La Serena Day #1 (ish)

Day #1
I woke up after having slept for two hours to go the the bus terminal in Vina del Mar to catch my 8:30 bus to La Serena. One of the other girls didn´t make it to the bus and we had to leave her! It was a bummer but she was able to catch the next one. The bus ride was really long and boring but I was able to catch up on some sleep and eat some food that my host family had packed. It was really adorable of them, I hadn´t even thought of needing food and she packed me 4 sandwiches, two yogurts, 4 pieces of fruit, two cookie packages and probably there is something that I am forgetting.

We arrived in La Serena after about 7 hours and found our hotel pretty easily. There are two other girls staying with me at El Arbol Hostel. This hostel is the cutest place and I will take some photos before I leave so you can see it! We then walked Tess up to her hostel and proceeded to get lost and ask for directions on how to get to it. We did end up finding it, just after a little bit of retracing our steps. Later in the night we went out to a restaurant for dinner and then went back home around 12:30 to get some sleep.

Day #2

Amelia and Julie Ann after the bus stopped

All of us girls woke up earlyish and met at my hostel in order to plan what we wanted to do for the next couple days. We had heard about an observatory tour, distillery tour, and a dolphin/penguin island. We struggled for the next couple hours with making reservations and figuring out the best plan. Thank goodness we had such a nice lady that helped us who worked at the hostel. She spoke English and was able to call the places and make reservations for us. I have realized that I can understand the majority of what people are saying but only in person... On the phone it is so difficult!

We made plans for the observatory and the distillery and headed out to the bus station to go to the Valley of Elqui which is where they have a Pisco Distillery. We took a bus that left at 2 and our plan was to get there by 4. But, that didn´t happen. After about 40mins the bus stopped working and we were stuck waiting around while they tried to fix it. After 30mins the bus driver told us to try to get on another bus going in the same direction. We were able to get on one but only by standing in the middle while he was flying down the road! That was an adventure on its own and when we got to a city about halfway up to the Valley we were all able to sit down and relax a bit more. However, we knew we needed to get to the Valley by 6 at the latest because that was the last tour of the day. We made it to the Valley at 5:30 (3hrs and 30mins later.....) and all sprinted to the bathroom. We bought our tour tickets and were informed that it was only in English at 3:30, so Spanish it was! The tour was awesome and we saw the modern technology along with some of the antique machines that they used to make the Pisco. At the end of the tour they gave us a glass and a Pisco Sour (it is a drink like a margarita but stronger) to drink.

View out of the bus window!

We all sat down and got to enjoy the scenery and mood of the place but also had to watch the time because the last bus from the Valley back to La Serena was at 8:10ish at night. Since the tour ended at 7:15, we only had 50mins to drink our drink, find some ice cream that our advisor told us to go get and see the rest of the town. To do that, we downed our drinks and went and got ice cream. The chocolate ice cream was delicious! We enjoyed the plaza for a few moments and found the bus stop. All of us started to feel the alcohol since we hadn´t eaten since around 2. That helped lighten the mood of the day and enjoy the ride back down the mountain.

All in all it was a good day! Just had some bumps and turns but we all enjoyed it and had wished we had more time to relax in the Valley.

The beautiful Distillery Pisco Mistal

Family

Missing everyone who counts as my family.

Today has been such a wild roller coaster of emotions. This morning as I was in the bus to school I was amazed at how cool this experience and how lucky I am to have a family that can support my decision and help financially. Then after watching a video in my Spanish class about the Allende government, I felt super bummed out.

I miss everybody so much from home, and can't wait to come home and be back to the life I had before I left. However, I know I am already different and will be even more after 5 more months down here. I think this is just one of those days.

But I am thinking about everybody that I love and I hope you are having a great day! <3

September 11th, 1973

Salvador Allende committed suicide (or was assassinated by the Chilean military).

