This just in:
They don't have chili in Chile. SERIOUSLY. I'm not making this up, I wouldn't lie about something like this. Let me reinforce this: the super tasty dish with beans and beef and tastes awesome with cornbread does not exist here. Not only that, but the spicy vegetable that we call chili is 1)not very popular here at all, they've actually got a really weak taste for spicy and 2) called ''ahi,'' not chili.
I feel so deceived.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Una nueva amiga...
So… I was really pretty worried about being hindered in meeting people before coming here, and during the time that Maggie was still living here it became rather obvious to me that although she had made friends with Chilean students, the majority of people she spent time with (besides the family, of course) were fellow North American students who had come here in the same program as her. Well, that kind of worried me, since I did not have the advantage of coming with a program and therefore did not have any automatic buddies to explore with.
Two Mondays ago we had an orientation for all international students who will be studying at the U this semester, and during that orientation they identified all of the groups of students who were there. There were probably a few hundred students, and most of them were in groups of 20 or so coming here from US universities. However, they also had the “independiente” students raise their hands, of which there was a grand total of three, including myself. I made sure to pay attention to exactly who the other two independent students were, and when we had a brief break from the information about healthcare services and the library I approached them. One of the students, Jorge, is from Mexico City, and the other, KellyAnne, is from Washington, DC. Luckily, KellyAnne has turned out to be pretty cool, and so she and I have started spending time together.
The first time we hung out was a slightly rainy day early this week; she had class at the Macul campus of the university, which is near where I live, so we met in the Plaza Nunoa (about halfway between my house and the campus) after her class was over. We didn’t have any sort of plan at all, so we jumped on a micro (that’s what they call the city buses here) and rode it downtown. It’s actually kind of funny, because she had no experience riding the micros, only the metro because there’s a station very close to her house, and I have very limited experience and always with someone else (Felipe or Maggie) to tell me where to get on and off. It was rather adventurous of us both, but it turned we’ve got to learn sometime, right? However, it felt rather awkward to be the guide!
Anyhow, we rode the micro downtown, then got off and took the metro to another part of town, near Cerro Santa Lucia, then walked to Bellavista, a sort of artsy-hipster-Portland-y area. She had read about a recycled clothing store there that sounded interesting, so we went and checked it out, but it turned out to be not very exciting. After that we walked around some more in Bellavista trying to find something to do, but we were in sort of an in-between part of the day where the daytime businesses were closed or closing and the nightclubs and bars in the area hadn’t yet opened. We ended up walking back towards downtown and decided to find something to eat. Generally speaking there seems to be an abundance of Chinese food restaurants around here, and KellyAnne hadn’t yet tried the food they have to offer, so we decided to continue exploring until we found one, then go eat. We ended up in a slightly nicer part of town, near the Plaza de Armas, where there’s a huge shopping center / pedestrian walkway and tons of people walking around very busily. It was kind of nice to explore around for a while, but the Chinese restaurants that we have seen are a lot more of a street corner in residential neighborhoods sort of phenomena, and this particular usually ubiquitous and universal type of business was nowhere to be found. We walked around the area for probably a few hours, after which we were exhausted, I had to go to the bathroom, and still hungry. Finally, we just went into a little nothing-exciting restaurant and ordered the only things on the menu we could identify. That meant a hamburger for me. Pretty lame, I know. Don’t worry, I have been trying plenty of Chilean food, but in this particular moment I was starving and didn’t want to risk ordering something completely foreign only to discover it was awful.
So that’s what we did all of that time. The interesting part of this story is that even though we’re both gringas, we did an awesome job of speaking Spanish during all of our adventure. Unfortunately, that meant that we really didn’t talk much about anything interesting or exciting, and I was actually think as we were walking around that I was really kind of bummed out she and I weren’t clicking better. I though’ “That’s strange, when I first met her I had the impression that we were going to get along great, but right now this is kind of lame.” However, once we sat down in the restaurant, during that awful period of time when you’re dying of hunger while you’re waiting for your food, sitting in a restaurant watching everyone around you eating and smelling your own meal cooking, that period of time when the hunger is killing you, we transitioned quite naturally into speaking English. This is when I discovered that yes, in fact she is pretty cool, and we’ve gotten along great ever since. Looks like my fear about having a hard time meeting people or having people get to know me wasn’t that far off base.
