Buenos Aires

The adventures of the weekend began on Friday evening when Alice and Martin slept at my house because we had to leave at 4am the next morning for the airport. At about 9:30pm, I told my host mom we were going to bed because we needed to get up so early. She insisted that we stay up for a little while longer because she was going to the market to buy stuff to make empanadas. When I told her this was not necessary because we were going to bed, she said, don't worry you can go to bed and I'll bring them to the three of you. I'm not too sure what I thought would happen, but sure enough, at about 10:30 when we were all asleep, she came into my room and put the plates of empanadas by our heads. The next morning we laughed about the ridiculousness of the situation.

When we arrived in Buenos Aires, Alice's friend Rosa met us at the airport. She is studying in Buenos Aires for the semester so she knows a lot about the city. We spent the day with her walking around the city, and she pointed out all the important historical sites and buildings. It was like having a tour guide! Just a few of the places

we visited were the Plaza de Mayo, el congreso, and the

bookstore theatre. Rosa is studying at the University of Buenos Aires, so she took us to see a part of the campus. They have not had classes for a few weeks because the students are protesting the safety of the buildings. Recently, a glass window shattered and could have hurt students had it occurred during the day. She explained that

they don't have fire extinguishers, enough emergency exits, etc. It was interesting to see all the political signs and paintings that cover the indoor walls of the buildings. In the evening, we headed back to our hostel where we were staying in a room for 10 people. We talked with 2 guys who had just graduated from the University of Oregon and 2 people from England that drive tour

busses.

On Sunday we walked around the outdoor artisinal market in San Telmo which is probably 10 blocks long. We then met up with Rosa, Ben (Alice's other friend from Pomona that is travelling ar

ound South America), and Rosa's parents at the Recoleta Cemetary. This is a famous cemetary that is almost like a museum because the crypts are so large and elaborate.

The most famous one was the crypt for Eva Peron. Alice, Ben, Martin, and I spent the afternoon walking around Palermo and in the evening we went to a milonga, which is where people go to dance tango. It was very impressive since this is a dance that you have to be good at when you go to dance. It is not something that can be learned in the moment!

On Monday Alice, Martin, and I visited the major sports st

adium and then walked around the tourist areas. We saw restaurants that have stages for tango dancing that the tourists can watch while they eat! It was a

very lively area, with live bands that walk as they play, colorful buildings, and people following us to ask if we wanted to get drunk in their restaurants. In the evening, Alice went to eat with her friends. Two new British guys had just moved into our hostel room and they asked Martin and I if we wanted to join them for a

steak dinner. Martin was very

excited, as he had been waiting to have this famous Argentinian steak dinner the entire trip. Of course, I was not as excited as the three guys, but I was happy to find that the restaurant had an entree of grilled vegetables that I could enjoy while they all enjoyed their 17oz steaks! It was fun to get to know these two guys, one which is trying to be an actor (appropriately named Harry!) and the other that works in an IT department. They spoke no Spanish so they made us feel very confident about our level of Spanish!

On Tuesday morning, we headed to the airport in the madrugada (earliest part of the morning that it's really not morning yet), bought our last alfajores, and made it back to Santiago just in time to head to classes!

Here are some amazing pictures from flying over the Andes: the mountains and the blanket of clouds beneath the plane!

El rescate: Vive los 33 mineros!

Just minutes ago, I watched the 33rd miner as he was rescued from la mina San José. These past 24 hours have been absolutely amazing--watching the news and being able to see as each miner arose to the surface. The operation began very late last night at about 11pm. I woke up this morning, turned on the tv, and watched miners 12, 13, 14, and 15 be rescued. Today I went to classes, and when I got home, I was able to watch the last 4 miners escape. It took about 15 minutes for each miner to make the journey inside the Phoenix capsule up the shaft, which was 624m (2,047ft) long.

The 33 men were discoverd alive on August 22, 17 days after the mine collapsed. Those 17 days were full of stress, not only for the families of the miners, but for the country and the world. The uncertainty was unbearable. When we found out they were alive, the country sighed in relief, but prayed for an imminent rescue. The miners were in the mine for 69 days, the longest period of time ever to have stayed in a mine. Watching the miners arrive on earth's surface has been utterly amazing and emotional. President Piñera was at the top of the shaft to greet each miner upon their arrival, and then

gave a speach when they were all rescued. He is hoping people will think of this successful rescue instead of human rights violations and natural disasters when they hear "Chile." Seeing the miners hug their wives, children, and loved ones is something so wonderful that truly cannot be described with words.

