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...

Pomaire

Yesterday we went to this town called Pomaire that is famous for its pottery. It was about an hour away from Santiago on the bus. After we ate breakfast in the cutest house, we got to watch some of the men make the pottery on the wheels. They were so good at it, and made it look of course so simple. It would take them no time to make all different types of cups, bowls, vases and more. We got the change to use the wheel, and because of that, I now have one future career that I can cross off my list--sculptor. The wheel started and in order to make the bottom of the bowl round, you need to cup both hands around the chunk of clay to keep everything very still. My clay was moving all over the place that the guy had to help me. Next we had to make the inside of the bowl by pushing your thumb inside the clay. I was unsuccessful because my nails were too long (mom and dad aren't you proud!?) and i kept making holes. My bowl ended up being lopsided, so I tried again, and ended up with an ashtray because of one of the sides caved in, so it was easiest to make it into an ashtray. 

After this we all made little animals out of clay. It was a valiant effort on my part. My frog doesn't really look much like a frog, and my "chanchito"which is a little pig, is just unfortunate looking. My host mom thought the pig was cute so I let her keep it. 

We ate the biggest and longest lunch, with empanadas, vegetables, and this huge soup, (more like a stew) that had potatoes, vegetables, a small corn on the cob and a chicken leg. I don't really know how one is supposed to go about eating corn on the cob and a chicken leg from a soup...

We walked around more of the town, and every chachka that I've bought in Israel, Thailand, or Peru, or anywhere else was also in the stores in this town. I saw bags from Israel, some of the scarves we bought in Thailand that we thought were so unique, I saw on the streets in Santiago, and the music toy I bought for my cousin and the gloves and hats we bought were all there. It doesn't surprise me at all, but it is funny that those types of markets in any place around the world has the same stuff.