Today in class we learned about the role Salvador Allende played in Chilean history during 1970-1973. He was for the people of Chile and tried to help the poor by fixing the price of milk, and bread. He gave out land to people who didn't own land. He also reformed agriculture, and the educational system but created a major economic and financial crisis. But this, along with many other things, made the United States worried that he was acting in a communistic way.

The CIA tried to find ways to stop Allende from becoming the president in the first place, but after he was elected they indirectly hurt Chile. We boycotted Chile and would not trade with them, we created a school where military men can come and learn ways to torture people, and we funded Pinochet's plan to oust Allende. How crazy is that?

Towards the end of 1973 there are many accounts and videos where you can see the Chilean military, specifically the navy from Valparaiso murdering and torturing their people. In class today, we watched videos recapping this and heard stories about the brutality that Chileans felt due to the traitors that pledged to protect Chile, but then on the other hand decided to hurt it.

This class was very intense but it definitely helped me understand some of the political unrest that can still be felt in Chile. My host family lived through this and so did many of my teachers. It is such a crazy thing to think about. My teacher explained that many of the people in Chile, when asked about Allende, will recount the amount of food that they couldn't get because the owners of supermarkets closed their doors when Allende fixed the price of certain goods. This caused a large black market to emerge and prices to be outrageous.

One of these days I am going to ask my family about their experiences, but it is too soon for that right now. September 11 is such a tragic day for us as Americans, but it also is for Chileans.

The following are links to videos that I watched in class and I 100% recommend watching them if this interests you at all.

His last speech before he died/was killed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYGxGeLAMBE
Video of destruction
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkn-BmyDIoE

The past few days...

In the past few days I have done quite a lot.

In my conversation class we went to a Feria which is like a farmers market. It was such an awesome experience. I got to see vendors sell their food and we compared the prices at the Feria with a place called Jumbo which is like a Walmart. It was crazy, the Feria was so much cheaper and they had a wider variety of food. It is interesting to me that here in Chile it is so much cheaper to buy fresh fruit, vegetables, eggs, and flowers at a Feria whereas in the US it is usually much cheaper to buy everything at a supermarket. It makes me think about why there is such a difference and why we as Americans prefer to go to a supermarket and get our shopping done quickly, whereas many Chileans go to the Feria and spend an afternoon there.

All of the girls and I

The next day we went to the fish market. It was crazy! So many birds, pelicans and seals were all there. It is kind of sad, because the fishermen throw the left overs from the fish into the water/ on the sand and that is why the seals all congregate in this area. But it was such a cool experience and I saw a penguin! It is weird though because there shouldn't be a penguin this far north, but nevertheless it was there and swimming around.

Friday, I went out with the girls to Valpo for the night. We first went to an art store where they had really amazing paintings of Valpo. They also have a gallery that focuses on one artist but it rotates frequently. Then we were hungry so we found a restaurant and had once (dinnerish meal). I split mine with Amelia and we had coffee, strawberry juice, ham and cheese sandwich and then these super good pankaka's which are similar to crepes but instead of nutella they put jam or manejar which is delicious. After this, the girls and I went to on of their houses and planned out our vacation for next weekend. We originally wanted to go to Patagonia but we procrastinated and didn't plan stuff quick enough to get good prices, so instead we are going to La Serena. It is much cheaper and going to be a blast!! We are spending 3 nights there and paid for the bus ticket (7hrs and 30mins) and the hostel all for $100. Quite a great price for the area we are going. More info about this when we plan more...



The small bathroom stalls

Amelia

After planning out all of that: Amelia, Sam and I went to meet a friend down at a bar called La Playa. We got there at about 12 and it was pretty dead. So we got some piscolas (pisco and coke) and just chatted. People started showing up around 2 to 3 and it was getting very busy! We all drank more and then danced a bit as a group and stayed until the placed closed. I am guessing that was at 5ish but I can't quite remember. Hahah. Then I got home at 6am and passed out. My host family told me when they woke up they realized I had fallen asleep with the light on. Hahahah :)

Saturday at 10:30 (4hrs later) i woke up and met most of the girls to buy our bus tickets to La Serena and then we went to Con Con to surf!!! It was so hot and I had quite a strong hangover.. So that was an interesting adventure. We all surfed and it was a blast but the waves and tide seemed to be much stronger than what I was ever used to. So I was exhausted and surfing was interesting. After spending the day there, I came home and showered and fell asleep super early.

