Okay. I've sat myself down to blog because I've been slacking so badly in that department for the last 2 months. I have relatively legit excuses though....SCHOOL.
First, before I start, note that sometimes a word that usually has an "s" may not have it because my S key is kinda messed up and it only makes the s if i press really hard. So if i miss it, sorry.
Now...alas,....where do I begin. Well, I'm done with the semester. Seems like it went really fast. Maybe it did? I had my last final last thursday and now three whole months of vacation!!!! Woohoo.
I suppose I will start where I left off last time. I had mentioned how Chile had been in some soccer game and won against whoever they were playing, I don't remember...colombia, ecuador, i think, and so they will be going to the world cup in south africa in 2010 for the first time in 12 years i think. Since then I really haven't done much, hence my not blogging. I left Santiago once on a little excursion that was planned by my CSU program. We went to a teensy town on the coast called La Isla Negra...and no, its not a black island. It's just a coastal town. It's where Pablo Neruda, the most famous poet of Chile, had one of his three houses. We toured his house. He reminds me a bit of Grandma Jean...has a lot of things. But his were relatively organized collections. For example, he collected African masks and artesenal trinckets. As well as ships that are inside glass bottles. He had a massive shell collection, including a Narwal horn that was about 9 feet long. Also had a shell from the Philippines that was about 3 feet in diameter, it was pretty sweet. Appeared that he just had a lot of things...he was quite wealthy and also people would just give him things. The house was pretty, the bedroom overlooking the beach with the wallbeing a massive window alone. It was cool. After the house, we wandered around the rocky beach and then went to a restaurant on the beach (the bus driver had some difficulty finding the place, but eventually we made it down there). It was okay-food. Not as good as i thought' it'd be for it's location and snazzy-ness. Funny how the CSU program includes these fancy restaraunt meals for us in our "program costs". If i could decide, I'd prefer to save the money...i'm sure that meal was AT LEAST $50. Appetizer, coctail, wine, entre, dessert, the whole shabang. It was a nice day though.
And other than that I've been in Santiago...studying pretty much. There were a few fiestas I went to...there was a Halloween party and I dressed up as mother nature, by far the best costume in the party. I was going to be gone that weekend, but the plans fell through so I had to find a last minute costume that would be original and cheap. It randomly occured to me in the middle of the night while pulling a late-nighter studying for a Borges exam. The day before halloween i went to Patronato...an outdoor shopping market with tons of vendors that stretches about 7 city blocks to look for things. Pretty much I just wanted green fabric and a bunch of fake flowers and maybe some vines. I found a store that sold me soem perfect green fabric and some yellowish fabric that has a very nice texture for about $3. After that I ran into a fake plant shop which was perfect, and got all my flowers and vines for about $6. And that was it! I robbed a big palm frawn from the short fat palm tree downstairs in the courtyard of my apartment building and made a sweet head-dress type thing with it, fabric, and duck tape. It was the highlight of my costume by far. I now have a forest-theme decorated bedroom...i already have green walls and now i have all the flowers and vines draped around my room. It makes it more homey. Now with my free time with school being over, i am going to make things out of the fabric. I intentionally did not cut the pieces up, or as little as possible (i had to do a little hand sewing for the costume, but the pieces pretty much stayed as big chunks...it was a wrap around dress with lots of safety pins). I don't have a sewing machine here obviously, but i have time, so I'm going to hand sew a skirt from the green and a top from the yellowish fabric. Something to occupy my time.
I also had my birthday party. It was a joint birthday party for me and Felipe. Anyway, we had our birthday party together because his birthday is the day after mine. I wanted to do a theme to make it more interesting...so we made it a black and white party. Obviosuly the idea was that everyone dress up in black and white. It was quite good! The girls were the best about being color coordinated, naturally. We made black russians and white russians to continue with the theme and got black and white balloons with streamer thing and felipe got some black lights. It was in the backyard garden/patio of his house and the weather was really nice and never got cold at night. It was a fun party and everyone pretty much danced all night long and had a good time. It was much better than my 21st birthday, in which I had to take an exam for my online psychology class and didn't really celebrate.
Otherwise I've just been doing school things. Well, not now, but up till last thursday. I had my final in Borges 2 weeks ago, got ALMOST an A. I got a 5.4 and a 5.5 to a 7 is an A. Oh well, doesn't really matter because even had I got a 7 I woudn't have got an A in the class. But I got a B in the class so I'm happy. I studied my butt off for that exam...I even went to a startbucks to study because, even though it's a bit more expensive, for the cuantity of coffee you get it, its cheaper. There is a nice café downt he stree from my apartment but you pay about $4 for a coffee thats 2 inches tall with some cream plopped on top. NOT worth it. For about 3-4 weeks straight, monday through saturday from 9am to 8pm there has been construction going on in the apartment 2 floors down from me so I had to leave. They just finished on monday, FINALLY. It was excrutiatingly annoying, really loud, and banging shaking always going on. I studied quite well though.
Last thursday was my phonetics final, which was hard. I had a 4.3 or somethign going into the class...a 4.0 is passing (its a 60'% but equivalent to a C- in the states). The class just irritated me, and I wasn't the only one...there were plenty of chileans who had the same complaints as me...the teacher honestly only taught us one thing in class after the midterm exam, yet there would be 5 or so concepts on the 5 quizes we had during that unit. The TA's made the quizes and it appeared that they werent necessarily on the same page as us or the teacher. therefore i did pretty badly on most of the quizzes but on the final project I made sure to get a good grade. We had to do a paper in the form of a hypothetical research project that was about 10 pages long in the end (1.5 space, so pretty long). I ended up with the theorectical research part to back the ideas and hypotheses, don't ask my why or how. There were 4 of us, and me and one other guy pretty much made sure thigns were getting done. And then the day before its due at 5pm in the evening when we meet to put all the parts together and make sure everything is good, this kid from my class Marco shows up in the study room. I say hi and he asks me if I saw Martin. And I said, yeah, he's right there. Marco says, oh I'm meeting him for the final project. And I said, oh, ok, well martin's in my group, and marco says, well, then i'm in your group! He laughed and I was mad. I knew this kid was a slacker. I asked him why he was suddenly in my group after we chose our groups 6 weeks before. He told me because the girls he was with dropped the class. Irrelevant, the drop date was 2 or 3 weeks before that, so he would have already known. And because he's a slacker, he intentiionally asked martin to be in our group at the last second so he could get points for the project, which was worth 15% of the final grade. So since he adds himself to our group, I ask him that because he had done absolutely nothing to contribute to the project, if he could add mroe to my portion. I had written 2 pages and the page amount for this section was to be 2-4 pages. I said, PLEASE see if you can write one more page. All he had to do was that, and the abstract, a one paragraph summary of the project, which would take 10 minutes. And since I wanted to put everything together and print the thing to turn it in (i wanted to make sure it was perfect and looked good, those points count...and seeing i was working with 4 boys i was sure that none of them would be that picky, no offense, males). , anyway, i asked him and the others that were still finishing up their parts, to send me what they had before midnight so I could do it and sleep and then just turn it in before my soccer class at 10am. I had been working on very little sleep for the previous few nights. Well, i stayed up till 1am and only 1 of the 3 had sent me their stuff. So i go to sleep and set my alarm for 8. Marco calls me at 7am---still hasnt done his part , and asks to send him something to help him write the abstract. I was so irritated. I hate working with people like this...SLACKER. Needless to say, he finally sends me his thing at 8, i had to put everything together still and ended up missing soccer becasue i didn't finish it all till 10am at my apartment. Oke, that was all said and done...but still the presentation remained. And the deal with that was that one person would present, and it was supposed to be 10-15 minutes. But the person who wass presenting did not find out until the day of the presentations. They started on a thursday, and this kid marco calls me at 9.35 am that day and says "oye, kari, i dont really understand what the project is about" REALLY???!!! 30 Minutes before we have to be ready to present and you're calling me asking me wahts its about?!! Might I add, he had the paper document for a week before this, so he had time to present! I was so mad and just told him sorry i cant help you, you had a week to call me and ask questions.
We didn't get called the first day of presentations and had the entire weekend to prepare more...I was scared to death i'd get picked cause it wouldbe hard in spanish etc...so i made sure to be ready. I had notecards, practiced, etc. Go figure, when we continue tuesday she calls him. Not only did he only speak for 6 minutes, but he couldnt answer the teachers questions. I had to give him my notecards cause he wasnt ready and otherwise woulda just read from the powerpoint. We scored a 3.7 on the presentation which is a 50-somthing%. We got a 6.2 on the written document, the best grade in the class. Came out to a 5.7 on the project in the end. Now i'm just waiting my grade on the final...we'll see. 7 pages of torture...needless to say it was nothing like the practice exam that they gave us. No joke. oh well, thats life.
Otherwise...here I am. I suppose I should comment on the weather, which has been fabulous. It's been the the mid to lower 80's lately, and I'm loving it. Went swimming the other day to the public pools that are on the big hill in the city., They were pretty.
I posted pictures, check those out.
And now, until I late post I suppose!!!! ChaU!
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
elecciones en la U
So this isn't really a legit blog post, but it's very interesting. Right now, in addition to the presidential elections that are going on right now, my university is having student government elections. And they go NUTS over it. I don't have a clue about student presidents or anything at SFSU because no one campaigns so for all I know, they don't exist. The state decides what they do with our funding anyway...
But anyway, it's quite interesting. Banners and posters everywhere, signs, rep's (students) going around trying to get their word out, debates, and legit elections that are going on today and tomorrow. AND my friend Flavia, who is from UCLA but from Chilean/Italian parents (she speaks fluent Spanish, lucky girl), just happened to write an excellent summary of everything that's going on. She posted it on facebook as a "note" --like blogging on facebook. I asked her if i could post it here because it was interesting and she did an excellent job. Here it is:
But anyway, it's quite interesting. Banners and posters everywhere, signs, rep's (students) going around trying to get their word out, debates, and legit elections that are going on today and tomorrow. AND my friend Flavia, who is from UCLA but from Chilean/Italian parents (she speaks fluent Spanish, lucky girl), just happened to write an excellent summary of everything that's going on. She posted it on facebook as a "note" --like blogging on facebook. I asked her if i could post it here because it was interesting and she did an excellent job. Here it is:
"And everything is the same... except the country, the language, and the t-shirt colors"
Just because this stuff blows my mind, I thought I would share my thoughts with you all; some chileans, some study abroad students, and some alumni...