KellyAnne is living in a pension, which is kind of like a long-term hostel, and the other day two Mexican boys arrived who will be working / studying here for a while. Yesterday was the birthday of one of them, and my first reaction upon hearing this fact was “Let’s build him a cake!” KellyAnne brought a bunch of family recipes with her from the states, so while Felipe and I finished enjoying the Museo de Bellas Artes, where we had been when KellyAnne called, she went grocery shopping. We met at her house, and what followed was an exercise in hilarity. However, I’m tired of typing right now, so you’re going to have to wait for the rest of the story. Stay tuned.
Two Mondays ago we had an orientation for all international students who will be studying at the U this semester, and during that orientation they identified all of the groups of students who were there. There were probably a few hundred students, and most of them were in groups of 20 or so coming here from US universities. However, they also had the “independiente” students raise their hands, of which there was a grand total of three, including myself. I made sure to pay attention to exactly who the other two independent students were, and when we had a brief break from the information about healthcare services and the library I approached them. One of the students, Jorge, is from Mexico City, and the other, KellyAnne, is from Washington, DC. Luckily, KellyAnne has turned out to be pretty cool, and so she and I have started spending time together.
The first time we hung out was a slightly rainy day early this week; she had class at the Macul campus of the university, which is near where I live, so we met in the Plaza Nunoa (about halfway between my house and the campus) after her class was over. We didn’t have any sort of plan at all, so we jumped on a micro (that’s what they call the city buses here) and rode it downtown. It’s actually kind of funny, because she had no experience riding the micros, only the metro because there’s a station very close to her house, and I have very limited experience and always with someone else (Felipe or Maggie) to tell me where to get on and off. It was rather adventurous of us both, but it turned we’ve got to learn sometime, right? However, it felt rather awkward to be the guide!
Anyhow, we rode the micro downtown, then got off and took the metro to another part of town, near Cerro Santa Lucia, then walked to Bellavista, a sort of artsy-hipster-Portland-y area. She had read about a recycled clothing store there that sounded interesting, so we went and checked it out, but it turned out to be not very exciting. After that we walked around some more in Bellavista trying to find something to do, but we were in sort of an in-between part of the day where the daytime businesses were closed or closing and the nightclubs and bars in the area hadn’t yet opened. We ended up walking back towards downtown and decided to find something to eat. Generally speaking there seems to be an abundance of Chinese food restaurants around here, and KellyAnne hadn’t yet tried the food they have to offer, so we decided to continue exploring until we found one, then go eat. We ended up in a slightly nicer part of town, near the Plaza de Armas, where there’s a huge shopping center / pedestrian walkway and tons of people walking around very busily. It was kind of nice to explore around for a while, but the Chinese restaurants that we have seen are a lot more of a street corner in residential neighborhoods sort of phenomena, and this particular usually ubiquitous and universal type of business was nowhere to be found. We walked around the area for probably a few hours, after which we were exhausted, I had to go to the bathroom, and still hungry. Finally, we just went into a little nothing-exciting restaurant and ordered the only things on the menu we could identify. That meant a hamburger for me. Pretty lame, I know. Don’t worry, I have been trying plenty of Chilean food, but in this particular moment I was starving and didn’t want to risk ordering something completely foreign only to discover it was awful.
So that’s what we did all of that time. The interesting part of this story is that even though we’re both gringas, we did an awesome job of speaking Spanish during all of our adventure. Unfortunately, that meant that we really didn’t talk much about anything interesting or exciting, and I was actually think as we were walking around that I was really kind of bummed out she and I weren’t clicking better. I though’ “That’s strange, when I first met her I had the impression that we were going to get along great, but right now this is kind of lame.” However, once we sat down in the restaurant, during that awful period of time when you’re dying of hunger while you’re waiting for your food, sitting in a restaurant watching everyone around you eating and smelling your own meal cooking, that period of time when the hunger is killing you, we transitioned quite naturally into speaking English. This is when I discovered that yes, in fact she is pretty cool, and we’ve gotten along great ever since. Looks like my fear about having a hard time meeting people or having people get to know me wasn’t that far off base.