What a happy day for Chile!

Peculiaridades de estar enferma

In these last two weeks, I’ve discovered all the challenges that being sick here presents. First of all, it is nearly impossible to stay home and do nothing. There is always so much going on and some many new things to go see and do that I’ve been an epic failure at staying home to rest. I was doing fine until this weekend when I lost my voice and had no energy. So yesterday I stayed in bed all day and the funny thing is that I’m feeling so much better! The other challenging aspect is their logic for why people get sick. In the past week, I think five people have told me that I caught a cold because I don’t wear a scarf. I think people here are really confused because it has been about 65 degrees outside every day! My host mom has come into my room about every half our to ask if she can give me mentolatum (whatever that is!) to put on my nose, weird medications to take, and lemons to eat (because they have tons of vitamin c…but apparently disregarding the fact that they erode your teeth). She’s also been ridiculously angry for the fact that I don’t have socks on and I don’t blow-dry my hair after the shower. My host mom’s other theory is that everyone is getting sick now because everyone is taking their jackets off and putting them on so much because of the change in weather. When I told my actual mom that theory, she said they are more likely to hurt themselves than get sick!

Being sick yesterday turned out to be okay because I had to finish my 15 page essay due today for my human rights class, so I literally worked on that all day yesterday while in bed. The assignment was to pick a monument in Santiago that is a memorial for human rights violations during the dictatorship. We had to go visit the site and then write a research paper about its purpose and function. The monument I chose is called “Mujeres en la Memoria,”which is a glass wall in a plaza that is dedicated to the disappeared women. It turned out to be a very interesting project because online, the site looks beautiful and glamorous. When I went to take pictures of it, it was covered in graffiti. I then learned that this is a important theme: that most young people do not understand the importance of memorials and the seriousness of what happened here 30 years ago because teachers are not willing to teach it in their classes.

Here you can see the difference when the monument has been cleaned and the picture I took where it has been vandalized.

On Friday, my human rights class had a field trip. There are only four of us so it makes it pretty easy to go do things in Santiago. We went with our professor to visit a place called Agrupación de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos. It is an organization that is composed of various women who have family members that were detained and/or disappeared during the military dictatorship. The organization is a support system, but they also work together to find information about their disappeared family and friends. Two members of the organization talked to us about their experiences, which was very powerful and much more interesting that reading about it in books.

In the evening, I went with some friends to the Banff Mountain Film Festival. It was great because everyone there was outdoorsy. It consisted of many different short films with extreme outdoor adventure sports. The most impressive was this guy that rock climbs with no ropes. His biggest climb was to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite!

On Saturday, CIEE had programmed a biking tour around Santiago for us. It was absolutely amazing how much we could see on bikes! We went to so many different parts of Santiago and we were able to see different communities, monuments, parks, cafes, buildings, etc. We mostly stayed on sidewalks, so it was pretty hard to get on and off of the curbs. It was also pretty challenging to do with a group of about 30 people.

Here are some more pictures from my trip to the south:

Snow at the base of the volcano
Cueca dancing in Castro, Chiloé

Penguins!