At the most prestigious university in Chile, political parties are basically having a run-through and facing off via the students... Lista1a (Ready first), NAU (New University Action), OI (Independent Option), a socialist party, and Voto Nulo (Vote Null) are currently throwing it down at the voting stations all over PUC's four campuses.
The best part is, this is actually an incredibly accurate reflection of the country at large. Lista1a is a major conservative party- without blinking. Their presidential candidate (according to a conversation I eavesdropped) is a law student (law is a major here) who defended Pinochet's coup in class with a natural law argument. NAU is center left, OI independent, etc. etc.
And yet, the issues are all the same.
Lista1a is "proud to believe in the UC" (Universidad Catolica), "proud to believe that students come first", "proud to believe that participation is service", and just basically... "proud to believe". I read through their flyer, and I couldn't find any platforms. Thanks. Next!
Compared with NAU- whose slogans are, "Alguien tiene que hacerlo" and "La universidad es tuya!" or, "Somebody's got to do it", and "The university is yours!" (that sounds particularly familiar). Their posters feature not only their candidates, but inspiring figures like Father Hurtado (a social liberationist priest from Chile), Albert Einstein, as well as Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump and Uma Thurman as The Bride. Okay.
They state, "The university is yours, for a community that makes sense". They tout campus wide activities not just for students, but for campus service workers and academics, like a week of culture, a festival of music, and a college Olympics. They state, "the university is yours, a university for Chile". They tout a center for campus service workers and a special immersion program in Mapuche (indigenous) communities. There's more, but the best one is that they're going green: they want an Office of Sustainability, green grades for different campus buildings, pilot programs for green-friendly technologies, a campaign for Environmental Conscience, and a Sustainable Practice Guide for distribution.
It's just student elections, but here, these are the sons and daughters of Chilean elite (have I mentioned this is THE most prestigious university in the country?). In a few years, they will be the elite. It's like watching the entire psychological development of a country unfold. It's a barometer for Chile's present and future...
There were easily at least 300, 400 people packed into an auditorium to hear the debates. It was more like a soccer match than a debate, with drums, flags, tshirts, whistling, hooting, cheering, cussing, and direct attacks between candidates as well as audience members.
The most fascinating part is how incredibly present is Chile's past. Whenever Lista1a started cheering or chanting, the entire crowd supporting NAU would make fun of them by making military salutes, and there were several chants calling them out for being Pinochetistas, or Jaime Guzman demagogues (Jaime Guzman was the godfather of the conservative movement in Chile). Lista1a didn't even fight it- they just rolled right along with it. It has also become pretty clear that UDI, Chile's conservative party, gives Lista 1a money to run their campaign.
It's hard to forget that the university is run by the Vatican. NAU said that this isn't a school for priests anymore, it's a university for intellectuals. The presidential candidate for Lista1a didn't understand a question about anti-contraceptives and their on-campus distribution- she went on to say that while there still exists doubt about the validity of the methods, we shouldn't put at risk the lives of innocents. When the presidential candidate for NAU closed the debate, he recounted how at his internship, the person working above him denied legal services to a woman because she was divorced.
The right (Lista 1a) contended that if you don't like the educational formulation that the university provides, then you should go somewhere else. If you don't like the university's censorship, you should go somewhere else. "If you don't like it, then why are you here?" was the recurring meme. The entire concept that students should be at the receiving end of their education, as opposed to a more formulative role, is very entrenched for conservatives everywhere.
NAU kept discussing access to the university by students in municipal schools, referring to those who get left behind by the system. They showed a profound interest in reforming how people enter the university. The PSU (SAT equivalent) is held nationwide and is pretty much the defining factor in university acceptance. Naturally, the students in private schools score high, and the municipal schools score low. Sounds like a familiar issue.
The country's more controversial issues entered the debate- NAU wants to create an immersion program so that students from the university can immerse themselves in Mapuche communities. "The press calls the Mapuches terrorists, but the United Nations is scandalized with the way we treat our indigenous citizens", stated one NAU candidate.
Also of debate was how to help students with financial aid, those in the third quintile, etc. The university is expensive, the scholarships are few- it's a difficult issue for them to grapple with, and I think there was the most confusion about how to deal with this than with any other topic.
What really moved me, and is something that I feel lacking at my own university, is the expressed relationship NAU has with service workers at the university. They stated that they are trying to build a true university community, one which is composed of three parts: academics, students and workers. They talked about worker capacitation, about investigating the living conditions of workers, about dealing with subcontracting and the fact that because many workers are subcontracted, they don't have the right to unionize. They went off several times describing the condition of university workers, how poorly they are paid, and how more attention needs to be paid to them. Regrettably, this relationship is extremely weak at my home university. We show up for the big events, but we are not involving them as much as we could.
One candidate for NAU said, "people tell us, if you want to make a change, go to U. Chile. We go to PUC, and we want to make some change here and now" U. Chile is the country's official state university, and is known for being more rabble-rousing than the elite at PUC. They're definitely on an upward battle as far as fighting a hierarchical structure goes.
NAU's candidates were pretty frank- yes, their vision is utopic, idealist- but they're willing to lay out the programs to at least try and take the university there.
It's the same stuff everywhere. It's the same crowds, the same problems, the same discussions. At the root of the debate, the discussion is the same. Do students have power? Should they have power? Should they exercise that power if they have it? Lista 1a kept insisting that we're students, that we're here to learn after all, that we're preparing to become leaders for tomorrow. NAU insisted that we're adults, that the time is now, that we need to be leaders today, not tomorrow.
In another note is the complete text of a flier that some people were handing out. It's in Chilean spanish, try and read it if you dare...
At the most prestigious university in Chile, political parties are basically having a run-through and facing off via the students... Lista1a (Ready first), NAU (New University Action), OI (Independent Option), a socialist party, and Voto Nulo (Vote Null) are currently throwing it down at the voting stations all over PUC's four campuses.
The best part is, this is actually an incredibly accurate reflection of the country at large. Lista1a is a major conservative party- without blinking. Their presidential candidate (according to a conversation I eavesdropped) is a law student (law is a major here) who defended Pinochet's coup in class with a natural law argument. NAU is center left, OI independent, etc. etc.
And yet, the issues are all the same.
Lista1a is "proud to believe in the UC" (Universidad Catolica), "proud to believe that students come first", "proud to believe that participation is service", and just basically... "proud to believe". I read through their flyer, and I couldn't find any platforms. Thanks. Next!
Compared with NAU- whose slogans are, "Alguien tiene que hacerlo" and "La universidad es tuya!" or, "Somebody's got to do it", and "The university is yours!" (that sounds particularly familiar). Their posters feature not only their candidates, but inspiring figures like Father Hurtado (a social liberationist priest from Chile), Albert Einstein, as well as Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump and Uma Thurman as The Bride. Okay.
They state, "The university is yours, for a community that makes sense". They tout campus wide activities not just for students, but for campus service workers and academics, like a week of culture, a festival of music, and a college Olympics. They state, "the university is yours, a university for Chile". They tout a center for campus service workers and a special immersion program in Mapuche (indigenous) communities. There's more, but the best one is that they're going green: they want an Office of Sustainability, green grades for different campus buildings, pilot programs for green-friendly technologies, a campaign for Environmental Conscience, and a Sustainable Practice Guide for distribution.
It's just student elections, but here, these are the sons and daughters of Chilean elite (have I mentioned this is THE most prestigious university in the country?). In a few years, they will be the elite. It's like watching the entire psychological development of a country unfold. It's a barometer for Chile's present and future...
There were easily at least 300, 400 people packed into an auditorium to hear the debates. It was more like a soccer match than a debate, with drums, flags, tshirts, whistling, hooting, cheering, cussing, and direct attacks between candidates as well as audience members.
The most fascinating part is how incredibly present is Chile's past. Whenever Lista1a started cheering or chanting, the entire crowd supporting NAU would make fun of them by making military salutes, and there were several chants calling them out for being Pinochetistas, or Jaime Guzman demagogues (Jaime Guzman was the godfather of the conservative movement in Chile). Lista1a didn't even fight it- they just rolled right along with it. It has also become pretty clear that UDI, Chile's conservative party, gives Lista 1a money to run their campaign.
It's hard to forget that the university is run by the Vatican. NAU said that this isn't a school for priests anymore, it's a university for intellectuals. The presidential candidate for Lista1a didn't understand a question about anti-contraceptives and their on-campus distribution- she went on to say that while there still exists doubt about the validity of the methods, we shouldn't put at risk the lives of innocents. When the presidential candidate for NAU closed the debate, he recounted how at his internship, the person working above him denied legal services to a woman because she was divorced.
The right (Lista 1a) contended that if you don't like the educational formulation that the university provides, then you should go somewhere else. If you don't like the university's censorship, you should go somewhere else. "If you don't like it, then why are you here?" was the recurring meme. The entire concept that students should be at the receiving end of their education, as opposed to a more formulative role, is very entrenched for conservatives everywhere.
NAU kept discussing access to the university by students in municipal schools, referring to those who get left behind by the system. They showed a profound interest in reforming how people enter the university. The PSU (SAT equivalent) is held nationwide and is pretty much the defining factor in university acceptance. Naturally, the students in private schools score high, and the municipal schools score low. Sounds like a familiar issue.
The country's more controversial issues entered the debate- NAU wants to create an immersion program so that students from the university can immerse themselves in Mapuche communities. "The press calls the Mapuches terrorists, but the United Nations is scandalized with the way we treat our indigenous citizens", stated one NAU candidate.
Also of debate was how to help students with financial aid, those in the third quintile, etc. The university is expensive, the scholarships are few- it's a difficult issue for them to grapple with, and I think there was the most confusion about how to deal with this than with any other topic.
