Viviendo con los andes

My first adventure this week was on Tuesday when I decided to take a new route to my class at La Chile. I thought that instead of taking one bus and two metros, I would just take two busses. I looked up the route of the bus that stops by my house and it appeared to go along the exact route that I needed to get near the campus. Well, I did not know that yes, it goes along that route, but it does not stop during the entire middle section because it goes on the autopista (a freeway) for 20 minutes. When I pushed the button for the stop I wanted, a lady approached me and asked if I wanted to get off there. When I said yes, she said "Oh no, you can't get off for a long time now!" So I had to ride that bus for 30 more minutes and when I got off, the lady showed me where to get on to go back the same way. So after another 40 minutes heading in the opposite direction, I finally was able to find my way to the campus. The entire trip took me a little less than 2 hours, but luckily I wasn't late to my class because I had planned to go early to study. Now I know to stick to my original route!

On Wednesday my second class was cancelled so my friend Mary and I decided to

be tourists for the afternoon. We went to two museums: Museo de arte precolumbiano and El Museo Mapocho (which is an old train station). We were at the Museo Mapocho while the sun was setting and it was absolutely amazing behind the big glass windows. The first two pictures are of me inside the station. When I was walking, a lady came up to me and I'm not too sure what she was asking, but I know it involved the world "moneda." So basically, she was either

asking me if I could give her some money, or if I could tell her which way for La Moneda (Pres

ident's office and Chilean mint). Very unsure of which she was actually asking, I just responed with a "Lo siento!"

On Thursday, I went out with some friends (both from my program and Chilean). The funny thing is that I was with my friends Alice and Allyson, and we went to meet

Allyson's friend Allie (who studied here last semester). The Chileans like to shorten names so of course we were all Ali.

It was very confusing and made for some good laughs. Now they think most girls in the US have a name that can be shortened to Ali.

On Saturday, I went with 5 friends from my program to hike Cerro Pochoco. We took a bus from the city to the area near the mountain. When we got off the bus, we hiked for about two miles just to get to the bottom of the trail. The streets didn't exactly match Mary's directions so we went the wrong way for a while, but then found some people who gave us the right directions. We hiked up this intense staircaise which took us much closer to the trail. When we final

ly got to the trail, we decided to eat half of our lunch and save the other half for the top. The mountain we climbed was covered with cactus, which was quite strange because the surrounding mountains were covered with snow. The hike was about an hour, and once we got to the top there were amazing views of the city. The only thing that was quite unpleasant that we could see from above was the blanket of smog that covers Santiago. A stray dog (very common here), but with a collar that said Jesus, followed us from the city to the top of the mountain, stopped for our rest at the top, and walked all the way back down with us.

On Sunday, my friends

and I went on a trip for the day to Cajón de Maipo, which is a town outside of Santiago. We left Santiago at 9am and got on a bus to take us to the town, which took about an hour. When we got there, we walked around but really didn't know what to do. We went to a tourism office where they told us we had to go higher up to find things to do. Well the bus only comes once every hour so we walked around the town and bought fresh manjar (dulce de leche) which is so much better than what they sell in the stores in Santiago. We then got back on the bus and rode it up the mountain for another 30 minutes. When we got off the bus, I ran into a Chilean fri

end from one of my classes who was with her boyfriend. They didn't have any specific plan so they decided to spend

the day traveling with us. I think my friend Matías was very relieved to have other Chileans in our group. We decided that we wanted to climb the mountain which, unlike the one on Saturday,

was purely rocks, which actually made it easier to climb. We decided we wanted to reach the patch where there was snow and a waterfall. Of course, the climb ended with a small snowball fi

ght and sliding down the bits with the snow on our butts. The views were absolutely amazing so we stayed up on the rocks for a while before going down. When we got to the bottom, we walked along the road for a while and finally came to a restaurant that sells empanadas. They are cooked in ovens outside so while we were waiting we dried ourselves by the fire of the ovens. Well we ordered them quickly, but had to wait about an hour and a half before we got them! My Chilean friends didn't even get theirs after all that time so they decided to ask for their money back. So we left and went to another one further along the road that was much faster. Then we got back on the bus (I didn't enjoy this part being that it was very wind-y (as to not be confused with windy) and packed with people) but it was almost 8pm at this point and we were all very tired and needed to get home to do some homework.

