The Beach in November

I have lots of reasons as to why I love living by the ocean here in Valparaiso. For one, it is a great way to orient yourself. It's really hard to get lost when you know that over there, where there are no buildings, is the ocean if you are trying to orient yourself in Valparaiso or Vina del Mar. You basically can't get lost for long. I also liked it because it was a beautiful escape from city life if you needed it. Sitting on the beach, watching the waves crash is a great way to take a break, even if it is cold out. Walking by the ocean everyday is a wonderful thing and gives me a wonderful feeling.

But now that it is 75 degrees and sunny almost every day here in Valparaiso, and it is 45 degrees and rainy and windy (I hope, it makes my illusion better) back in Washington and Baltimore, I love living here even more. Now that I am officially done with classes, I have had time to go to the beach everyday and lie out in the sun and work on my tan. Which, is relative seeing as I hardly ever get very tan. But, I am still working on getting some color and coming back to a cold Baltimore with a summery glow.

Thanksgiving

Coming to the end of our programs, yesterday we had a "Cena de Despedida" and a Thanksgiving dinner all rolled into one for the whole ISA program. That means that there were all 40 of the students in the program, the 6 ladies that work at the ISA office, and all the families of the students. All in all, about 150-200 people were there.


[Two of my 'tias' and I]

Supposedly starting at 7:30, the dinner was held in the basement of the Casa Central and didn't really get started until 8:30. All the students brought dessert and pisco sour, while the parents brought side dishes and wine, and the turkey was provided by ISA. I made my Swedish Chocolate Balls and a Vegetarian Turkey Stuffing. But most of the side dishes definitely had a Chilean flair to them, reminiscent of the food that we had at Fiestas Patrias asados.


[A bunch of us ISAers at the dinner]

It was really nice to have this dinner as our despedida, not only because all the students were there, but also because all of our Chilean families were there too. There was also a talent show that included singing and dancing acts, a mock awards show, and then we gave out thanks to our families and the wonderful ladies at ISA who have worked so hard to make our experience here great.


[Sigrid and I at dinner]

Closing time...

Today is Wednesday, November 21st, 2007. As of yesterday, I had exactly 30 days left in Chile and have been here for five months already.

Thinking about having already been here for such a long period of time is amazing, since it has gone incredibly fast. I remember meeting the girls that came early with me in the airport and our day in Santiago before everyone got there, then meeting everyone else, and our tour of Santiago. It feels like yesterday that we sat in the basement conference room and had Lizette tell us lots of things about Chilean culture, most of which were spot on, and we have seen over our time here. And then all the adventures that followed in Valparaiso.

Thinking about leaving is equally as amazing, because Chile is such a huge part of my life now, and I don't feel like my time is up here. Before I left, I made a list of places I wanted to see (which is in the right hand column). Included were places in Chile, as well as Macchu Picchu and Buenos Aires. I have seen some of these places, and I have seen others that I didn't expect to see, but there is still so much of Chile and South American that I want to explore. And although I am excited to see everyone when I get home, leaving my life here is going to be hard too. Going to the airport, getting on the plane, and going home makes me anxious, more anxious than leaving I think.

One thing that I do know is that this is not my last time here - I want to come back, see the things that I didn't see and see all my friends again. Another thing that I know is that I have to aprovecha my time here, and make the most of what remains with my Chilean life.

El Mercado

On Saturday, I went with Angelica to the market in Vina. The first thing that is cool about the market is that it lies in a dried up river bed in Vina, so it is basically just a bunch of boxes, tables, and trucks with tarps over them.

Even on a Saturday morning at 10:00am, the market was already bustling with activity. All the farmers were out with their produce, and shoppers were walking around with the bags, filling them up with cheap fruits and vegetables. There were also lots of younger guys offering their service as ayudantes, or helpers to carry around the larger loads for people that needed the help.

The most amazing thing to me were the variety of fruits and vegetables and the prices. Unlinke the United States, there is a tendency here to only consume fruits and vegetables that are in season. This meant that when we got here, there were lots of clementines and oranges at pretty cheap prices, but now they are not even at the market. Lucky for me, we are getting into the season of strawberries and cherries...

As I walked around the market, I was absolutely taken aback by how cheap things were. Strawberries and cherries were about 75 cents a pound, you could get 10 lbs of potatoes for two dollars, a pound of avocadoes for a dollar fifty, bunches of herbs for 25 cents, 7 zucchinis for a dollar, 4 artichokes for a dollar, apples for 50 cents a pound, etc.

With these prices, I am completely astounded that there isn´t more consumption of fruits and vegetables in the Chilean diet. But as Sigrid pointed out, it is much easier to go to the grocery store and get all shopping done, where prices are not nearly as cheap, and it is much easier to just stew up some meat and boil some rice, pasta, or potatoes for most people.