What really moved me, and is something that I feel lacking at my own university, is the expressed relationship NAU has with service workers at the university. They stated that they are trying to build a true university community, one which is composed of three parts: academics, students and workers. They talked about worker capacitation, about investigating the living conditions of workers, about dealing with subcontracting and the fact that because many workers are subcontracted, they don't have the right to unionize. They went off several times describing the condition of university workers, how poorly they are paid, and how more attention needs to be paid to them. Regrettably, this relationship is extremely weak at my home university. We show up for the big events, but we are not involving them as much as we could.
One candidate for NAU said, "people tell us, if you want to make a change, go to U. Chile. We go to PUC, and we want to make some change here and now" U. Chile is the country's official state university, and is known for being more rabble-rousing than the elite at PUC. They're definitely on an upward battle as far as fighting a hierarchical structure goes.
NAU's candidates were pretty frank- yes, their vision is utopic, idealist- but they're willing to lay out the programs to at least try and take the university there.
It's the same stuff everywhere. It's the same crowds, the same problems, the same discussions. At the root of the debate, the discussion is the same. Do students have power? Should they have power? Should they exercise that power if they have it? Lista 1a kept insisting that we're students, that we're here to learn after all, that we're preparing to become leaders for tomorrow. NAU insisted that we're adults, that the time is now, that we need to be leaders today, not tomorrow.
In another note is the complete text of a flier that some people were handing out. It's in Chilean spanish, try and read it if you dare...
Thursday, October 15, 2009
el último mes
Well it's been a month or so....and I figured it's my duty that I would write something. I've done a few fun things since then, so I will cover that. Over than that, it's just been school and studying. Although the weather is changing so that's definitely a good thing!!
So since then...well since covering a month's passing would take a lot of time to type, I'm just going to paste a summarized version from an email i sent to my mom after the weekend of the 18th of September, Chile's independence day. Here it is (pardon me for grammar erros and not capitalizing lots of things..I got lazy):
Finally I left the city and the countryside was so pretty. Friday was Chile's independence day and began the year that celebrates their having 200 years of independence. Thursday night i went to la Moneda plaza, where Michelle Bachelet works (like our white house) where there was a huge free concert with 40 or so bands or artists. tonsss of people. They had fireworks, which i was informed, doesn't happen just any ole independence day--they only had them because it was celebrating 200 years. Saturday a Chilean friend of mine Felipe (he lives in the same house as Maritza, from my program) invited me to celebrate the day with his family, which was cool. got to see how a chilean family celebrates. they made me dance the Cueca, which is a really goofy dance. but its chile's national dance and they dance it like crazy this time of the year. you should google a video. the outfits are really cute though. i wanted to buy one of the dresses because they are pretty cheap here as opposed to a typical German attire dress. We had an asado, a bbq basically with salads and then a typical Chilean cake with lots of manjar in it (dulce de leche).
Saturday Felipe and I and 3 of his roommates (a guy from mexico and a guy and girl from belgium) went to rancagua, a smaller city south of here. has about 200,000 people with little pueblos around it. we went to the fondas, which are these big fair like things...lots of food and rides, vendors, games, etc. ate typical food (anticuchos, pork on a stick cooked over the grill, chicha, sweet apple wine, and empanadas filled with cheese. Pop, you would love the empanadas de queso---they're made of a soft pastry crust with yummy cheese inside and lightly deep fried, soooo good). Then around 5pm we were sitting trying to figure out what to do and we decided to go to Pichilemu, a small beach town south west of santiago. it was kinda on a whim...Maritza and elvira were there with 2 other girls and so since they were there we decided to go meet them since the place they were staying at had an extra room open. We had planned on returning to Santiago that night so we really did go on a whim and no one had a change of clothes or toothbrush or anything!! But anyway, where we stayed was in these little cabins with multiple beds, bathroom, and kitchen with a random assortment of cooking things, that normally rent out for abotu $35 a night, sleeping 5 people. This weekend was a little more but still cheap and RIGHT ON THE BEACH. it was gorgeous. But because we went with nothing, we left around noon on Sunday cause everyone wanted to shower etc. it was really nice anyway. pichilemu was really pretty. Reminded me SO much of California beaches around the Monterey area. rocks and darkish sand, the same trees, plants, smell, house-style. it was crazy how similar they are!!
So that's the summary of the 18th of September weekend. It was pretty awesome...here's a fun fact, by the way. In my Spanish grammar class the tuesday after the weekend we were discussing interesting things regarding the customs and such of the weekend, and I mentioned how I thought it was interesting that pretty much every house I saw had a Chilean flag outside it. And tonnnnss of cars have them too. Well the teacher goe on to say that its actually a law that every house or apartment building display a flag the day of the 18th and there is aparently a fine or somtehign it you dont. She said that she's doenst know of anyone whose been fined and doesnt know if they really do fine people, but the law exists...interesting!!
Since then there's been some fun festivities regarding soccer games. South America has been holding lots of games to determine which countries will go to the world cup in south africa next summer. Chile played Colombia this last saturday and whoever won would go to the cup. Well, Chile won and it was pretty crazy. Everytime they made a goal and at the end of the game you just had to stick your head out the window and the entire city errupts with honking horns, yelling and anything that makes noise. I was thinking how the US doenst really have anything like that, a sport thats played internationally and literally everyyyyone knows when there are games and such. I mean, the olympics but that doenst count because there are always different events going on. But it was pretty awesome. I went and met Cristina and Maritza in Plaza Italia, about 5 blocks from my house which is pretty muchwhere the entire city collaborates to celebrate something. They go there after they win a game, they go there during festivals, they all went wild there apparently when Pinochet died a few years ago. There were tons of people, mostly young people and it was just crazy. There are pictures.
This last weekend was pretty awesome as well. On Friday I got to go to a wedding. The wedding mass was at 9pm, pretty late if you ask me and then the reception was at this awesome restaurant it little out of the city in the country. It was really beautiful--we ate dinner at 2am, go figure. There was a dance floor, open bar, and excellent music. Pretty fun. Gave me an excuse to wear my dress and dress up a little since chileans never really dress up.
Saturday I chilled out and cleaned my room and went to Plaza Italia and then Sunday I got to leave the city again. There is an area south east of the city thats called Cajón del Maipo ==its countryside and parts of the foothills of the Andes. I hadn't been to the moutains yet so I'm glad I got to go before all the snow melted. There are these thermal spas (hot springs) also that are up in the andes that i'd read about and wanted to find at some point. I went with Felipe but little did we know that the road was closed to a few parts where slow covered it. There is nowhereonline that says if its open or closed to snow or rockslides so you just have to go and look. It was interesting on the way out there because the last little town we passed through had a crossing with the police and if you plan on staying more than a day its recommended that you register with the police so they can come look for you if you dont return because it's so rural beyond that and the road doesn't pass all the way to argentina (it just stops at some point in the moutains). Anyway, getting up the road, 28 km dirt road it suddenly stopped cause there were a bunch of cars parked. Then we saw that there was snow covering the road but we thought we were only about 5 km out from the springs so we decided to walk/hike in. The road was only partially covered so walking in was fine. It was sooooo pretty. We were literally UP there in the Andes right next to a resevoir called the Embalse El Yeso (it's in google earth and google maps). The water was super clear and really clean and the mountains all around and covered in snow. Well after about 5 km we still weren't there so we just continued trekking in. After 10 km we decided it'd be smart to go back before the sun went down. A let down that we never got to them but it was a nice 12.5 miles of walking that day---i figureed there wouldnt be a huge amount of walking involved so i just wore my sambas...regular indoor soccer shoes with no ankle support and gave me gnarly blisters. Next time im taking my hiking boots. My darn camera batties crapped out on me though only about an hour after we got there so there aren;t that many pictures. It was a nice day though.
That;s about it..I posted pictures on Picasa so check those out. Oh and I got a B+ on my last exam in my Borges literature class. yeah!
Hope all's well..see ya'll in a few weeks. !!
So since then...well since covering a month's passing would take a lot of time to type, I'm just going to paste a summarized version from an email i sent to my mom after the weekend of the 18th of September, Chile's independence day. Here it is (pardon me for grammar erros and not capitalizing lots of things..I got lazy):
Finally I left the city and the countryside was so pretty. Friday was Chile's independence day and began the year that celebrates their having 200 years of independence. Thursday night i went to la Moneda plaza, where Michelle Bachelet works (like our white house) where there was a huge free concert with 40 or so bands or artists. tonsss of people. They had fireworks, which i was informed, doesn't happen just any ole independence day--they only had them because it was celebrating 200 years. Saturday a Chilean friend of mine Felipe (he lives in the same house as Maritza, from my program) invited me to celebrate the day with his family, which was cool. got to see how a chilean family celebrates. they made me dance the Cueca, which is a really goofy dance. but its chile's national dance and they dance it like crazy this time of the year. you should google a video. the outfits are really cute though. i wanted to buy one of the dresses because they are pretty cheap here as opposed to a typical German attire dress. We had an asado, a bbq basically with salads and then a typical Chilean cake with lots of manjar in it (dulce de leche).
Saturday Felipe and I and 3 of his roommates (a guy from mexico and a guy and girl from belgium) went to rancagua, a smaller city south of here. has about 200,000 people with little pueblos around it. we went to the fondas, which are these big fair like things...lots of food and rides, vendors, games, etc. ate typical food (anticuchos, pork on a stick cooked over the grill, chicha, sweet apple wine, and empanadas filled with cheese. Pop, you would love the empanadas de queso---they're made of a soft pastry crust with yummy cheese inside and lightly deep fried, soooo good). Then around 5pm we were sitting trying to figure out what to do and we decided to go to Pichilemu, a small beach town south west of santiago. it was kinda on a whim...Maritza and elvira were there with 2 other girls and so since they were there we decided to go meet them since the place they were staying at had an extra room open. We had planned on returning to Santiago that night so we really did go on a whim and no one had a change of clothes or toothbrush or anything!! But anyway, where we stayed was in these little cabins with multiple beds, bathroom, and kitchen with a random assortment of cooking things, that normally rent out for abotu $35 a night, sleeping 5 people. This weekend was a little more but still cheap and RIGHT ON THE BEACH. it was gorgeous. But because we went with nothing, we left around noon on Sunday cause everyone wanted to shower etc. it was really nice anyway. pichilemu was really pretty. Reminded me SO much of California beaches around the Monterey area. rocks and darkish sand, the same trees, plants, smell, house-style. it was crazy how similar they are!!