El bicentenario: Una gran aventura en el sur de Chile

For Fiestas Patrias, which is the holiday for Chilean Independence Day, we had a week off of classes, so I went on a trip to southern Chile with six friends from my program. This year Chile turned 200. I've heard people saying bicentenario so much that I forgot what the word was in English! We left Santiago on an 11pm bus and arrived in Pucon at 9am the next day. The amazing thing about Chile is the diversity in the climates. The north is desert and the south is very wet and green. It rained almost every day on our trip, but because of it the scenery is amazing. Pucon has one main street and is a tourism-based town so it has tons of hostels and shops that coordinate outdoor adventures. We took a short bus to Pucon's lake and walked along the beach. As we walked, we came upon some wild sheep that decided to follow us. We had to walk fast to get away from them, as their baaah-ing was intense. We heard drum sounds from very far away, which turned out to be some hippies playing music on the beach. We think the sheep were confused and trying to follow the music because according to Chileans, sheep only flee from people. We we got back to town, we went to one of the adventure shops because we wanted to climb volcano villarica, which is a very popular thing to do there. The shop was run by French people and we got a good laugh out of their ability to speak Spanish in a French accent. We tried on all the clothing that we would need to use for the climb, but we knew that we had to wait for a weather evaluation to see if the trip could happen. Ecole, our eco-friendly hostel in Pucon, was a wonderful surprise. It had warm, comfortable beds and a vegetarian restaurant! Madeline and I shared their lasagne which was absolutely amazing. The next morning, we had to meet thehiking group at 7am. They still weren't sure about the weather conditions so they said we had to get our gear on and drive up to the base. Unfortunately, we couldn't climb because it wassnowing at the base. It was hard to be sad about that because I was soexcited about the snow! When we got back to Pucon, we took a bus toVillarica. This picture, from outside the municipalidad has a stoplight that tells people about

the condition of the volcano. If

the light is

red, it is erupting and toxic. If it

is gree

n, it is safe to climb. In Villarica we

went to a farm and had a guided tour of it by

this man that lives there. The fields were absolutely beautiful, and even though we had to climb through some barbed wire fences, it was definitely worth it. We saw cows (including one that was just

born) and sheep and visited a Mapuche family's cheese factory. We purchased some cheese to share which was delicious. Our tour guide then took us to the

Crater beer factory. The man who owns the fac

tory gave us a tour and explained the process. We laughed when he told us that he built all the mac

hines but has to apply the labels to the bottles with glue and a paintbrush. In the evening, we leftVillarica on a bus to Puerto Montt.

We slept in Puerto Montt and woke up early to head to Chiloe. The owner of our hostel in Puerto Montt made us a delicious french toast breakfast before we left for Chiloe. Chiloe is a large island off

of the mainland of Chile. Our hostel owner told us we could take a bus to Ancud, Chiloe from Puerto Montt. We weren't too sure how that was possible since Chiloe is an island, but we soon found out that the bus drives straight onto a ferry which takes the bus to Chiloe. When on Chiloe, the bus keeps driving to Ancud. It was such a fascinating experience to be on a bus on a boat! We went to Mundo Nuevo, our hostel in Ancud, which had beautiful views of the ocean. Our hostel owner arranged a tour of the penguin sanctuaries for us. Two taxis came to our hostel to pick us up and take us to the beach.

The drive was amazing because the island is basically green hills that seem to never-ending. The taxis drove us straight onto the beach where we were then given por-si-acasos (lifejackets, or literally just-in-case's). We then had to ge

t onto a wooden trolly type thing that two men pushed so that we could get onto the boat without getting wet. Once on the boat, the driver took us the rocks where we could see the humboldt penguins. They are very small and there weren't too many since it is not quite the season yet, but it was definitely worth it!

That night we went out to dinner for traditional

Chilean food. Some of my friends ate curanto, which is this huge plate of meat, chicken, seafood, and sausages. We the

n went to the supermarket to stock up on food

because the supermarkets close for three days for the holiday! The next morning we got on a bus to go to Castro, Chiloe for the 18th, the actual holiday. Along the way, a couple got

on our bus with a huge drum set that the driver had to fit in the passenger seat. In Castro we saw a typical fiestas patrias parade with Chileans in

traditional outfits and playing instruments. We

then walked through many artisenal fairs. Since most things were closed, we got on another bus to go to Achao because we heard that there were beautiful views there. Yes, the ocean was pretty but there was literally nothing to do there. We asked a family what there was to do there and the guy asked us why we would ever have gone there. So we headed back to Castro, had dinner, and then Martin, Allison, and I went to a fonda, which is the

typical Chilean family party for the holiday. It was fun to see all the families dancing the traditional dances together. Luckily, CIEE had an evening for us to learn Cueca, the national dance. We were glad we had learned before the trip because we were able to dance the cueca a

t the fonda, impressing the Chileans with our abilities.