KellyAnne is living in a pension, which is kind of like a long-term hostel, and the other day two Mexican boys arrived who will be working / studying here for a while. Yesterday was the birthday of one of them, and my first reaction upon hearing this fact was “Let’s build him a cake!” KellyAnne brought a bunch of family recipes with her from the states, so while Felipe and I finished enjoying the Museo de Bellas Artes, where we had been when KellyAnne called, she went grocery shopping. We met at her house, and what followed was an exercise in hilarity. However, I’m tired of typing right now, so you’re going to have to wait for the rest of the story. Stay tuned.
Happy happy happy happy birthday cooking...
The boys had decided to cook an authentic Mexican meal, which was a great idea, and KellyAnne had settled on Jewish apple cake as celebratory dessert for the evening. The kitchen we were using wasn’t exactly well-equipped in terms of cooking utensils (or hot water, which made washing things pretty sucky) so we had to improvise for pans to bake the cake in. We ended up settling on two different, small sized pans. Making the batter and constructing the layers on apples, cinnamon and dough wasn’t any major challenge, but when it came time to put it in the oven we quickly realized that (a) the oven is gas and (b) there is absolutely no exact way to measure temperature – all you can do is control how much gas is being fed in, by adjusting a knob marked with simply a zero on one end and three teardrop shapes on the other. Uhh….ok. Guess we’ll wing it. We fired’er up, let it heat for a while, and threw the cake in, planning on keeping an eye on it.
Next, it was time to turn to the Mexican food. The guys had already made some really awesome homemade salsa, we mixed up some pretty good guacamole pretty easily, and before I knew it I was elbow deep (Ok, really just wrist deep) kneading tortilla dough.
The dough itself was easy enough to make, but when it came to flattening the tortillas we realized that we certainly didn’t have a tortilla press so it wasn’t going to be easy flattening the dough to an edible size. Eventually we ended up putting balls of dough in a plastic sack with plenty of corn flour, then pressing it between the countertop and a wooden cutting board. Problem (mostly) solved. Next we needed to cook the tortillas. Too bad we didn’t have a griddle. The easiest thing we could find was the broiler drip pan, the thing on the bottom shelf of the oven. We balanced that on top of the stove next to the pressure cooker –oh, wait! I haven’t mentioned the pressure cooker yet, have I?
Improv Tortilla Press
Well, of course if you’re going to have a real Mexican meal it’s going to have frijoles, right? So, a pressure cooker full of beans and water was whistling away the entire time on the stovetop, teetering precariously occasionally and reminding us of a story Felipe had told us at the very beginning of our cooking adventure. What kind of a story, you wonder? Well, a story about a pressure cooker explosion in his sister’s kitchen that resulted in beans EVERYWHERE and an actual cavity, the result of this bomb-like explosion- on the stovetop. It didn’t make anyone feel better that it was rather old and untrustworthy looking, just like all of the other cooking tools in the kitchen, but we needed to use something so we just made do, and took to referring to it as “the bomb.”
But back to the tortillas. The style with which we cooked them ended up being more like flapjacks than tortillas, because it was very hard to tell if they were done yet and the smoke which was starting to fill the small kitchen was clearly indicative of something burning. This meant that I was constantly flipping them over (much to the chagrin of my Mexican instructor) in an effort to combat the smoke accumulating in the kitchen. Everyone's eyes were burning and we all had to periodically excuse ourselves to wipe tears from our eyes, but we were able to locate a fan and opened the two large windows over the oven to create some air circulation. Curiously enough, the smoke persisted even though we really hadn't burnt that many tortillas.
Jenna Emerson, Master Tortilla Maker
We continued to make progress on our little project, which was taking quite a while since we seemed to have produced quite an abundance of dough. Occasionally, someone would ask how much time remained on the cake, but it needed to cook for an hour and we didn't want to be constantly closing and opening the oven, so quite a while went by before we actually did open the oven door.
