiled egg, and one olive (two is as lucky as finding a four-leaf clover) and another type of empanada with tomato, cheese and basil. Aside the fact that some of my empanadas were juicing out the sides, i'd say I did a pretty good job. We also made fried shrimp and cheese  empanadas. To cut out the shape we used the edge of a glass, and with this I was not so successful. We of course had to eat a substantial amount of our creations before off to our next adventure: cueca.

I wish I had pictures of this adventure. We went to, a guess it was a restaurant, where they have a band and a dance floor to dance cueca, a dance which I mentioned before is supposed to imitate a rooster courting a hen. Evelyn, our program director found people at the next table over to "teach" us cueca, and once we had our handkerchiefs we were ready to go. I of course had to be the first person to dance, and awkwardly waved my handkerchief in the air jump-hopping in circles. Sometimes I'd spin to switch things up... While there is a real technique to cueca, obviously I have no idea how it is actually done.
After many hours of "dancing" (it was lucky I had my handkerchief or otherwise I would have looked even dumber,) and an extremely expensive taxi ride, I ended up home around 4:30 am. not a bad saturday night.

I can't believe time is flying by so fast...it's monday, and then before I know it, it's already Friday and I can't remember how I spend my time. I've been in class for 3 full weeks, yet it doesn't even feel like i'm in class. While I'm not complaining that I don't have work to do all the time, i've always associated not-summer-time with school, and with school comes studying and the library. For most of my classes here, we have a lot of suggested reading, and there is so much that I have the option of reading, but don't know which ones are actually worth reading. In addition, i'm not being tested on what I read, which always makes it that much harder to do the reading. Most of my classes have one final project, or two exams, so while there will be weeks where I have a lot to do, it seems like most weeks I can read as much or as little as I want, something which I am definitely not used to. When it comes to November and I'm swamped with more work than I know what to do with, I'll probably look back and wonder why I ever questioned my lack of work, but I don't know, I kind-of like school? I've gotten so used to the work, that I kind of like it keeping me busy? I was with a Chilean earlier this week, and when it got to asking me what I do during the week at home in the United States, I said I study. That's what I'm at school to do, at least during the week. He called me "matea," chilean slang for nerd. Seeing as some people here go out every night, the idea of studying 5 nights a week I guess would be different. I'm pretty sure I can handle being called a nerd. Classes here a lot different than at WashU, I have one that I really like, the other ones are okay. While i'm grateful for this new experience in a different school system, and I know that i will learn a lot about myself, which is more valuable than any factual information I may learn, I won't lie and say I don't miss the classes at WashU. Maybe this makes me a nerd? That's fine with me.

Thursday I went hiking in Cajon de Maipo, which is about an hour to an hour and a half from Santiago. We took the metro and then a collectivo, which is a taxi that has a designated route and set price. It was really easy to get to, and it was really nice to get out of the city for a day. The hike was for about 2 1/2 hours and I learned a few things:

1. my hiking shoes are not waterproof. I'm pretty sure they are still outside drying.

2. It's time for me to start going to the gym.

3. Just because there snow on the ground, doesn't mean the sun doesn't shine. I got back to my house, and the first comments were how my face was sunburned. I can't say I should be surprised.

We hiked to 'la meseta' which means plateau, and is the picture above on the right. Once we hiked back down we were starving and went searching for a place to eat lunch. We found this place that one of my friends had been do before, but apparently was usually closed during the week. I think it was at this campground type place, so we found a woman who worked there, and she told us the restaurant wasn't open, but since the chef was in there cooking for the weekend, they could open the restaurant for us. So we opened up a restaurant. On the way back in collectivo we listened to the best 80's mix I have ever heard. It was atleast 30 mins long, with probably about 40 different songs and managed to blend every song together really well.

Last night for one of my classes, I went to a movie which was a part of the Santiago Film festival. It was about the Mexican President Calles in the 1920's, and the documentary was made by the presidents great-granddaughter. It was interesting how she compared the situation of Mexico in the 1920's to the present situation in Mexico. I have been to the movies more in 2 months then all of sophomore year, and probably more. I don't get what is so appealing about going to the movies, but I have seen at least 5 in theaters. I saw the proposal last weekend (movies come here later than they do in the States), and while I was expecting it to be really bad, I laughed the whole time.

Tonight I'm learning how to make empanadas and the how to dance cueca, the national dance of Chile. The dance is supposed to imitate the courting ritual between a rooster and a hen. This is going to be interesting...

So it looks like it's been a while. Last week my parents came down to visit, so my days consisted of visiting lots of classes, then heading straight to the hotel for TV and free food...

The first Sunday night they were here, we had dinner at my house and with my host family: (host parents, siblings, aunts, uncle, cousins..the whole family). It was fun having everyone together, and I had to assume super translator mode, considering my family here speaks little English, and my parents speak little Spanish. Sometimes, my Chilean family would say something that I wouldn't catch, and when someone ask me to translate, I would kind of just smile and laugh because I had no idea what was said. But it was a really good dinner, and it was cool having everyone together. Thursday night we took my family out for dinner, this time with grandparents, and I got to translate toasts such as "We hope Emily doesn't love this family more than she loves us..." thanks dad.

Friday night, we went to Friday night services with a rabbi whose brother-in-law works with my mom. Small world, but not surprising because it's Jewish geography... When the services started, there weren't that many people, but as time went on (meaning 7:30 Chilean time, which can be a lot later than actual 7:30,) people kept coming in. There were probably about 40/50 people by the end which was pretty cool. The service used a lot of the same melodies we use at home, and aside from saying "de pie" instead of "please rise" things were very similar. It's kind of like when you're in a foreign place, and you see a McDonald's, well probably more like a Starbucks, and you like it because it reminds you of home? It's kind-of like how this way this service was, if I closed my eyes it was almost like I was back at home.

Saturday we went to Isla Negra, which is home to another one of Pablo Neruda's

houses. The third one is in Valparaíso, which I am going to see in October. This house is said to be the best one to visit, and it was really cool. It's right on the water, so the view is absolutely gorgeous. It is designed to look like the inside of a boat. He has collections of those things you put at the front of the boat, (they kind of look like mermaids) a room of shells, and a bedroom with an amazing view of the water. We then went to this restaurant which had great fish, seafood empanadas, and these amazing "crepes de manjar" which are crepes with the chilean version of dulce de leche, and chocolate icecream mmm so good.

This week has consisted of going to class. I've got mostly everything figured out, and have almost made it to class on time (aside from the one day the bus didn't come) but I still made it. I did spend a lot of time at the photocopier this week. This is not to critique their system, because it may seem I complained a bit too much in my last post? But this photocopying system is interesting, but does make sense. There is an extremely high book tax here, so no one really buys books. Instead, the professors leave a list of required articles in a folder at the photocopier, and you have to look through the folders of classes, find your class, fill out a form with the articles you want, hand in the sheet and pick up your articles later.

Pros of the photocopier:

*a lot cheaper. I got photocopies of almost all the articles for two of my four classes for about 7500 pesos, which is about $15. I don't think I'll end up spending more than $50 on all my classes, which is about 1/10th of the price I pay for a semester of books at WashU.

*I get to test my patience. The line to hand in the filled-out form to the photocopier can sometimes be very long and tedious, sometimes about 45 minutes. So i'm practicing patience, and getting very good at it.

*I've made friends in the photocopy line. Considering I usually have a lot of time, it is a good place to start conversations and make new friends.

Another week of class ( I don't have class on Friday) is ending...today i've been here 7 weeks, which is absolutely crazy. Everything is going by wayy too fast. Let's slow it down please, thanks.