El sistema más ineficiente

Alice, Allyson, and I eating Chilean pastries

This week I became fully exposed to the Chilean university system of inefficiency. Unlike most universities in the US, students here do not buy their books. Instead, they photocopy the pages that are assigned for that night. In most courses, the assignment for each class is from a different book. In some cases, the professor will leave a folder of readings at the photocopy station and you have to go ask for them to be copied and then pay. But in the cases where the professor doesn't leave the readings, you have to go check out the book from the library (usually only available for an hour because it is on reserve) and then take it to the photocopy station to get copied and return for it later. I think it is absolutely ridiculous that every student has to go through this process instead of having all the readings given in class. As far as printing goes, there are computer labs where you can

go but you have to bring your paper and stand in line to give it to the person working at the printer. When you get to the front, you give them the paper, log-on to another computer to make sure you are only printing yours, and then the person hands you your printed documents and your excess paper. I'm definitely not used to having to have a lot of time to print my assignments, but I sure learned this quickly. One of the strangest things about the university is that backpacks are not permitted within the library so you have to leave it in a locker when you enter.

As for my classes, I'm taking five. There are three at La Catolica- 1. Education, Society, and Culture (education) , 2. The Family: Changes and Continuity (sociology) and 3. Swimming II. At the Universidad de Chile I'm taking one course that is called Youth vs. Drugs, Uses and Abuses. I'm also taking one course with CIEE on human rights. I really like all of my courses even though it is hard to understand everything that people say. Generally, the professors are much easier to understand than the people that talk in class. As for my swimm

ing class, I really enjoy it because most people have only been swimming for a semester and I'm finally one of the fastest. It is definitely a bit of a confidence booster which is helpful because I'm often feeling lost with the languag

e.

This week in my free time, I went to an exercise dance class and a yoga class. The yoga class was hard to understand so I had to keep my eyes open and just watch everyone else. It was all elderly women and they were all impressed by my ability to speak and go to a yoga class in a foreign country.

Many people have asked me for a report of the McDonalds trip. All I can say is that I'm glad it's over! Even though we could have easily taken a bus, we took a taxi which the five of us could barely fit into. When we got there, I was very confused because my host mom asked me if I wanted a vegetarian sandwich (not too sure why she thought they'd have that??). I said I'd just have a parfait and juice. She asked me if I wanted a soda and when I said no, she said "how about sprite? It's just like water with bubbles." All of them got happy meals and argued over who should get what toy. When I said I didn't need a toy, they looked at m

e like I was crazy.

I've never experienced so many people trying to get onto a metro at the same time as I did last Friday during rush hour. The people that want to get on often don't want

to let the people getting off to exit first. While I was waiting to get on with the mob of people, this very short lady was trying to get off but couldn't, and started yelling "estoy viviendo

en un mundo de huevónes communistas." (I'm living in a world of communist assholes). It was hilarious because everyone waiting to get on started to laugh but she was very serious.

During my class on Friday, I signed the attendance list and handed it to Tami, the girl sitting next to me. Upon seeing my last name, she turned to me and said "Are you Jewish?" When I said yes, she said "no way! me too!" I really couldn't believe it because I didn't know that Jews living in Santiago would choose to go to a Catholic school. We were both excited to find a commonality and she invited me to her house that night for Shabbat dinner. Tami and her boyfriend picked me up at my house and brought me to her appartment which is only about a 10 minute drive from where I live. The part of her extended family that lives in Santiago (about 20 people) has Shabbat dinner together every week. It was hard to understand them but it was really nice to be so welcomed by a Jewish family here. Of course, there was lots of food, talking, and laughter.

On Saturday night, my host sister invited me to go out with her, her boyfriend, and one of her friends. When I was waiting for her to get ready, my host brother that is 11 entered my room to tell me that she is ready to go. When I said so I am I, he said, "Pero, te faltas un poco maquillaje" (but you lack a little makeup). It was absolutely hilarious coming from him and I had to explain that it is okay for a girl to go out without lots of makeup. We had a great time dancing and it was nice to be with Chileans who know how to get around with any doubts. On Sunday I made cookies from scratch for my family. There were all very excited since it is such a novely that they ate the entire batch. They said, "encantamos las galletas gringas!" (we love gringa cookies!).

La semana más larga

This week has officially been the longest week ever. Every day I had different adventures navigating my way around the city and trying to find all the classrooms. Let me just say, these campuses around the city are no Lewis & Clark with just 3 academic buildings!

This is a collage mural at the Universidad de Chile.

My adventures of the week began last Sunday when we had a family lunch with my host mom, brothers, sister, uncle, and grandmother. The uncle talked so quickly that I had no idea what was going on the entire lunch. It's really hard to tell when I'm being asked a question because they don't say my name before asking the question so I usually just know a question was asked when there is a sudden silence. Well, he asked me if I'd ever been to Las Vegas. The problem is that in Chile they don't pronounce their s's so to me it sounded like La Vega, which is a large marketplace here were they sell meat, vegetables, and fruit. So, I responded, "Oh yes, my study abroad group took us there during orientation." And then I was very confused when everyone at the table was looking at me oddly. It took me a few minutes to realize that he had asked me if I'd been to Las Vegas and then we all laughed.