Instantaneously the source of the smoke was obvious. A thick, dark cloud poured out of the oven, and it took a minute for our poor, tired tear ducts to produce enough moisture for us to see what was inside. Quite clearly our completely imprecise and arbitrary method of choosing the temperature for the oven had gone wrong. Our Jewish Apple (Birthday) Cake looked rather Jewish, alright, but in a sense that only Adolf Hitler would appreciate. (Don't be offended--it's the perfect description!) We hadn't figured it out sooner because the tortilla project on the stovetop was serving as the perfect front for the source of the smoke.
We removed the cake immediately from the oven and set to work salvaging what we could, which ultimately meant scraping the guts out of both cake pans and serving them on a platter. We were planning on making bread pudding all along, duh!
KellyAnne, Pastry Chef Extrodinaire
Our Masterpiece
Now, the cake was out of the oven, the smoke was disappating, and we were nearly finished making tortillas. We'd all kind of forgotten about the beans, since we'd mostly been occupied with searching for patches of fresh air to breath previously. Someone decided it was about time to check on them, only to discover that the pressure cooker didn't seem to have worked at all. Instead of the soupy brown mixture one would expect to find, all we had was a pot of warm, uncooked beans in water. Bummer. We ended up just heating them up enough to get them soft and calling it good.
In the end, the food tasted awesome. Well, that is, it tasted awesome to everyone except Felipe, who has absolutely no ability to withstand spicy food, and was nearly in tears with his first bite of guacamole. This was rather hilarious to me, since I have almost no tolerance for spicty food and I hardly even noticed any bite to this particular dish, but he was truly and honestly suffering. He even went on and on about it later, admitting without shame that he was unable to enjoy the meal because he was so concentrated on trying to quench the fire raging in his mouth. All of this while me, a spicy food lightweight, was piling on the homemade salsa which was WAY spicier and he hadn't even tried!! With a name like ''Chile,'' you'd think they could handle it! (I'm not trying to say he's a wimp or anything, it's just interesting to see the differences in what people are accustomed to. Clearly it's an acquired taste in this example!)
Next, it was time to turn to the Mexican food. The guys had already made some really awesome homemade salsa, we mixed up some pretty good guacamole pretty easily, and before I knew it I was elbow deep (Ok, really just wrist deep) kneading tortilla dough.
The dough itself was easy enough to make, but when it came to flattening the tortillas we realized that we certainly didn’t have a tortilla press so it wasn’t going to be easy flattening the dough to an edible size. Eventually we ended up putting balls of dough in a plastic sack with plenty of corn flour, then pressing it between the countertop and a wooden cutting board. Problem (mostly) solved. Next we needed to cook the tortillas. Too bad we didn’t have a griddle. The easiest thing we could find was the broiler drip pan, the thing on the bottom shelf of the oven. We balanced that on top of the stove next to the pressure cooker –oh, wait! I haven’t mentioned the pressure cooker yet, have I?
Improv Tortilla Press
Well, of course if you’re going to have a real Mexican meal it’s going to have frijoles, right? So, a pressure cooker full of beans and water was whistling away the entire time on the stovetop, teetering precariously occasionally and reminding us of a story Felipe had told us at the very beginning of our cooking adventure. What kind of a story, you wonder? Well, a story about a pressure cooker explosion in his sister’s kitchen that resulted in beans EVERYWHERE and an actual cavity, the result of this bomb-like explosion- on the stovetop. It didn’t make anyone feel better that it was rather old and untrustworthy looking, just like all of the other cooking tools in the kitchen, but we needed to use something so we just made do, and took to referring to it as “the bomb.”
But back to the tortillas. The style with which we cooked them ended up being more like flapjacks than tortillas, because it was very hard to tell if they were done yet and the smoke which was starting to fill the small kitchen was clearly indicative of something burning. This meant that I was constantly flipping them over (much to the chagrin of my Mexican instructor) in an effort to combat the smoke accumulating in the kitchen. Everyone's eyes were burning and we all had to periodically excuse ourselves to wipe tears from our eyes, but we were able to locate a fan and opened the two large windows over the oven to create some air circulation. Curiously enough, the smoke persisted even though we really hadn't burnt that many tortillas.