So that's the summary of the 18th of September weekend. It was pretty awesome...here's a fun fact, by the way. In my Spanish grammar class the tuesday after the weekend we were discussing interesting things regarding the customs and such of the weekend, and I mentioned how I thought it was interesting that pretty much every house I saw had a Chilean flag outside it. And tonnnnss of cars have them too. Well the teacher goe on to say that its actually a law that every house or apartment building display a flag the day of the 18th and there is aparently a fine or somtehign it you dont. She said that she's doenst know of anyone whose been fined and doesnt know if they really do fine people, but the law exists...interesting!!
Since then there's been some fun festivities regarding soccer games. South America has been holding lots of games to determine which countries will go to the world cup in south africa next summer. Chile played Colombia this last saturday and whoever won would go to the cup. Well, Chile won and it was pretty crazy. Everytime they made a goal and at the end of the game you just had to stick your head out the window and the entire city errupts with honking horns, yelling and anything that makes noise. I was thinking how the US doenst really have anything like that, a sport thats played internationally and literally everyyyyone knows when there are games and such. I mean, the olympics but that doenst count because there are always different events going on. But it was pretty awesome. I went and met Cristina and Maritza in Plaza Italia, about 5 blocks from my house which is pretty muchwhere the entire city collaborates to celebrate something. They go there after they win a game, they go there during festivals, they all went wild there apparently when Pinochet died a few years ago. There were tons of people, mostly young people and it was just crazy. There are pictures.
This last weekend was pretty awesome as well. On Friday I got to go to a wedding. The wedding mass was at 9pm, pretty late if you ask me and then the reception was at this awesome restaurant it little out of the city in the country. It was really beautiful--we ate dinner at 2am, go figure. There was a dance floor, open bar, and excellent music. Pretty fun. Gave me an excuse to wear my dress and dress up a little since chileans never really dress up.
Saturday I chilled out and cleaned my room and went to Plaza Italia and then Sunday I got to leave the city again. There is an area south east of the city thats called Cajón del Maipo ==its countryside and parts of the foothills of the Andes. I hadn't been to the moutains yet so I'm glad I got to go before all the snow melted. There are these thermal spas (hot springs) also that are up in the andes that i'd read about and wanted to find at some point. I went with Felipe but little did we know that the road was closed to a few parts where slow covered it. There is nowhereonline that says if its open or closed to snow or rockslides so you just have to go and look. It was interesting on the way out there because the last little town we passed through had a crossing with the police and if you plan on staying more than a day its recommended that you register with the police so they can come look for you if you dont return because it's so rural beyond that and the road doesn't pass all the way to argentina (it just stops at some point in the moutains). Anyway, getting up the road, 28 km dirt road it suddenly stopped cause there were a bunch of cars parked. Then we saw that there was snow covering the road but we thought we were only about 5 km out from the springs so we decided to walk/hike in. The road was only partially covered so walking in was fine. It was sooooo pretty. We were literally UP there in the Andes right next to a resevoir called the Embalse El Yeso (it's in google earth and google maps). The water was super clear and really clean and the mountains all around and covered in snow. Well after about 5 km we still weren't there so we just continued trekking in. After 10 km we decided it'd be smart to go back before the sun went down. A let down that we never got to them but it was a nice 12.5 miles of walking that day---i figureed there wouldnt be a huge amount of walking involved so i just wore my sambas...regular indoor soccer shoes with no ankle support and gave me gnarly blisters. Next time im taking my hiking boots. My darn camera batties crapped out on me though only about an hour after we got there so there aren;t that many pictures. It was a nice day though.
That;s about it..I posted pictures on Picasa so check those out. Oh and I got a B+ on my last exam in my Borges literature class. yeah!
Hope all's well..see ya'll in a few weeks. !!
Friday, September 11, 2009
por fin, po'!
I'm sitting here at my desk eating an apple with peanut butter and manjar (chilean style dulce de leche, which i'm pretty sure is all over latin america), and decided that blogging might not be a bad idea, since it's been so long. I don't really have any fascinating news because it's just been school and I haven't left the city. I've been trying to mentally remember all the little things that make chilean culture different from what i'm used to so I can write them here, but that will be more of a process that just being able to remember everything at once. But here's is what I can remember as of now.
1. the mullet: it's really popular here. It's fashionable and lots of young guys have mullets. Dreadlocks are also quite popular, and it's not rare to see a guy from the front who appears to ahve normal hair, until you see the back and realize he has a dreadlock mullet---normal hair on top with anywhere from 1-10 dreadlocks protruding out of the back of his head. Girls often have just one dread too.
2. I realized why there are so few available apartments with young chileans. Chileans tend to live with their parents until their upper 20's if not into the 30s or until they get married. The culture, as are most latin cultures, and very family oriented and so kids my age live with their parents, especially if they are students. If i meet someone my age who lives alone, its either because of problems with the family or they are super independent and/or have lived in a foreign country. No wonder most of the foreign students i know here life with.....other foreign students.
3. the greeting in chile in the side-cheek kiss. When you meet someone new or are just meeting with your friends, the side0cheek kiss is always involved. guys dont do it with other guys, they just shake hands. But girls and girls, and guys and girls, always.
4. Fannypacks are popular here. I bought one a while back because thye are cheap but i didn't have the courage to wear it (of course, knowing me, i bought one that is bright purple) until recently. But really they are popular simply because its more safe to carry a fannypack than a small purse. My friends swedish roommate had her little purse cut right off her shoulder a few weeks back in a very public area. They sliced the strap and ran--her wallet and her camera and her chilean id card were all inside. So i've begun to use the fannypack, quite useful.
5. in universities, instead of requiring students to buy entire textbooks, the teachers just photocopy article and portions of textbooks and leave them at the central photocopy station for every department and then i got and just fill out a little sheet saying what copies i need from what class and pay for that. it's WAYYYYYY cheaper than buying books and makes my backpack wayyyyyy lighter. I think for the science and math classes they probably have books, but at least in the literature, language, poly science, history, and such departments, few people have textbooks. I haven;t spent more than 10 or 15 dollars on copies. Also when we print at school we don't pay per page, we just bring our own paper. That's pretty cool because the teachers often put things up on the their online pages that we have to print and they could be pretty lengthy...so buying a pack of printing paper for 5 bucks is cheaper than paying 8 cents a page like at sfsu. that just means that i have a stack about 3 inches tall of all my total articles and such for this semester thus far.
6. there are a few types of style here but the one that stands out to me the most (and kind of surprised me), is very hippy-ish. Like i said, dread locks are very common here, but there are lots of people that just dress super hippy-ish. interesting.
If I think of more, I will continue the list. As far as my life as of late....
I attempted to go to my first english-help session today at a public school (last week most people started but I couldnt go becasue they were doing some event thing at the school). the director emailed me and asked if i still wanted to come even if i'd only be there 45 minutes but I said i would go anyway. The reason being is that today, September 11th, marks the anniversery of the military coup of General Pinochet that overthrough the government of Salvador Allende and marked the begining of the dictatorship that lasted until 1990. The cut school short and especially recommend to international students to try to stay off teh streets starting in the afternoon and especially at night. There are always protests and manifestations and occasionally they get violent because there are still people out there that support what Pinochet did. The more I head about the time of dictatorship, the most intersting it becomes. I'm thinking of taking a chilean modern history class next sememster just because its interesting. A lot of what I hear is extremely shocking. I was hanging out with some friends the other day, chileans and somehow we got onto the topic. One of the guys is 25 so I asked him if he remembered anything but he didn't but they were telling me some of the things that happened and what their parents remembered or thought of it.
They then went on to say that the Estadio Nacional (national futbol stadium), which is the official stadium of the olympics that were held in the 60's and now of the club soccer team of La Universidad de Chile (the team i saw), was not supported by Pinochet. The other main rival team is called Colo-Colo and they have their own stadium in the southern part of the city. well, pinochet supported colo0colo and put money into the team and the stadium. During his dictatorship, the estadio nacional was used for other purposes: torture and killing people. This really shocked me---I was shocked. It's just so surprsiing because it's all so recent and it happened. I was talking to my new roommate, Matthias (who is German!!! yeah!!!) and he said he had talked to a profesor who was actually tortured there. He said it was too much to take in...t0 hear that from someone who experienced it. Appartnely, alongside physical torture, they also used to mentally torture people, saying things about family members they were killing or other such things. Sorry if this is really intense...it's history though and it happened. What I learn from living in a post-communist country. Apparently they also used to capture people who protested and such, would take them in a plane and drop them from thousands of feet over the pacific ocean. This is heavy stuff.
I think that was the main thing I wanted to blog because it is the most interesting. As of late, I've just been in school. I took my first exam, and did really bad, as I thought I would. Despite hours and hours of studying and trying to understand borges, i still got a pretty lousy grade. The teacher knows my name though, which I think is good...and Ive been trying to talk more in class to at least get participation poiints. I've pretty much become a monitor of his voice as well and I color code my notes. Black ink is concrete and waht he writes on the board and red ink is what I write down from him talking. The unit we are in right now is a bit easier though. I hope I can pull off a B on the next exam, to make up for the D I got (yea, a D. ouch).
Oh, and I mentioned I got a new roommate. So now we are four, back to normal. Me, Sarah and Jean-Charles, bother from france, and Matthias from germany. I tried to talk to matthias in german the othr day because I told him i wanted to practice but it WAS SO HARD!! Every time I stumble to think of a word, spanish just blurts out of my mouth. Or even if i know the word in german i still speak spanish. It's hard. that sucks. oh well. At least I can say "that's life" in a total of four languages!! c'est la vie, asi es la vida, so ist das leben.