Today I went for run in the morning with my friend Julie Ann. We ran from Vina to Valpo which was great because I wasn't sure how far I could run.



Me and Tess going surfing

Renaca

Wow, there is so much to see in Chile. Today I went to my adviser's house which is in Renaca, a city about ten minutes away from Vina (where I live). This city has beautiful beaches and to me it seemed a little cleaner than Valpo and Vina. We all go super lost when we were trying to find her house and it was so hot today. Then of course we had to walk up a giant hill and stand in the sun trying to figure out where to go. We are all such "gringas" (tourists from the USA). We were able to find her and see her house, it is adorable and it has such a beautiful view of the city and the sea. We ate some little snacks and talked about life. She had these crazy finger fork things that working amazingly well!! After talking we got some papers in order for obtaining our visa and then we walked around the city and ate delicious ice cream. I eat ice cream almost everyday... It is so delicious but also bad. Amelia decided to name my stomach the other day because she told all of us girls a story about how her father named his fish and then they died. Because of this, we decided to name my stomach so it would die and not exist hahah. Everyone say hi to Dr. Phil. He is growing and loving the ice cream here!!!!

Here are some photos of my day today :) I miss everybody who is reading this and wish you were here experiencing what I am experiencing.

Gorgeous church in Renaca

The view looking back on part of the city with the ocean on the left

La Raja ("the shit")

View next to an ascensor of Valpo

Original take on Van Gogh

Today we learned Chileanismos!!

Vocab lesson #1:

• el copete= alcoholic beverage
• pelolais= snob
• cuico= a person who thinks they are better than you
• bajón= to have the munchies
• estoy moto= I am super drunk
• motel= a place only to have sex at
• mijita rica= somebody who is a dime, smokin hot, a slam
• weón= asshole (offensive), a joke to friends (hey bitch), or the person

Then I walked around Valpo with Amelia and Rodrigo (who became our guide) and we saw some beautiful art, plazas and ascensores.







Our hole in the wall where
we ate ice cream

Ascensor Baron

The crazies

Let me tell you a few of my everyday experiences I have with the Chilean people...

1. I am wearing shorts that have strings that are hanging off the bottom of them, more of the destroyed look, and a old women comes up to me and says something impossible to understand. She proceeds to rip off all of the strings hanging off of my pants. And to top off this experience, I am standing at the bus stop of a super busy street where buses keep driving by and can see this happen.

2. All of the men who whistle at me and the other girls and attempt to talk to us in English while we ignore them and walk faster.

3. After the concert I went to last night, Amelia ( a friend of mine) and I were walking towards my school and then to find food when we walked past these two guys who were selling something. They decided to say something like "Ohhh heyyy whats up" and then they looked at each other and one of them said "SEX" quite loudly. Not really sure why these Chilean men think that is something they should say to us "gringas" but nevertheless it made me and Amelia crack up all night long and we continued to say sex under our breath whenever we walked past a Chilean person who looked at us weird.

4. Not knowing that novio means you are engaged to your boyfriend and pololo means boyfriend. Why did Spanish classes always teach novio?

There are more, but those are all I can think about right now...

Some photos of the concert yesterday!

The view out on the ocean to the right of the stage

A photo looking up at Valpo as it was getting dark

This is where the bands were playing and their stage was

 

Indepence. Good or Bad?

Tuesday and Wednesday of this week I toured a lot. On Tuesday my group from API and I walked around the middle of Vina del Mar and got to see little stores, cute coffee shops and spend some time together. I really like my advisor. She is very knowledgeable and very charismatic. In addition to walking around we visited a mini museum where you can see free documentaries on Thursdays.