Jenna Emerson, Master Tortilla Maker
We continued to make progress on our little project, which was taking quite a while since we seemed to have produced quite an abundance of dough. Occasionally, someone would ask how much time remained on the cake, but it needed to cook for an hour and we didn't want to be constantly closing and opening the oven, so quite a while went by before we actually did open the oven door.
Instantaneously the source of the smoke was obvious. A thick, dark cloud poured out of the oven, and it took a minute for our poor, tired tear ducts to produce enough moisture for us to see what was inside. Quite clearly our completely imprecise and arbitrary method of choosing the temperature for the oven had gone wrong. Our Jewish Apple (Birthday) Cake looked rather Jewish, alright, but in a sense that only Adolf Hitler would appreciate. (Don't be offended--it's the perfect description!) We hadn't figured it out sooner because the tortilla project on the stovetop was serving as the perfect front for the source of the smoke.
We removed the cake immediately from the oven and set to work salvaging what we could, which ultimately meant scraping the guts out of both cake pans and serving them on a platter. We were planning on making bread pudding all along, duh!
KellyAnne, Pastry Chef Extrodinaire
Our Masterpiece
Now, the cake was out of the oven, the smoke was disappating, and we were nearly finished making tortillas. We'd all kind of forgotten about the beans, since we'd mostly been occupied with searching for patches of fresh air to breath previously. Someone decided it was about time to check on them, only to discover that the pressure cooker didn't seem to have worked at all. Instead of the soupy brown mixture one would expect to find, all we had was a pot of warm, uncooked beans in water. Bummer. We ended up just heating them up enough to get them soft and calling it good.
In the end, the food tasted awesome. Well, that is, it tasted awesome to everyone except Felipe, who has absolutely no ability to withstand spicy food, and was nearly in tears with his first bite of guacamole. This was rather hilarious to me, since I have almost no tolerance for spicty food and I hardly even noticed any bite to this particular dish, but he was truly and honestly suffering. He even went on and on about it later, admitting without shame that he was unable to enjoy the meal because he was so concentrated on trying to quench the fire raging in his mouth. All of this while me, a spicy food lightweight, was piling on the homemade salsa which was WAY spicier and he hadn't even tried!! With a name like ''Chile,'' you'd think they could handle it! (I'm not trying to say he's a wimp or anything, it's just interesting to see the differences in what people are accustomed to. Clearly it's an acquired taste in this example!)
A few thoughts...
Well, before coming here there were several fears I had about this whole ‘living in a foreign land’ concept. For my own personal reflection, here’s a list of them.
1. That because of my inability to express myself, no one here would actually ever see my real personality. Sure, they might get to know me, but the me that they’re getting to know would be a rather shallow perspective because I’m limited by my ability to communicate.
1 (b). The same phenomena could also happen in reverse. That is, I might think I understand what’s going on and think I understand the people I’m talking to, but in fact my comprehension level of the language is so poor that I’m really missing a lot of information. This has the ability to be a problem on pretty much every level - - personal, school, getting directions to or from a location … pretty much anything, really.
2. That I will appear to be a complete freaking idiot because my vocabulary and grammar are so poor, and people will think I’m stupid.
3. That I will fail my classes (especially biology ones).
4. That the people here won’t ‘get’ sarcasm, which is pretty much my only style of humor, and because of this they wouldn’t ‘get’ me either. This fear was prompted by an experience of Anne’s, or rather an experience of her brother’s. Apparently he went to Germany and studied/worked there for about a year, and he had a kind of difficult time making friends with any Germans because he has a very sarcastic sense of humor and rather than being entertained by his witty comments they were just offended and annoyed. So far it hasn’t been a problem here.
5. That I wouldn’t like my host family - I was especially concerned that I wouldn’t like my host brother, or that he would be absolutely no fun, which would be a super bummer since he’s kind of my best chance at a guide to the city and meeting people. Luckily, this hasn’t been a problem at all. I really enjoy my family, and Felipe has been great about helping me out with absolutely anything.