The weather is finally getting a litttttle better. It was around 70 today...after 2 weeks of on and off raining and really cold days for what it should be in september. I might be going to the beach next weekend with some friends. I hope i can...i need to get out of the city. i think i am the only person from my entire group who hasnt left for a weekend or day trip to either go snowboarding or valparaíso ( a city west of here on the ocean) or anything else. I just didn't wanna spend money to go places when it's winter and we are going to have 3 months of no school. But i'm dying from some clean air, stars, space, trees, absolute quiet. It would be a nice thing. Also, school ends at 1pm on thursday and there are no classes friday because friday is the 18th of september, chilean independence day. It's supposed to a pretty wild and fun time. I'm excited for the food...maybe i will find a chilean food that has some real flavor in it. I hope so!!
Anywho, I think I will go get started on dinner.. Hope this was sufficient!! Some picutres to come soon!!! Espero que todos estén bien!!!
1. the mullet: it's really popular here. It's fashionable and lots of young guys have mullets. Dreadlocks are also quite popular, and it's not rare to see a guy from the front who appears to ahve normal hair, until you see the back and realize he has a dreadlock mullet---normal hair on top with anywhere from 1-10 dreadlocks protruding out of the back of his head. Girls often have just one dread too.
2. I realized why there are so few available apartments with young chileans. Chileans tend to live with their parents until their upper 20's if not into the 30s or until they get married. The culture, as are most latin cultures, and very family oriented and so kids my age live with their parents, especially if they are students. If i meet someone my age who lives alone, its either because of problems with the family or they are super independent and/or have lived in a foreign country. No wonder most of the foreign students i know here life with.....other foreign students.
3. the greeting in chile in the side-cheek kiss. When you meet someone new or are just meeting with your friends, the side0cheek kiss is always involved. guys dont do it with other guys, they just shake hands. But girls and girls, and guys and girls, always.
4. Fannypacks are popular here. I bought one a while back because thye are cheap but i didn't have the courage to wear it (of course, knowing me, i bought one that is bright purple) until recently. But really they are popular simply because its more safe to carry a fannypack than a small purse. My friends swedish roommate had her little purse cut right off her shoulder a few weeks back in a very public area. They sliced the strap and ran--her wallet and her camera and her chilean id card were all inside. So i've begun to use the fannypack, quite useful.
5. in universities, instead of requiring students to buy entire textbooks, the teachers just photocopy article and portions of textbooks and leave them at the central photocopy station for every department and then i got and just fill out a little sheet saying what copies i need from what class and pay for that. it's WAYYYYYY cheaper than buying books and makes my backpack wayyyyyy lighter. I think for the science and math classes they probably have books, but at least in the literature, language, poly science, history, and such departments, few people have textbooks. I haven;t spent more than 10 or 15 dollars on copies. Also when we print at school we don't pay per page, we just bring our own paper. That's pretty cool because the teachers often put things up on the their online pages that we have to print and they could be pretty lengthy...so buying a pack of printing paper for 5 bucks is cheaper than paying 8 cents a page like at sfsu. that just means that i have a stack about 3 inches tall of all my total articles and such for this semester thus far.
6. there are a few types of style here but the one that stands out to me the most (and kind of surprised me), is very hippy-ish. Like i said, dread locks are very common here, but there are lots of people that just dress super hippy-ish. interesting.
If I think of more, I will continue the list. As far as my life as of late....
I attempted to go to my first english-help session today at a public school (last week most people started but I couldnt go becasue they were doing some event thing at the school). the director emailed me and asked if i still wanted to come even if i'd only be there 45 minutes but I said i would go anyway. The reason being is that today, September 11th, marks the anniversery of the military coup of General Pinochet that overthrough the government of Salvador Allende and marked the begining of the dictatorship that lasted until 1990. The cut school short and especially recommend to international students to try to stay off teh streets starting in the afternoon and especially at night. There are always protests and manifestations and occasionally they get violent because there are still people out there that support what Pinochet did. The more I head about the time of dictatorship, the most intersting it becomes. I'm thinking of taking a chilean modern history class next sememster just because its interesting. A lot of what I hear is extremely shocking. I was hanging out with some friends the other day, chileans and somehow we got onto the topic. One of the guys is 25 so I asked him if he remembered anything but he didn't but they were telling me some of the things that happened and what their parents remembered or thought of it.
They then went on to say that the Estadio Nacional (national futbol stadium), which is the official stadium of the olympics that were held in the 60's and now of the club soccer team of La Universidad de Chile (the team i saw), was not supported by Pinochet. The other main rival team is called Colo-Colo and they have their own stadium in the southern part of the city. well, pinochet supported colo0colo and put money into the team and the stadium. During his dictatorship, the estadio nacional was used for other purposes: torture and killing people. This really shocked me---I was shocked. It's just so surprsiing because it's all so recent and it happened. I was talking to my new roommate, Matthias (who is German!!! yeah!!!) and he said he had talked to a profesor who was actually tortured there. He said it was too much to take in...t0 hear that from someone who experienced it. Appartnely, alongside physical torture, they also used to mentally torture people, saying things about family members they were killing or other such things. Sorry if this is really intense...it's history though and it happened. What I learn from living in a post-communist country. Apparently they also used to capture people who protested and such, would take them in a plane and drop them from thousands of feet over the pacific ocean. This is heavy stuff.
I think that was the main thing I wanted to blog because it is the most interesting. As of late, I've just been in school. I took my first exam, and did really bad, as I thought I would. Despite hours and hours of studying and trying to understand borges, i still got a pretty lousy grade. The teacher knows my name though, which I think is good...and Ive been trying to talk more in class to at least get participation poiints. I've pretty much become a monitor of his voice as well and I color code my notes. Black ink is concrete and waht he writes on the board and red ink is what I write down from him talking. The unit we are in right now is a bit easier though. I hope I can pull off a B on the next exam, to make up for the D I got (yea, a D. ouch).
Oh, and I mentioned I got a new roommate. So now we are four, back to normal. Me, Sarah and Jean-Charles, bother from france, and Matthias from germany. I tried to talk to matthias in german the othr day because I told him i wanted to practice but it WAS SO HARD!! Every time I stumble to think of a word, spanish just blurts out of my mouth. Or even if i know the word in german i still speak spanish. It's hard. that sucks. oh well. At least I can say "that's life" in a total of four languages!! c'est la vie, asi es la vida, so ist das leben.
The weather is finally getting a litttttle better. It was around 70 today...after 2 weeks of on and off raining and really cold days for what it should be in september. I might be going to the beach next weekend with some friends. I hope i can...i need to get out of the city. i think i am the only person from my entire group who hasnt left for a weekend or day trip to either go snowboarding or valparaíso ( a city west of here on the ocean) or anything else. I just didn't wanna spend money to go places when it's winter and we are going to have 3 months of no school. But i'm dying from some clean air, stars, space, trees, absolute quiet. It would be a nice thing. Also, school ends at 1pm on thursday and there are no classes friday because friday is the 18th of september, chilean independence day. It's supposed to a pretty wild and fun time. I'm excited for the food...maybe i will find a chilean food that has some real flavor in it. I hope so!!
Anywho, I think I will go get started on dinner.. Hope this was sufficient!! Some picutres to come soon!!! Espero que todos estén bien!!!
Friday, August 21, 2009
cómo estai?
Hey there...Mom told me to blog and I'm not doing anything and it's raining outside so I guess I will blog. Not much has happened since I last wrote except that I've just been going to school. I've got all my classes and I'm registered. I have all my academic classes on Tuesday and Thursday and Mon, Wed, and Friday I have soccer from 10-11.20. I could have taken the class that started at 11.30 but I figured that having class at 10 was motivation to get up. I can get up at 9 anyway, so it's still like being able to sleep in, yah. Then on tuesday and thursday I have four class for 1 hour 20 minutes each. eek, long day. start at 10 and I finish at 7. I have fonética y fonología, la prosa de borges, my spanish grammar class (I was placed in advanced, the level between beginning reinforcement and superior, but I feel like the teacher is teaching us things that are a wee lower than what I jut did in my language prep program. oh well, it counts toward my major), then for two hours my culture of chile class that's 2 hours long. It's supposed to cover all types of aspects of chile including the governemnt, history, politics, economy, ethnic groups (indigenous groups), etc. Should be itneresting, it starts this next tuesday. Then in September my salsa class starts which is just one day a week for 1 hour 20 minutes. I'm exciteeddddd for that. It's through the school.
Hmm as far as school goes, it's been good. It's kind of annoying though, in my fonetics class, which by the way, the teacher has softened up big time. She's much nicer now and not so intense. Anyway, she speaks super fast so it's hard to understand her but I can still get the gist of the material and with the readings its ok. And in my borges class, I understand the teacher quite well, but the material, that is, the stories by Borges, are so hard to interpret, since that's what you do with them. They aren't meant to be taken literally and they are even hard to understand in the english versions. AND, we have our first exam on tuesday. Oh, great. woohoo, excited to see how that goes.
Chile has been, on average, a bit colder these last few weeks than when I first arrived. It's been raining on and off for the last week, thank goodness. It makes the air fresh, clean, and clear. Also makes for a nice clear and mostly smog-free view of the Andes the day after a rain provided it's clear outside. Last friday and saturday it pretty much rained all day and night, but sunday morning it was really nice outside. There is this big hill in the middle of the city that's called Cerro San Cristobal and there is a massive virgen mary statue on top of it. One of Maritza's roommates walked up it with me on sunday, it was pretty cool. Also am starting to understand my SLR camera. yea. I was a little preocupied with that camera so I forgot to take pictures of the view of the mountains with my digital camera, oops. I will go again though. It was a good wakl too, about an hour and 20 minutes to walk from my apartment to the talk. We took the cable-car/gondola thing down though, I don't know what it would be called in English. USed for sleep inclines to move people up, with a cable.
I also attended an orientation for the English Opens Doors volunteer program through the chilean ministry of education. I will be volunteering in a district called La Florida, which is in the far southwest portion of Santiago. They accidentally placed me on a day I can't go because I have class, but I already emailed the teacher that I will be working with and she just got back to me and said she is going to talk to other teachers at the school to see if they will need any volunteers on other days so I can go at least 2 days a week for about 3-4 hours every time. Basically we go to just assist the teachers in the english lessons, to public shcools only because they are at significantly lower levels than the private schools. That means that the kids in public schools are mosly lower-middle to lower class students and a lot of the teachers that teach english dont have proper ways of practicing their english or getting to attend conferences and so-on. So the volunteering is as much for the students as it is the teachers. Apparently the kids love it though, to have a university student from another country hanging out with them. I don't know what grade I will be with, but I think it's high school. It's rather convenient, the school is on the same metro line I take to and from school so I won't have to transfer, yeah. I hate transfering.