The next morning, we went back to our hostel in Puerto Montt. We then took a bus to Puerto Varas. We explored the town and went to more Chilean fairs. We searched for chicha, the typical Chilean drink for this holiday. It is pretty much fermented grape juice, but not quite wine. The tourist office there told

us to go see the waterfalls. So we got on yet another bus and it took an hour to get there. When we arrived, the park had just closed, so we literally got off the bus, crossed the street, and got on a different bus to go back. We would have stayed to walk around, but since it was pouring rain, we didn't want to risk having to wait for the next bus. That night, we slept at our hostel in Puerto Montt and woke up early the next morning to get on the bus to come back to Santiago. The bus ride was definitely one of the most boring experiences of my life. Since we were further south than where we arrived in Pucon, combined with the traffic from the holiday, the ride

took 15 hours. The ride was too bumpy to read and the sound on the tvs didn't work. It was such a wonderful trip but after that ride, I was so happy to be back in Santiago!

Here is a short video clip of Allison and I dancing the Cueca!

La semana antes del bicentenario

My week began with a very unexpected event. My pants had just been washed, but I wanted to wear them and they were still wet, so I decided to spend about 15 minutes using the blowdryer to dry them. Well on the bus on the way to school, I'm sitting in a seat right near the middle doors and there is only one other person on the bus, sitting close to the driver. All of a sudden, water explodes from under the door. I have no idea where it came from, but I heard a bursting noise and then all of a sudden, my hair, face, and all my clothes on my one side were soaking wet! It was the strangest experience because no one saw this rare occurance, so it was as if it never happened! I got off the bus, soaking wet, and very confused as to what just happened. When my friend at school asked me what happened, I realized how hard it was to explain what had just happened in Spanish!

I have begun to volunteer once a week with an organization called

Inglés Abre Puertas (English

Opens Doors). Every Thursday, I spend five hours in an all-girls high school in central Santiago. I thought I would be assisting one of the English teachers in her classes, but it turns out that she prefers that I take half the class and her the other half. The students that I work with are all about 15 years old, and most don't exactly want to listen, which has made it quite a challenging experience. I have come up with creative activities to make the class more interesting, but I learned quickly how difficult it is to be authoritative in another language that you are not fully confident with. Being serious and gaining respect requires confidence, and I am going to have to try harder to be confident with my Spanish because they only understand very basic English. At times, when we do an activity with both classes together, there are a few students who really want to learn. Helping them understand what they are reading and want to say is a very rewarding experience for both of us.

George and I representing L&C!

On Friday, Alice and I went to

the CAUC asado (bbq with the group at La Católica that plans events for the foreign student

s) which was at Cerro San Cristobal. We had a hard time finding the group because there were so many groups having

their own bbq's there. We finally found them, got some food, and went to sit where we could talk and watch the sunset. I don't remember what we were discussing, but we couldn't remember how to say spices in Spanish, so I pulled out my dictionary because I had just come from classes. The funny thing was that this guy came up to us because he saw us using the dictionary and thought he could practice his English by talking to us. He thought it was pretty funny when he figured out that we only wanted to know how to say spices. Alice and I then went to see Inception in theatres. Luckily, it was in English with Spanish subtitles. It was so confusing though, I don't know how people who don't speak much English could understand everything from the subtitles!

Probably the worst/funniest translation

On Saturday, I went to Pomaire, a small town about 45 minutes from Santiago, with some CIEE friends. The town was literally one street filled with restaurants and artisan shops that are only supported by tourists. Every shop sells chanchitas, which are three-legged pigs that are apparently good luck here. The pottery and crafts were fun to see, but after the first ten shops, they all started to look the same. Saturday was September 11th, the anniversary of the golpe militar (Pinochet's coup in 1973) so we were advised not to leave our houses at night. Although it was completely safe where I live, there have apparently been protests in the past on that day.

Today I woke up early to join 3 friends from CIEE and my friend Sebastian from the last hike with El Montañista to hike a mountain called San Carlos de Apoquindo. It was a rainy day, but the views were still amazing with the fog surrounding us. The mountain was beautiful and the hike was very peaceful. When we reached a midpoint, it started to rain pretty hard, so we decided to call it a day and head back home.

Tonight I asked my host mom if I

could use the iron to mend my pants with some iron-on patches that I had grandma send me. Well, my host mom set it up in the dining room where my host sister and her boyfriend were eating. Little did I know, they had never seen iron-on patches before and were absolutely in awe at what a novel concept they are. Soon enough, the entire family was watching me iron patches onto my pants and exclaiming what brilliant ideas people in the US have!