--y-- I’ll add to this as I think of other things –there certainly are more, but it’s difficult to think of them until a situation arises which brings them to mind.
1. That because of my inability to express myself, no one here would actually ever see my real personality. Sure, they might get to know me, but the me that they’re getting to know would be a rather shallow perspective because I’m limited by my ability to communicate.
1 (b). The same phenomena could also happen in reverse. That is, I might think I understand what’s going on and think I understand the people I’m talking to, but in fact my comprehension level of the language is so poor that I’m really missing a lot of information. This has the ability to be a problem on pretty much every level - - personal, school, getting directions to or from a location … pretty much anything, really.
2. That I will appear to be a complete freaking idiot because my vocabulary and grammar are so poor, and people will think I’m stupid.
3. That I will fail my classes (especially biology ones).
4. That the people here won’t ‘get’ sarcasm, which is pretty much my only style of humor, and because of this they wouldn’t ‘get’ me either. This fear was prompted by an experience of Anne’s, or rather an experience of her brother’s. Apparently he went to Germany and studied/worked there for about a year, and he had a kind of difficult time making friends with any Germans because he has a very sarcastic sense of humor and rather than being entertained by his witty comments they were just offended and annoyed. So far it hasn’t been a problem here.
5. That I wouldn’t like my host family - I was especially concerned that I wouldn’t like my host brother, or that he would be absolutely no fun, which would be a super bummer since he’s kind of my best chance at a guide to the city and meeting people. Luckily, this hasn’t been a problem at all. I really enjoy my family, and Felipe has been great about helping me out with absolutely anything.
--y-- I’ll add to this as I think of other things –there certainly are more, but it’s difficult to think of them until a situation arises which brings them to mind.
Saturday, July 22, 2006
San Fernando
Felipe and I went to visit a friend of his from the University, Beatriz (Bea) who lives in San Fernando, a nice little town to the south of Santiago about an hour and a half by train. It was my first time traveling by train, and I really loved it. Super fun. Also, we had a delightful traveling companion in the form of a friendly old Chilean man who spent the entire duration of the trip sitting across from me, talking and sharing his philosophies of religion (¨every day, everything you do must be for Him¨) politics (¨Are you in support of that president you have, that Bush? He´s killing lots of people.¨) the beauty and wonders of Chile, the adventures of his nieces and nephews (it appears he has one in every country on earth) and many other things that I couldn´t understand because the train was loud and he was sort of speaking in a foreign language (although it´s becoming less foreign).
´El Campo,´ as seen from the train
My Chilean traveling companion
San Fernando was beautiful; we visited a lovely winery/restaurant/bar/hotel where Bea works during the summer, as well as walking through the town. During our time wandering through the town, ´conociendo,´ we went to a ´feria animal,´an auction where Chilean cowboys (huasos) and ranchers were buying and selling animals and goods. Felipe took some pretty cool pictures, which are the main reason for this post...to share them! All in all, a good trip.
San Fernando
Wine Barrels in the Bodega
The ´Feria Animales´
´El Campo,´ as seen from the train
My Chilean traveling companion
San Fernando was beautiful; we visited a lovely winery/restaurant/bar/hotel where Bea works during the summer, as well as walking through the town. During our time wandering through the town, ´conociendo,´ we went to a ´feria animal,´an auction where Chilean cowboys (huasos) and ranchers were buying and selling animals and goods. Felipe took some pretty cool pictures, which are the main reason for this post...to share them! All in all, a good trip.
San Fernando
Wine Barrels in the Bodega
The ´Feria Animales´
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Things they don´t have here
1) Central heating
2) Water heaters (Seriously. We have warm water, but it´s heated by a crazy contraption run on gas)
3) Toasters (Instead, they also use a crazy contraption, but this one it a tin thing that you put on the stove, and then put your bread on top)
4) Garbage cans to go outside of your house (Instead, people pile the garbage out on the street, or hang the sacks off of their iron fence posts, or in raised iron baskets on the sidewalk at night)
5) Brewed coffee
6) Rules or laws about parking (people regularly park on the sidewalk)
7) Dishwashers
8) Peanut butter. They have it, but it's pretty expensive and no one ever eats.