Feliz Navidad!!

Feliz Navidad, wait, doesn't that mean Merry Christmas? What is she talking about, it isn't even Thanksgiving yet! Just because she's in a different hemisphere doesn't mean that holidays come at different times.

If this is what you are thinking, it's kinda been the same thing that I have been thinking down here in Chile.

In the United States, the custom is to not start Christmas preparations and decorations until after Thanksgiving. But, since in Chile, there is no Thanksgiving, there is no defined starting point for when they start preparing for Christmas.

Walking in Jumbo and the Mall, they have already started hanging up Christmas decorations and their are Christmas songs playing in the background. At first, I thought, this is crazy! How are they already preparing for Christmas?? But, they don't have the luxury of fabulous holidays like Halloween and Thanksgiving to tide them over until Christmas, so they have to start a little bit early.

What I now feel is the craziest thing is that it's warm and Christmas is coming. And it's not like going on vacation for Christmas warm, or even "I live in Florida and it's always warm during Christmas," it is even more strange because it already was winter! When I got here in July it was cold, and since then has been getting warmer. They are going to celebrate Christmas at the warmest point of the year! It just doesn't make sense, and definitely doesn't actually feel like the holiday season.

Although, when commenting to Chileans about it, they thought the idea of being cold during Christmas was absolutely ridiculous. That only happens in movies.

Pucon - Day 3 [11/11]

While a lot of people went rafting, Alli and I headed into Pucon to check out the town and do some souvenir shopping. The whole town is pretty small, and very quaint - picturesque mountain town. Although, it is pretty obvious that it is a tourist town. The normal small town in the south of Chile wouldn't have North Face, United Colors of Benetton, or Adidas stores. (Kind of made me feel at home like Bethesda). There are also lots of cute restaurants in a lot of different price ranges all over the city.

Alli and I walked to the lake, which was absolutely breathtaking. With mountains coming up on both sides of the lake and black sand that comes from the volcanoes, it was the perfect place to sit and have lunch. Walking around town made me think of how much this is a place my family would love.


[beach, lake, and mountains]


[the lake]

We then found some artesanias in town, where we found souvenirs and presents. In the south, the wood-worked crafts are the big souvenir, so guess who I bought a present for?


[Alli and I at the lake]


[All's safe on the volcano!]

At about 2:30, we headed back to the cabanas, where the rafters had gotten back from their trip. One group had done lower class rapids and another higher. Both groups seemed like they had a good time. While we waited for the bus to pick us up for canopy, we just sat on the grass by the cabanas and ate and talked. It is really nice to have the ISA trip to Pucon at the end of the semester like this, to give us a nice period of time to hang out before everyone goes home. But I don't want to think about going home...


[a break from food to take a picture]

At 3:00, we got on a bus provided by the tour company to go to canopy, or zip-line. The course we did is the longest in South America, and only cost us $14. I was a little nervous at first, since my hand wasn't in top shape, I have a slight fear of heights, and I had never done it before. We started on some smaller lines to practice, and then moved right to the big stuff, with a line that took us across the whole valley. I got to go with a guide, and took a great video of the ride.


[in our gear, getting ready to go]


[Ann, Me, Alli waiting to do the last leg]

All in all, I loved this trip! I really miss green, trees, and forests and the south is absolutely beautiful! I can't wait to go further south in December!!

All photos from canopy can be seen here.

Pucon - Day 2 [11/10]

On the second day of our trip to Pucon, I decided to hike the volcano Villarrica. The hike had been presented to us as a 5 hour hike up and a 3 hour decent. Considering myself a pretty good hiker, I wasn't expecting something I couldn't handle. I was also excited since Villarrica has a lava pool in the crater which can be seen, as well as a point much higher than the surrounding area, providing a view of Pucon and the surrounding region. I was pretty excited.

At 7:10, a bus from the tour company came and picked up our crew at the cabanas and took us to the tour office to get geared up. The gear, the transportation to and from the volcano, and the guide were all included in the price of 35.000 pesos, or $70 USD. After we had on our stuff (snowpants, legwarmers, hiking shoes for the snow, jackets, and helmets), we got on the bus and headed to the National Park Villarrica, where the volcano is located, to start out ascent at about 1,500 m (4,500 feet).


[the group about ready to start...]

Although you can take a ski lift starting at that point that will take you about 1/3 of the way up, it costs and extra $14 USD and we wanted to be tough, so we walked. We started out at a good pace, and surprisingly there was still lots of snow as we were walking up. We took our first long break right after we met up with the people that had taken the lift, about an hour and a half into the trek.


[beginning of the hike]


[first break... took a volcanic rock as a souvenir...]