Pablo Neruda's House

On Wed I toured twice. Once with my class in the morning and then again in the afternoon with my university. I got to ride an ascensura up to a viewpoint where you can see the majority of Valpo. Then we continued down into the original part of Valpo and were able to see some of the architecture of the European immigrants that moved to Chile. We saw one of the first churches to be built here, the first bank, first newspaper, and first stock market building to be built and brought over to Valpo. These all originated from the English when they came over during the 1800's. This happened because a lot of people were are able to move here when ships were sailing around South America on its way up to the west coast of the United States. After my class, I went to have lunch with my friends and then we went on the tour. On this one we got to see Pablo Neruda's house. It is gorgeous and super interesting to learn about his work and who he was as a person. We continued to walk down the 'cerros' (hills) of Valpo and see some of the nicer areas. We continued down to the water after spending about an hour walking around. We then were able to take a boat ride out in the port. It was gorgeous to see the city from the water and we even were able to see some seals! After this we went to the same place I had gone earlier with my class.

Due to all of the touring I have done in the past few days I feel like there is so much for me to see with so little time. However, this makes no sense because I have another 5 and a half months here. I think it is just so hard to even comprehend what my life will be like. Today I went back to the center of Vina with my friend Amelia and we studied at a cute Swedish coffee shop called Marzipan or something close to that. We then went to a free documentary that was called "Las Salvavidas" (The lifeguards). It was interesting to experience this because I was unsure how much I would understand. There is so much more I need to learn and I didn't understand the majority of the jokes, which is always slightly awkward and hilarious, but I know that will come with time.

Now, being back home I wonder if spending so much time with girls in my group from the USA is a good idea. I really like them and want to get to know them better but, it means that I am sacrificing time with my familia chileana and practicing my Spanish. Sometimes things in life are a trade off, but I don't want to be wasting my experience here.

Tomorrow is a new day, and I am going to try to talk in Spanish just a little bit more tomorrow than I did today. It definitely wont hurt anything if I do that.

Tomorrow is a new day, and I am going to try to talk in Spanish just a little bit more tomorrow than I did today. It definitely wont hurt anything if I do that.

Jan 29-Feb 5th

I arrived in Chile! The flight felt like it lasted forever and I was so ready to land and start the adventure. Once I arrived, I got stuck in the immigration line for over an hour and was worried my group was going to leave without me, but thank goodness they didn't. There are five other girls here with me right now: Sam, Amelia, Julie Ann, Tess, and Patricia. They are all great girls and it has been fun to get to know them. From the airport we went to our hotel which was called Hotel Neruda. Then we went on a tour of Santiago and got to see a view of the entire city from a super high point. It was amazing. That is how I took my facebook photo. The next day we walked around in another tour of Santiago and were able to see Pablo Neruda's house. For dinner, the girls and I adventured out and found an Italian restaurant where we were able to order, eat and pay for everything without causing too much of a scene! It was our first accomplishment. On Thursday, we drove to Valparaiso and met our families at the school.

My family lives in Vina Del Mar. There is the mom, dad, and two boys that are about my age. That night we went out for food and beer at a restaurant. I met two of their family members that live in Brazil right now. They would speak Spanish with me and then Portuguese with each other. That was a lot to take in on my first night with the family. The next day at night we went over to one of the other daughters house who is older and doesn't live at their house anymore. I met the whole family and again there was Portuguese, Spanish and English being spoken. At about 1am my brothers and all the kids about my age went out to a 'discoteca' and were out until 5:45am!! They party here so much later than what I am used to in the US. The next night I went to a concert with the girls in my group which was pretty fun.

Since then, I have had orientation, started school and toured Vina and Valpo. I can't wait to see more of the cities and learn where great places are. There is so much to learn. My classes are really helpful so far. I am in Advanced Grammar and Advanced Conversation with Chilean Culture. The classes are so small. There are five other students in my class with me! This is the smallest class I ever have! That is somewhat of an overview of what I have done the past few days and this week.