9) Cornbread
2) Water heaters (Seriously. We have warm water, but it´s heated by a crazy contraption run on gas)
3) Toasters (Instead, they also use a crazy contraption, but this one it a tin thing that you put on the stove, and then put your bread on top)
4) Garbage cans to go outside of your house (Instead, people pile the garbage out on the street, or hang the sacks off of their iron fence posts, or in raised iron baskets on the sidewalk at night)
5) Brewed coffee
6) Rules or laws about parking (people regularly park on the sidewalk)
7) Dishwashers
8) Peanut butter. They have it, but it's pretty expensive and no one ever eats.
9) Cornbread
Monday, July 17, 2006
Lost in the City (!)
16 July 2006
¡Aye carumba! Today was surely an adventure...
To begin, I had to get up very early and go to an orientation for international students at the U de Chile. Easy enough. Maggie and I took a roughly 20 minute walk to the home of relatives of our family, who are also housing a ´gringo,´who arrived yesterday. He had to attend the same orientation, so we went to pick him up at their house, then took the metro to downtown, where the meeting was. Maggie delivered us, without problems, to the large gathering of gringos. Although we had really only walked a short distance so far (a mile? Maybe two? I´m awful with measuring distances mentally) I already had a raw spot (like, bleeding, raw) on one of my heels from my stupid effing shoes. Oh well. We sat through the meeting, where they talked all about registering for classes yada yada yada...then everyone (there were probably 150 of us) got on buses to go take a tour of the Macul campus of the U de C. The tour was all fine and good and everything, but after the tour we were going to get back on the buses and go to another campus, then the day was going to be done. However, I knew that the Macul campus is very close to our house, and have no idea where the second campus of the day is in relation to where I live, so I thought it might be easier to just walk home from there. So...that´s what I (tried) to do. La Plaza Nuñoa is a...well...plaza....very central to both my house and Macul. I knew how to get there from where I was--it´s just a straight shot down the street about 10 blocks. Easy enough. So, I walked there. However, that´s where things get complicated. Yes, I live very close to the Plaza Nuñoa. But no, that does NOT mean that I know where I live relative to it, as I soon discovered. It´s not like you can just go there and spin around in a circle until you see your house. This is a city of six million people, for God´s sake, you´re not in Kansas anymore!
OK, ok, I´m not that stupid that I didn´t already know all of this. BUT, I knew that it was close, I knew I would recognize street names and landmarks, and it was a beautiful day during which I had no other pre-arranged engagements and I do need to figure out how to get around. Besides, I had cell phone numbers for Maggie and Felipe if I got desperate....
Just as I had expected, upon arriving at the Plaza, I begin recognizing streets...and taking them. Wherever they may lead me. I found myself very quickly on a street by the name of Irrazaval, which has an intersection with Simon Bolivar very close to my house, so I knew I must be on the right track. However, upon reaching Irrazaval, the question was--which way do I go? Left, or right? Well, thanks to Robert Frost, I know that it makes all the difference to take the road less traveled...when you´re in the woods. However, since I´m in the middle of a city, I figured things are probably different here, so I better do the opposite. With that in mind, I followed the direction of traffic on this one-way street.
(OK, honestly, that has nothing to do with my decision making process. In all honesty, I went the direction I went because the other way would have my back to the Andes, and I like to look at them. But my first reason is so much more poetic...)
Turns out, I suck at deciding things. Regardless of how I reached my conclusion, it was the wrong one, and I walked and walked and walked from probably 10 blocks before deciding that I probably was never going to find a cross street whose name I recognized (it´s important to understand that the previously divulged information about the intersection of Irrazaval and Simon Bolivar I had forgotten during this time; I was just walking and searching for a familiar street, still). I got tired of walking. You´ve probably lost track of this lovely little bit of information by now, but remember early when I told you I had a small blister from the little bit of walking I did in the morning? Well, since then, I´d been walking for literally miles and miles. Things had changed a bit. I now had raw spots on both of my heels, and they HURT. Screw this walking crap. I´m taking a bus. I don´t care where.