My spanish roommate Goizane moved out last friday and we got a new girl from France named Sarah. She is super nice and talks (yah! the other french guy never says anything). Pierre, one of the two french guys, is moving tomorrow to go back to Francia and then after that I dont know...there is no one lined up to move in because my landlord is doing her best to find someone who is not a native french speaker or english speaker. Nice of her.
As far as Chile and spanish goes, my understanding it getting rather good. Makes me happy. I'm also improving in conversing, lately I've been trying to tackle harder verb tenses...like, for example, saying something like this in spanish "I would have gone to eat with you had I known where the cafe was." This is the stuff that takes teh most practice with all the prefixes: he, había, habría....balh blah blah. Every day it seems like I learn a new Chilenismo, that is, chilean slang. It's crazy, the spanish they speak here. Granted, in school the teachers, especially our grammar teacher, tries to speak the most normal spanish, but it still gets out. They eat their "s"
's and often change verb endings in the 2nd person singular. example : estás=estai, vas=vai, andar=andai. Or tienes=tenís, conoces=conocís. hahah yeah, this is for you, Aunt Kathy. jajaja. And then there is the word "cachai." it's very casual, but chilean youth use it in the way that ditzy girls say "like" or "I was all..." It kinda means, " you got it" or "you read me" or " understand" but it gets thrown in there also in ways that people say right like in the sentence "so, i was going to the store, right, and then this man hits my car, right." Oh, and the word huevon or hueón. The most easy and common translation is "dude" but it can also be an insult like call someone an a-hole, depending on tone of voice and context. And for girls it's hueona, haha. And there is a verb for heuon, hueonar. Something on the lines of meaning that something is happening, going, moving, i ahvent really mastered the use of the verb yet. But, for example, i was using the microwave at school once and this guy came up and said "todavía está hueonando?" which kinda translates to, "it's still on/going?" I feel like I've been tackling the accent and trying to speak more like a chilean, because it makes me feel less foreign. Example, people always ask me what im studying and so i say "estudio español y biología" but when it's pronounced, i strive to say it like this: "ehtudio ehpañol y biología" there you go, i ate my S's. Therefore, "cómo estai" is pronounced, "cómo ehtai?" more or less, má o meno. (más o menos). There is a very very very tiny bit of S in there, hard to explain in wrtitin. But basically they disappear if there is a consonant following the S. If there is a vowel following the s, it's usually still prnounced. I spent a good amount of time deciding on this theory one day before going to sleep.
Okee dokee, I guess that is sufficient for now. Hope everyone is doing well!! Chau!
Hmm as far as school goes, it's been good. It's kind of annoying though, in my fonetics class, which by the way, the teacher has softened up big time. She's much nicer now and not so intense. Anyway, she speaks super fast so it's hard to understand her but I can still get the gist of the material and with the readings its ok. And in my borges class, I understand the teacher quite well, but the material, that is, the stories by Borges, are so hard to interpret, since that's what you do with them. They aren't meant to be taken literally and they are even hard to understand in the english versions. AND, we have our first exam on tuesday. Oh, great. woohoo, excited to see how that goes.
Chile has been, on average, a bit colder these last few weeks than when I first arrived. It's been raining on and off for the last week, thank goodness. It makes the air fresh, clean, and clear. Also makes for a nice clear and mostly smog-free view of the Andes the day after a rain provided it's clear outside. Last friday and saturday it pretty much rained all day and night, but sunday morning it was really nice outside. There is this big hill in the middle of the city that's called Cerro San Cristobal and there is a massive virgen mary statue on top of it. One of Maritza's roommates walked up it with me on sunday, it was pretty cool. Also am starting to understand my SLR camera. yea. I was a little preocupied with that camera so I forgot to take pictures of the view of the mountains with my digital camera, oops. I will go again though. It was a good wakl too, about an hour and 20 minutes to walk from my apartment to the talk. We took the cable-car/gondola thing down though, I don't know what it would be called in English. USed for sleep inclines to move people up, with a cable.
I also attended an orientation for the English Opens Doors volunteer program through the chilean ministry of education. I will be volunteering in a district called La Florida, which is in the far southwest portion of Santiago. They accidentally placed me on a day I can't go because I have class, but I already emailed the teacher that I will be working with and she just got back to me and said she is going to talk to other teachers at the school to see if they will need any volunteers on other days so I can go at least 2 days a week for about 3-4 hours every time. Basically we go to just assist the teachers in the english lessons, to public shcools only because they are at significantly lower levels than the private schools. That means that the kids in public schools are mosly lower-middle to lower class students and a lot of the teachers that teach english dont have proper ways of practicing their english or getting to attend conferences and so-on. So the volunteering is as much for the students as it is the teachers. Apparently the kids love it though, to have a university student from another country hanging out with them. I don't know what grade I will be with, but I think it's high school. It's rather convenient, the school is on the same metro line I take to and from school so I won't have to transfer, yeah. I hate transfering.
My spanish roommate Goizane moved out last friday and we got a new girl from France named Sarah. She is super nice and talks (yah! the other french guy never says anything). Pierre, one of the two french guys, is moving tomorrow to go back to Francia and then after that I dont know...there is no one lined up to move in because my landlord is doing her best to find someone who is not a native french speaker or english speaker. Nice of her.
As far as Chile and spanish goes, my understanding it getting rather good. Makes me happy. I'm also improving in conversing, lately I've been trying to tackle harder verb tenses...like, for example, saying something like this in spanish "I would have gone to eat with you had I known where the cafe was." This is the stuff that takes teh most practice with all the prefixes: he, había, habría....balh blah blah. Every day it seems like I learn a new Chilenismo, that is, chilean slang. It's crazy, the spanish they speak here. Granted, in school the teachers, especially our grammar teacher, tries to speak the most normal spanish, but it still gets out. They eat their "s"
's and often change verb endings in the 2nd person singular. example : estás=estai, vas=vai, andar=andai. Or tienes=tenís, conoces=conocís. hahah yeah, this is for you, Aunt Kathy. jajaja. And then there is the word "cachai." it's very casual, but chilean youth use it in the way that ditzy girls say "like" or "I was all..." It kinda means, " you got it" or "you read me" or " understand" but it gets thrown in there also in ways that people say right like in the sentence "so, i was going to the store, right, and then this man hits my car, right." Oh, and the word huevon or hueón. The most easy and common translation is "dude" but it can also be an insult like call someone an a-hole, depending on tone of voice and context. And for girls it's hueona, haha. And there is a verb for heuon, hueonar. Something on the lines of meaning that something is happening, going, moving, i ahvent really mastered the use of the verb yet. But, for example, i was using the microwave at school once and this guy came up and said "todavía está hueonando?" which kinda translates to, "it's still on/going?" I feel like I've been tackling the accent and trying to speak more like a chilean, because it makes me feel less foreign. Example, people always ask me what im studying and so i say "estudio español y biología" but when it's pronounced, i strive to say it like this: "ehtudio ehpañol y biología" there you go, i ate my S's. Therefore, "cómo estai" is pronounced, "cómo ehtai?" more or less, má o meno. (más o menos). There is a very very very tiny bit of S in there, hard to explain in wrtitin. But basically they disappear if there is a consonant following the S. If there is a vowel following the s, it's usually still prnounced. I spent a good amount of time deciding on this theory one day before going to sleep.
Okee dokee, I guess that is sufficient for now. Hope everyone is doing well!! Chau!
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
y ahora soy estudiante de la católica
Hmm..it's been a couple weeks since I wrote anything, so I guess I'm obligated now to post. Hmm, what should I write...
Well, I guess I will start more or less when I left off. Our language class ended last thursday. I'm bummed because I really liked our professor but he's only teaching the basic and extrememly advanced Spanish courses this semester, so I doubt I will have him. It was a pretty cool class, all in all quite helpful. Friday we had our orientation, which wasn't much but helpful. We sat and listend to a lady talk about the school and rather boring statistics that are, for the most part, irrelevant. Then we got to go have fake coffee and a sandwich with corn in it and sugar-blasted juice (funny, its called jugo fresco, aka fresh juice...lieeeeeeeeeeees!!!) The better part came after that when there were chilean students from all the departments in the big auditorium for us to talk to about anything. Basically we asked them questins like what classes are good, bad, which professors are cool, mean, talk fast, etc. It ended around one. I went to a cafe/restaurant with soem friends, didn't eat anything as I was 2 blocks from my apartment. Em..the weekend didn't consist of anything interesting, but I started classes Monday. Oh wait, last thursday I discovered that thrift stores exist in Chile, YEAH! I bought a coral colored cardigan and a skirt woohoo!
As far as classes are going, we just crash whatever ones we want to or can and find what we like. Technically we cant register for them till next monday, but some of the departments were mal-informed until yesterday, and im registered in 2 already as I got my form stamped before they realized they werent supposed to be doing that. Monday I went to two: soccer (womens, level one, the only available) and calculus. We're alowed to take one sports class and two academic classes in addition to the two mandatory classes we have to take. It's cool cause the sports classes are three days a aweek and for 1.5 hours each, so it's actually a somewhat significant amount of time. The calc class i went to was not the correct one though. The math student i talked to at the orientation told me there were probably only two sections of calculus II I could take (out of 10) that were more bio science based. I could only go to one of them because the other section is at the same tim as my mandatory spanish class. So I went to the one I could, and it was not anything that would work for me, its calc II for civil engineering majors. Plus the teacher talked supppppppper fast and just booked it after class before I could even ask her anything. So I went and wandered the math department and somehow found myself in front of a math advisor who recommened the correct calc for me. But unfortunately, they conflict, once again, with my mandatory spanish class. Seems like they all do...I guess i'll wait till next semester.