On Monday, I went to an education class at Universidad Católica that I liked a lot. Tuesday was a pretty typical day in terms of Chilean colleges. I went to a sociology class at Universidad Católica and there were only about 15 people there and no professor. We waited about 30 minutes and still no professor. I went to the sociology department office and they said very casually, "The professor sent out an email saying that the class is not starting until next week but you didn't get it because you aren't on the email list yet." That was just great to hear after spending an hour getting to the campus. So then I had a little less than 2 hours to get to a campus of Universidad de Chile for a class there and I decided to just go early and hang out there. Well that turned out to be a great idea because it took that full 2 hours to find my class. I took a metro and then a bus to get to the campus because of course it is right in the middle of two metros, so not that easily accessible. I found the campus easily but since they don't post classroom numbers ahead of time, I went into about 4 different buildings asking where my class was and no one knew. I decided to go ask a security guard and he was positive of where it was. Well he took me to an office that was for postgraduate, obviously not the right place but the lady there made about 3 phone calls and finally found the room of my class. I was right on time at that point for my class. Afterward, I had to pee so badly but there are so few restrooms on that campus that I couldn't find one. When I finally found one, of course the womens was locked so I just went in the mens. Well when I was in the stall, a man came in so I decided it would probably be best to remain in the stall until he left which turned out to be like 5 minutes later. They don't have any co-ed bathrooms here like at LC, so I didn't know how the guy would feel if he saw me...

At dinner that night, my host sister and her boyfriend (Boris) made pizzas. It was a very long dinner because we each ate a piece of each one as they were coming out of the oven. Boris decided that it would be fun to see if I could do a Spanish tounge twister. I couldn't, but it was pretty funny. Then he wanted to try an English one so I said: Sally Sellman sells sea shells by the sea shore. He wanted me to translate it which turned out to be a slight disaster because I didn't know that when you want to say "sea shells" you have to say "conchas del mar" because just saying "conchas" means something entirely different, which I did not know until the table was dead silent and everyone was looking at each other. Boris whispered it in my ear because he didn't want the little brother to catch on. I sure learned a lesson there.

This is a typical Chilean school bus! -->

On Wednesday, I went to 3 classes- 2 at Universidad Católica (one psychology and one education) and one at the CIEE office. The CIEE course is on human rights in Chile and there are only 4 of us in the class. It should be pretty interesting because there are 2 teachers but we will have about 7 seven guest lecturers for just the 4 of us.

On Thursday, I decided to go swim at the pool at the university. The guy working behind the desk was literallly impossible to understand. When I asked him if he could talk slower, he said sure but didn't change the speed at all. He was trying to ask me if I brought a lock but I had no idea what that word was so it took a few minutes for me to realize what he was talking about. He then told me I had to take a swim test before getting in, and that I should go change and there would be someone waiting for me at the pool. Well I waited for about 10 minutes at the pool and no one came. So I went into the lobby in my bathing suit and surely enough the two guys working there were still sitting at the desk so I said "now?" The guy came out to watch me and said to do 2 laps. When I got to the wall he wasn't even watching me. So I waited in my lane until he looked over and gave me the thumbs up. I was glad to shower at the pool because I didn't have my host mother forcing me to blowdry my hair. Then I went to another section of the same education class to see which one I liked better. The second professor was easier to understand and I made two friends in that class (which was very exciting) so I'm going to take that one. Then met my friend Alice at this cafe that is by our houses. It took us two hours for us to each discuss what had happened during our week.

On Friday I went to another sociology class in the morning. It was very interesting because the first thing she had us do was draw pictures of our families and then share them in small groups. My group was facinated by how small my family was. They did not understand how I could possibly have 3 first-cousins. In the evening, Alice and I went to The Choripanada which is a big welcome party for the foreign students in one of the cafeterias of Universidad Católica. We ran into some of our other CIEE people there. It felt a little like a high school dance at first, but then a lot of people started to dance and it was great. The dj played a mix of lots of typical pop songs from the US and popular reggeton songs from Chile.

About 5 days ago, my host mother asked me if I was free on Saturday afternoon. She said that we are going to go as a family to McDonalds. I was really surprised by this because McDonalds is not a very special thing here and in the 3 weeks that I've been here, I've never been out of the house with my family (with the exception of the park with my brother). And we are even going to take a taxi since it is a big family outing. I really don't think my host mom understands that I'm not going to eat a hamburger there, so it should be interesting when we get there. So ever since Monday, I've been reminded that on Saturday we are going to McDonalds and of course I'm just bursting with excitement.......