The ascent was no easy task. We would basically walk for anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour without a break at a very high altitude, walking basically up the side of the mountain as if there was a staircase. We stayed mainly as one group until we got about 3.5 hours into it, where a group of about 8 broke away from another three of us, while another four were still further behind. While the first group kept trekking along, us in the second group took a little slower paces and stopped more often. Although stopping for long wasn't an option, since the cold caught up to you quick.


[a fake smile and snot frozen to my nose]

To be honest, this was the most physically demanding thing that I have done. Already four hours into it, my legs were sore and aching, feeling like they couldn't take another step, my head began to hurt from the altitude, and I thought about turning back quite a bit. I kept thinking that I had payed 70 dollars to physically exhaust myself, quiet possibly get sunburned, and just see white snow and white clouds for hours! But, I knew that I had to get to the top cause I am just not a quitter.

Unfortunately, the top wasn't any better. The weather was really bad, and the entire summit was covered in clouds, so there wasn't a view of the valley. As we got up, the winds had also changed and all of the sulfuric gases (since it is an active volcano) were blowing into our faces and we could barely breathe. Although we had planned to stay up there and wait for the clouds to blow away, we went down right away because of the conditions. The conditions also lessened the visibility, so that made it hard following our guide who seemed to want to get down in a hurry, without thinking about our lack of experience with mountaineering...


[our not so nice guide who smoked cigarettes while climbing a volanco...]

We were disappointed to say the least. And exhausted. And we still had to get down. When it's good weather, you can slide down the slopes on your bottom, but when you can't see where you are going, it's dangerous and they don't let you do it. So, we didn't get to slide until we were fairly far down.

At the end of the trek, I still wasn't sure how I felt about it. Two days later, I am really glad that I did do it, mainly to say that I hiked a volcano and got to almost 3,000m or 10,000 feet!! But, if anyone asks me whether they should hike the Villarrica Volcano, I would tell them that if they are ready to hike uphill for 7 hours and downhill for 3, with the chance of not seeing anything but white scenery and the people you are with for 7 hours, no pretty view and no cool volcano crater, then go for it!! Otherwise, there are lots of other cool things to do in Pucon.

Check out all my pictures from the hike here.

And the pictures from the first day here.

Pucon - Day 1 [11/09]

On Thursday night, all the ISA kids met up outside the Teatro Municipal in Vina to hop on a bus for our weekend excursion to Pucon. The trip was entirely organized by ISA and already included in the cost of the program. Provided was the bus ride, lodging in the cabanas, breakfast, and the tour on the first day.

The bus ride from Valparaiso to Pucon is about 12 hours; so we got on the bus at about 9 p.m. and got to Pucon at about 9 a.m. This is a pretty good bus ride since you can just sleep all the way down.

When we got to Pucon, we had some time to relax before reserving and paying for the optional activities the next two days and taking our tour of the region. Unfortunately, one of the cabanas of 8 had been replaced by a cabana of 3 and a cabana of 5, and weren't ready when we got there.

ISA had made some arrangements for option activities for Saturday and Sunday. Among them were hiking the Volcano, white water rafting and canopy (or zip-line). Origionally, I had wanted to do all three activities, but due to the situation with my hand and it not being able to get wet, I decided to only do the Volcano hike and canopy. But more about those later.

After we had a chance to buy food at the grocery store for whichever meals we wanted over the next couple of days, we started our tour of the region, which included various waterfalls, a lake, and thermal baths.


[Salto Palguin; this one we only got to see from rather far away, but it was impressive nonetheless]

We continued on the bus to Salto La China, which was apparently named after a cow named "La China" who fell off the waterfall. We're not sure this is true...


[Me, Sarai, Sarah, Danielle, and Katelyn with the waterfall in the background]


[Salto La China]

All of these Saltos took a little hiking to get to, so make sure to wear proper shoes so you don't end up like this!



Continuing with the theme of water, we went to The Lago Caburgua, a lake in the region where some very famous people have houses, such as the President of Chile (Michelle Bachelet) and Pamela Anderson. The water in the lake is higher in the spring and winter, but in the summer, the pathway goes out much further and the water is very shallow. This water is also slightly heated by the volcanic activity, so it is a little warmer than surrounding lakes. But it was still cold.


[walking down as far as we could]


[not great weather, but still beautiful]


[the brave souls that went out into the water...]

"Ojos de Caburgua" and the "Laguna Azul" were next on the schedule. Both were incredibly blue in color, which was very hard to capture on camera.


[Ojos de Caburgua]


[Played around with my camera settings to make it more blue... but it was very pretty!]