Yesterday I attended two classes: Fonología y fonetica, basically a fonetics of Spanish. i know it will transfer directly towards my major at SFSU so i'm going to take it, depsite the rather Severus-Snapish-aspects the profesor tends to show. If you've read harry potter, you'll understand. If not, I shall just say that she's harsh, mean, and super strict. Some kids walked in late (duhhh its the first week of classes) and about 10 minutes into class she says, "if you're going to come 10 minutes late just dont come in at all, it's a disruption." MIght I add that everytime soemone came in, she would stop talking and just stare at them until they sat down. I understood only about half of waht she said becasue she spoke super fast..but at least I have a friend in the class from sfsu and we are determined to ace the class. I talked to a chilean girl to ask her if she thought the other teacher teaching the same calss was better but she told me that he was likely even harder. EEks.
After I had about a 2 hour break. I hung out with Nico, the kid from SFSU in the fonetics class, and one of our "tutors" from the little field trips we went on. I met one of his friends too, who is super smart in languages (majoring in english AND teaches it) and I felt smart because he told me that my spanish was good and that he was impressed with some of the verbal tenses i was bustin' out.... haha yeah! When all else fails and you don;t know what tense to use, just guess.
After that, I attended a class called la prosa de borges, aka, the Prose of Borges. Borges is a super famous surrealist writer from argentina. I read some of his stuff in the latin american literature calss i took at sfsu and surprisingly got an A in. I swear, analzying this literature and writeing about it simply requires lots of innovation to make up anything. It worked, my teacher liked it, I got an A. I plan on taking this course, especially because I like the teacher a lot. He speaks at a decent pace and I understood most of what he said, and he's nice and funny.
And then last night I was able to go to a pretty much pro soccer game. Nico lives with a host family and has a host sister who is my age and a host brother who is 19 and they are bother super cool--they've both studied and/or spent a lot of time in North America but they still speak spanish with us. They invited me to go to the game with them and their friends so I went...it was pretty awesome. The ticket was as general as it gets, about $11 but the experience was pretty cool. The team playing is the club team affiliated with the University of Chile. My school has a club team too. It's strange though, they aren't students, they pretty much are just professional players. They start as students, playing for a schools' individual team and then if they're good enough they play on the club team and stop school. So the schools that have club teams have two teams essentially: club team is pro, the school team is made of students. So we watched the club team of "la U" (shortened term for universidad de chile) play a team from venezuela. There were about 50-100 people chearing on the venezuelan team and about 5000 for la U. It was in the "estadio nacional" too so a rather large stadium and ridiculous amounts of police. Some police here ride horses too, kinda interesting. The game was awesome, there are so many songs the chileans sing for la U, so I plan on learning them. We painted our faces too to blend in. And, they won. Yeah!
Today I just had my soccer class and nothing after it. I'm really stoked to be playing soccer again after not having played in 3 years. I forgot how much I love it. The only thing that kinda sucks and surprised me, is that there are some girls in the class that honestly know NOTHING about soccer. Still surprises me how unpopular soccer is to women in pretty much any county except the US. weird.
Umm, I guess that's it....I suppose I'll post more when more interesting things happen....
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
hasta ahora....
Well, I figured I would write a wee since I am procrastinating doing my presentation on a region of Chile that I do in class tomorrow. I'm all moved in as of last Wednesday, and the apartment is freezing. That is the norm in Chile. There are no internal heating systems and this building is made out of concrete. So there are ups and downs: freezing in winter, cool in summer though. Less likely to burn down in a fire, more likely to crumble to pieces in an earthquake. Go figure. I bit the bullet and bought a heater because I can't concentrate on HW when I can see my own breath in front of me in my room. I couldnt find any that blew hot air for less than $40 (and I didn't even want to spend that much), so I just got one of the ones that has hot oil in it that are comon in Europe--it's not big so it's not significant, but it does make my room a little warmer/livable and it was about $25. I can sell it to some meager freezing American who arrives next year...
I've almost got everything I need to live adequately. The light in my room is weaker than a light you'd find in an over, so I bought a desk lamp because I'm always in shadows. Got a cheap one with a good flourescent bulb and after I put the bulb in and turned it on, the bulb exploded. I have no idea what happened, I got the correct wattage and everything. So I went and bought a new stupid bulb and it hasnt exploded on me yet. The girl who was living here before had bought a thick blanket for the bed and a mirror, both items which were lacking from my room and bathroom so she sold them to me and I gladly took them because blankets are expesive (especially like this one, its part wool). Then I can take them with me if I move. My pillow is about 2 inches thick, so my friends and I are on a mission to find a store like ross where we can find cheap stuff, and maybe a frying pan cause the ones in this apartment are destroyed and everything I cook in them sticks--that means my egg yolks always break. I got a little espresso can coffee maker (cheaper than a regular coffee maker) to make coffee with since Chileans mostly just drink instant coffee like in Korea. Interesting. You'd think coffee would be super popular here, well, REAL coffee anyway since huge amounts of coffee beans are grown in Latin America. But not so much. Mostly just Nestcafe is what you get here. There were only two or three brands of real coffee beans or grounds in the grocery store but about 15 types of instant.
I was wrong when I said i had two spanish roommates...I have two french roommates (guys) and then there is one girl from Spain. One of the guys arrived two weeks ago and he's doing a semester at University of Chile. The other french guy just finished studying and he's working for a bit before heading back to france in a month. the girl also works and is going back to spain in a month. They are all pretty cool and easy people to live with.
We have language classes, which are 9 to 12.30 until next thursday. They aren't that bad, I really like our teacher. He's youngish--maybe 30something and really knows the grammar well and explains it well. He doesn't give us busywork HW and is really laidback. We just sit and have conversations about world events and things in Chile for about an hour every day to practice speaking and learn about Chile.
August 3rd we start classes, or as our advisor, Sofia, told us, the class shopping period begins. And class dont really start till August 21st--you just sit in until you find classes you like then registering starts the 10th but lots of teachers don't come. So that 2-3 weeks will be a nice stress-free time of no HW and class work. Yeah. And then classes go until november 25 and the exam perioud is november 25 until december 15 or something. I kind of like that the exam period is spread out, it will lessen the chance of having 2 or 3 or 4 finals all on the same day or two days, which I so often had in SF.
I'm learning how to Salsa dance and I LOVE IT!! It's realllly fun. Maritza and Elvira have both been doin it for years so they're trying to teach me. AND Sofia (the advisor to all the students from CSU, she's realllly nice and super helpful) sent us basically a giant handbook for going to school at PUC or la Católica as it's generally called (my school), and there was a section I was reading about where non-credit courses are offered. They are mostly sports, dance, art, or music classes and cost $22,000chilean pesos (about $45) per semester to enroll in the prgram and take as many of the classes as you want. Basically they are kind of like extracurricular or intramural sports--I'm super stoked. I might take soccer or photography--we'll see. But definitely I want to do the Salsa/merengue class. Two nights a week for 1.5 hours each. A great way to meet people too. Sofia said too that a lot of chileans that do these classes are looking to meet foreign students, which is good becasue aparently chileans are realllly hard to talk to just sitting in class and so you have to seek to talk to them, and generally its going to be a non-studying environment.
Some of the kids may be going up to the Andes this weekend to go snowboarding which sounds pretty epic, but it seems a bit pricy given the fact that all I have is a coat and gloves. Eh, I'll wait and see if there is going to be a group trip through school, which I hear there is, and it's much cheaper.
Well, I suppose I ought to start my HW. It's raining outside and chilly. brrrrr. Hope you are all roasting in California.
I've almost got everything I need to live adequately. The light in my room is weaker than a light you'd find in an over, so I bought a desk lamp because I'm always in shadows. Got a cheap one with a good flourescent bulb and after I put the bulb in and turned it on, the bulb exploded. I have no idea what happened, I got the correct wattage and everything. So I went and bought a new stupid bulb and it hasnt exploded on me yet. The girl who was living here before had bought a thick blanket for the bed and a mirror, both items which were lacking from my room and bathroom so she sold them to me and I gladly took them because blankets are expesive (especially like this one, its part wool). Then I can take them with me if I move. My pillow is about 2 inches thick, so my friends and I are on a mission to find a store like ross where we can find cheap stuff, and maybe a frying pan cause the ones in this apartment are destroyed and everything I cook in them sticks--that means my egg yolks always break. I got a little espresso can coffee maker (cheaper than a regular coffee maker) to make coffee with since Chileans mostly just drink instant coffee like in Korea. Interesting. You'd think coffee would be super popular here, well, REAL coffee anyway since huge amounts of coffee beans are grown in Latin America. But not so much. Mostly just Nestcafe is what you get here. There were only two or three brands of real coffee beans or grounds in the grocery store but about 15 types of instant.
I was wrong when I said i had two spanish roommates...I have two french roommates (guys) and then there is one girl from Spain. One of the guys arrived two weeks ago and he's doing a semester at University of Chile. The other french guy just finished studying and he's working for a bit before heading back to france in a month. the girl also works and is going back to spain in a month. They are all pretty cool and easy people to live with.
We have language classes, which are 9 to 12.30 until next thursday. They aren't that bad, I really like our teacher. He's youngish--maybe 30something and really knows the grammar well and explains it well. He doesn't give us busywork HW and is really laidback. We just sit and have conversations about world events and things in Chile for about an hour every day to practice speaking and learn about Chile.
August 3rd we start classes, or as our advisor, Sofia, told us, the class shopping period begins. And class dont really start till August 21st--you just sit in until you find classes you like then registering starts the 10th but lots of teachers don't come. So that 2-3 weeks will be a nice stress-free time of no HW and class work. Yeah. And then classes go until november 25 and the exam perioud is november 25 until december 15 or something. I kind of like that the exam period is spread out, it will lessen the chance of having 2 or 3 or 4 finals all on the same day or two days, which I so often had in SF.