[Laguna Azul]

Finally, we made it to the thermal baths. The best was definitely saved for last. Lizette had told us that these baths were more natural than other ones in the area, and it seemed that way. There were five baths that varied in temperature, heated by the volcanic activity, that were all in rock formations next to a mountain river. On such a cold day, it was really nice to sit in the warm baths and just relax. Although, it was a bummer that I had to try to keep my hand out of the water the whole time that I was there... It was also nice that the river was right next to the baths. In slight Swedish style, some of us would dunk ourselves in the cold water and try to get back the the hot water as soon as possible. Although, that was also kind of scary and hard to do with just one hand that would go underwater...


[Beka, Brittany, Sarah and Isaac in the hottest of the baths...]

Coming soon: Day 2 or "the Hiking of the Volcano"

"Chileno"

When I first told people that I was studying in Chile, a lot of the responses that I got had to do with the "quality" of Spanish that I would be learning. People assumed (not know a lot about South America I guess), that Chileans would speak good, clear, Spanish that would be the best to learn from. This couldn't be farther from the truth.

There is a big joke among us exchange students here that we arn't actually learning Spanish, we are learning "Chileno." That is to say, we are learning all the "Chilenismos," (Chilean slag/ colloquialisms) rather than Spanish that will be practical with any other Spanish speakers. However, the Chileans keep trying to tell us that if we can understand "Chileno," we can understand any Spanish from any country.

I've come to realize lately how many chilenismos I use everyday, in every sentence, and I fear not being understood by anyone other than Chileans in the future.

To demonstrate, I came up with a dialogue using chilenismos, featured in bold.
[Phone rings]
A: Alo? [Hello?]
B: Habla B. ["B" here.]
A: Hola B, que onda? Donde estai? [Hey B, what's up? Where are you?]
B: Nada, toy en la micro. [Nothing, I'm on the bus.]
A: Ya po. [Oh, ok.]
B: Vengo al tiro a tu departamento. Estai? [I'll be at your apartment in a second. Are you there?]
A: Si po, weon. [Yeah, man.]
B: Bueno, ya! Nos vemos ahi po. [Alright! I'll see you there!]
A: Si po. Chau! [Yup. Bye!]
B: Chau! [Bye!]

Almost an entire conversation can be had using just chilenismos...

Here are some other favorites/ explanations:
po - used at the ends of phrases for emphasis, but always comes before "huevon" (weon). Apparently comes from the word 'pues' [well], and is used all the time with people of all social classes. [Pero tu no estuviste alla, po!]
huevon - pronounced "weon," basically means 'dude' or 'man,' and Chileans use it at the end of every phrase (almost). [Oye weon, ke estas haciendo?]
cachai - "Got it?" A fabulous interjection in conversations used to make sure people are still understanding what you are talking about, or placed at the end of an idea, a question.
tocar el violin - I thought someone was actually telling me they play the violin... it really means to be the third wheel or odd man out in romantic situations. [No quiero ir, voy a tocar el violin.]
fome - boring, but I like using it where I would use "lame" in English. [Pero que fome que no vas a salir!]
la raja - awesome
bacan - cool
carrete - party at a club/bar or at someone's house/apartment
luca - 1.000 pesos
gamba - 100 pesos
chela - beer
copete - drink


These are just a few of the most common examples that a gringa has picked up on and the first ones that came to mind when writing this. But Chileans use so many more when the talk amongst themselves that it really is harder to understand them, not to mention how fast they talk.

Although they may have no value in my "Spanish future" getting to know all this slang has been a great part of the culture here and the words are just so fun!! More than finding people to speak Spanish to later on, I want to find people I can speak Chilean with po, weon!! [Oops, it's slipping into my English vocab...]

A family lunch...

Yesterday, the whole house [or those that were here for the weekend] worked together to make a delicious lunch of empanadas. Sigrid and I took on the vegetarian ones (as always), as well as dessert (chocolate and strawberry empanadas and cookies), while Angelica and Camila did the other empanadas, and the boys helped with various tasks around the kitchen. It probably sounds sappy, but it was really fun to have everybody working together and eating together.


(Camila, Giorgio, Sigrid, Angelica, and Nacho not ready for the picture because they were enjoying the food too much!)


(Angelica and Camila's fried empanadas... filling included crab and cheese, pino [ground beef and onion], and napoletana [oregano, cheese, tomatoes, and ham]...recipe)


(Sigrid's and my chocolate empanadas... not typical but a new favorite...recipe)


(We also had some healthy salads!)


(And my personal favorite, the chocolate chip cookies that I made with one hand! Even a day after baking them, they were still chewy and moist and butter/margarine free!! Recipe)

We also talked about having a big holiday dinner before everyone leaves for the holidays (around the 20th of December) and even doing Secret Santa in the house, which just added on to me thinking about my two months left and how much I am going to miss Chile - but that's a whole other post in itself.