I'm learning how to Salsa dance and I LOVE IT!! It's realllly fun. Maritza and Elvira have both been doin it for years so they're trying to teach me. AND Sofia (the advisor to all the students from CSU, she's realllly nice and super helpful) sent us basically a giant handbook for going to school at PUC or la Católica as it's generally called (my school), and there was a section I was reading about where non-credit courses are offered. They are mostly sports, dance, art, or music classes and cost $22,000chilean pesos (about $45) per semester to enroll in the prgram and take as many of the classes as you want. Basically they are kind of like extracurricular or intramural sports--I'm super stoked. I might take soccer or photography--we'll see. But definitely I want to do the Salsa/merengue class. Two nights a week for 1.5 hours each. A great way to meet people too. Sofia said too that a lot of chileans that do these classes are looking to meet foreign students, which is good becasue aparently chileans are realllly hard to talk to just sitting in class and so you have to seek to talk to them, and generally its going to be a non-studying environment.
Some of the kids may be going up to the Andes this weekend to go snowboarding which sounds pretty epic, but it seems a bit pricy given the fact that all I have is a coat and gloves. Eh, I'll wait and see if there is going to be a group trip through school, which I hear there is, and it's much cheaper.
Well, I suppose I ought to start my HW. It's raining outside and chilly. brrrrr. Hope you are all roasting in California.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Fotos
I posted fotos! Check them out at my picassa gallery link to the right! Read the captions it it's kinda like I blogged...
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Ya tengo un piso!
I found a place to live!! Yeah!! It's a rather large flat in an apartment building in the perfect area to live in. It's in the Providencia district, literally across the street from a metro stop with the line that will take me straight to school. After looking for places and knowing that this city is huge, I decided that there are three main things that I have been looking for as far as where to live: location (must be near easy access to the metro or direct bus lines), the people (must be fun, comfortable to talk to, and understanding to my ever-changing spanish), the amount of lighting (some places have small windows and are sort of depressing because the Chileans won't install lots of lights for electricity purposes). The place I found has lots of natural lighting, a perfect place to hang out and it feels safe. It's not on a main street, so not loud, and the Chilean girl I met there are extremely nice. She likes to rent to foreigners, she is very kind and seems like a fun person to hang out with. She's 25 and works in econimic development in poorer parts of the city. The other two, whom I haven;t met, are two guys from Spain. The room I get is painted lime green, as I mentioned before is rather common, and it has a private bathroom attatched to it (yes!!) All amenities included, and lets than $300.
As of late...today was really cold. Huge change from yesterday when it almost hit 70 and today the clouds stuck over the city and it probably didn't go over 53 I'd say and may have been colder than that.
Hmmm...what else. Things I've noticed about Chile/Chileans:
1. Chileans talk like they're running out of breath. That is, they chop the ends of words off and continue to speak really fast without many endings. Most of the spanish world uses the work Pues for "well" but here they say "Po" There you go, they chop it off! and they tend to say Mucha gracia.
2. Chileans like Mayo. A LOT. And there is this food they eat here that they call a vienesa which is basically a hot dog thats stacked tall with avocado, tomatoes, mayo and oregano. And then there is churrasco which is a type of shaved beef with some sort of flavor to it that is pretty good, on a type of burger bun, with the goods: avocado, tomato, oregano, and mayo. They eat lots of bread type things. Or just lots of bread.
3. Fanny packs are the cool thing to have. For girls anyway. I think it's a mix between convenience (it's right there always at hand), safety (close to you, not hanging on the shoulder to be robbed from), and they are kinda fashionable. It's recommended by our advisor to have one cause they are safer as far as keeping things close to you. I might have to get a bright green and yellow one to match my green and blue reebok hightops.
4. In a restaurant, there is no pepper and rarely ketchup. There is salt, mustard, a sauce called ahí---red spicy type stuff, and another red sauce that is more BBQ oriented.
Well, I guess that's all for now...pictures will be up within a week. Chau!
As of late...today was really cold. Huge change from yesterday when it almost hit 70 and today the clouds stuck over the city and it probably didn't go over 53 I'd say and may have been colder than that.
Hmmm...what else. Things I've noticed about Chile/Chileans:
1. Chileans talk like they're running out of breath. That is, they chop the ends of words off and continue to speak really fast without many endings. Most of the spanish world uses the work Pues for "well" but here they say "Po" There you go, they chop it off! and they tend to say Mucha gracia.
2. Chileans like Mayo. A LOT. And there is this food they eat here that they call a vienesa which is basically a hot dog thats stacked tall with avocado, tomatoes, mayo and oregano. And then there is churrasco which is a type of shaved beef with some sort of flavor to it that is pretty good, on a type of burger bun, with the goods: avocado, tomato, oregano, and mayo. They eat lots of bread type things. Or just lots of bread.
3. Fanny packs are the cool thing to have. For girls anyway. I think it's a mix between convenience (it's right there always at hand), safety (close to you, not hanging on the shoulder to be robbed from), and they are kinda fashionable. It's recommended by our advisor to have one cause they are safer as far as keeping things close to you. I might have to get a bright green and yellow one to match my green and blue reebok hightops.
4. In a restaurant, there is no pepper and rarely ketchup. There is salt, mustard, a sauce called ahí---red spicy type stuff, and another red sauce that is more BBQ oriented.
Well, I guess that's all for now...pictures will be up within a week. Chau!
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Bienvenidos a Chile
Hola todos...well, I'm in Chile! Yeah! I arrived fine and got to hang out in Mexico City for a few hours with an exchange student friend I met in Germany who is from Mexico. So now I can say I've been to Mexico too! It was nice.
Santiago has been a fun time so far. Since I arrived it's been pretty consistent between meeting up for our orientation and the first day of my language program and finding housing. I've already been able to navigate through the city quite well and comfortably, but have really only seen a couple districts and there is soooooo much more to see. We are staying in a hotel in Providencia, one of the more central districts of the city. It's very hip and trendy and a fun place to wander around and look at. I've checked out a couple places to live and have walked A LOT. I probably did at least five miles yesterday (I mapped one route I did and it was 3.3 miles, and later that day there was much more involved, but too random to map) and a good two or three today. I just decided that if I don't need to be anywhere then there is no point in taking the metro and spending 80 cents when I can walk for 10-30 minutes (or in yesterdays case, over an hour, through a rather run-down portion of town) and see things.
The weather has been beautiful. They said Chile (Santiago) is really really cold. True, it's cold at night, gets to the lower 40s and can go to 30s, but it really warms up in the day...I'd say today it could have hit 68 or so. I was fine with just a tshirt. It is weird how much the temperatures range from night to day, not like that in california in the winter. It's been sunny and quaint.
I've checked out a couple places to live: a family (Grandma, her daughter, and the daughters 6-year old son) who live in a district called Ñuñoa. It's a bit less central and more just a neighborhood with more stray dogs ther than in the city. It's not as nice--i would say it is dangerous but just not as convenient as far as transportion goes. I went to the house with two of the guys in our group who were interested in it as well if I wasn't. I didn't care for it but mostly because of location but I can give you all a good story from this. MOm, you will find this especially interesting. We walked in with the daughter who met us at the metro and somehow got on the topic of what the artwork was in the house, as they had us sit down. She had been collecting books and paraphenialia (i spelled that completely phonetically) of anti-pinochet messages to create a big history type project. Then the grandmother went to get some other notebooks where they had been keeping original papers from the 60s--which they called messages. These messages were all drawn by hand and then reprinted by activist groups that wanted to bring democratic elections to Chile and get rid of Pinochet. Turns out the grandma was very very involved in one of these groups, which had to be kept secret. They would only distribute the little flyers at night on the streets, leaving them out so people could see them in the morning. Ironically, her husband (who we dont know what happened to) would go around after her and pick them up because he supported Pinochet. It was super interesting and the grandma just reminded me of some really tough lady that wouldn't take anything from anyone.
OKee dokee, I'm gonna write more later, hasta luego!!!
Santiago has been a fun time so far. Since I arrived it's been pretty consistent between meeting up for our orientation and the first day of my language program and finding housing. I've already been able to navigate through the city quite well and comfortably, but have really only seen a couple districts and there is soooooo much more to see. We are staying in a hotel in Providencia, one of the more central districts of the city. It's very hip and trendy and a fun place to wander around and look at. I've checked out a couple places to live and have walked A LOT. I probably did at least five miles yesterday (I mapped one route I did and it was 3.3 miles, and later that day there was much more involved, but too random to map) and a good two or three today. I just decided that if I don't need to be anywhere then there is no point in taking the metro and spending 80 cents when I can walk for 10-30 minutes (or in yesterdays case, over an hour, through a rather run-down portion of town) and see things.
The weather has been beautiful. They said Chile (Santiago) is really really cold. True, it's cold at night, gets to the lower 40s and can go to 30s, but it really warms up in the day...I'd say today it could have hit 68 or so. I was fine with just a tshirt. It is weird how much the temperatures range from night to day, not like that in california in the winter. It's been sunny and quaint.
I've checked out a couple places to live: a family (Grandma, her daughter, and the daughters 6-year old son) who live in a district called Ñuñoa. It's a bit less central and more just a neighborhood with more stray dogs ther than in the city. It's not as nice--i would say it is dangerous but just not as convenient as far as transportion goes. I went to the house with two of the guys in our group who were interested in it as well if I wasn't. I didn't care for it but mostly because of location but I can give you all a good story from this. MOm, you will find this especially interesting. We walked in with the daughter who met us at the metro and somehow got on the topic of what the artwork was in the house, as they had us sit down. She had been collecting books and paraphenialia (i spelled that completely phonetically) of anti-pinochet messages to create a big history type project. Then the grandmother went to get some other notebooks where they had been keeping original papers from the 60s--which they called messages. These messages were all drawn by hand and then reprinted by activist groups that wanted to bring democratic elections to Chile and get rid of Pinochet. Turns out the grandma was very very involved in one of these groups, which had to be kept secret. They would only distribute the little flyers at night on the streets, leaving them out so people could see them in the morning. Ironically, her husband (who we dont know what happened to) would go around after her and pick them up because he supported Pinochet. It was super interesting and the grandma just reminded me of some really tough lady that wouldn't take anything from anyone.
OKee dokee, I'm gonna write more later, hasta luego!!!
Sunday, April 12, 2009
chile
I'm going to Chile, leaving in mid-july to study in Santiago at the ponitificia universidad católica de chile. im also currently applying for a rotary ambassadorial scholarship to study in South Africa from March-December 2010. Wish me luck! :)
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