SO. I stopped at the next bus stop I found, waited until I saw one with a street name that made me feel good inside (are you seeing a pattern yet?) and got on. I rode the bus around for a while, feeling at times like I was in a familiar area and at other times like I was pretty far off, and maybe leaving town towards Argentina or Bolivia. I knew that somewhere in my bag was a piece of paper upon which I had written the bus number I was supposed to board, and I figured all I needed to do was find that number, get off at the next bus stop, and wait for that bus to arrive. However, I couldn´t for the life of me find the paper. I was shuffling through things in search of it when I happened to glance up and see Cine Hoyts, a movie theater that we had walked to from our house a few days early.
I knew exactly which direction our house was from there, so I got off the bus at the next stop and headed down a street which I know I had walked on before. I thought that all I needed to do was walk in a straight line down the street, and I would eventually cross Luis Periera, the street I live on. So I walked, and walked, and walked, once again feeling occasionally familiar with my surroundings and at other times way far off. I walked for six or seven blocks, which felt like an eternity, before finally deciding that I must be on the wrong street because I wasn´t even seeing street names I recognized, let alone landmarks. It was still very early in the afternoon, and I wasn´t concerned because I knew for sure during this whole time that I was in a safe part of town, very close to where we live. I just didn´t know very close in which direction... The only part about all of this that was making me upset was the blisters. They were big and ugly now, and they hurt like a mother.
I turned around an started back towards Cine Hoyts, with the intention of getting there and calling my house for directions. Actually, I ended up walking past a payphone on the way back, and tried to stop and us it, but it didn´t accept the size of coins I had so it wouldn´t work. Pessima. I wasn´t getting frantic or worried, but I was ready to be home, so I could put some bandaids on my poor feet and eat some lunch (it was now about 3, and I´d only had half an apple and a granola bar all day.)
This is where the story gets lame. I gave up. As I brainstormed how exactly I intended to eventually find my way home, I noticed that I was approaching a taxi cab with a woman getting out. She was closing the door right as I got there, and so I hopped right in and told the driver the name of my street. He delivered me there in less than five minutes; sure enough I was about a block away and headed in the exact wrong direction.
It was an adventure, to say the least.
PS If you´re one of those people who, upon reading this, broke into a cold sweat, felt your pulse raise and considered coming down here to bring me back home (Dad), no te preocupes. OF COURSE I didn´t wander around looking lost; I was smart about everything. AND, I was familiar (relatively) with my surroundings the whole time, and it was the middle of the day in broad daylight, and I wasn´t carrying my passport or credit card with me in case anything did happen, and my neighborhood is super super safe and yada yada yada fill in the disclaimer comments here....I pinky swear I wasn´t in danger.
¡Aye carumba! Today was surely an adventure...
To begin, I had to get up very early and go to an orientation for international students at the U de Chile. Easy enough. Maggie and I took a roughly 20 minute walk to the home of relatives of our family, who are also housing a ´gringo,´who arrived yesterday. He had to attend the same orientation, so we went to pick him up at their house, then took the metro to downtown, where the meeting was. Maggie delivered us, without problems, to the large gathering of gringos. Although we had really only walked a short distance so far (a mile? Maybe two? I´m awful with measuring distances mentally) I already had a raw spot (like, bleeding, raw) on one of my heels from my stupid effing shoes. Oh well. We sat through the meeting, where they talked all about registering for classes yada yada yada...then everyone (there were probably 150 of us) got on buses to go take a tour of the Macul campus of the U de C. The tour was all fine and good and everything, but after the tour we were going to get back on the buses and go to another campus, then the day was going to be done. However, I knew that the Macul campus is very close to our house, and have no idea where the second campus of the day is in relation to where I live, so I thought it might be easier to just walk home from there. So...that´s what I (tried) to do. La Plaza Nuñoa is a...well...plaza....very central to both my house and Macul. I knew how to get there from where I was--it´s just a straight shot down the street about 10 blocks. Easy enough. So, I walked there. However, that´s where things get complicated. Yes, I live very close to the Plaza Nuñoa. But no, that does NOT mean that I know where I live relative to it, as I soon discovered. It´s not like you can just go there and spin around in a circle until you see your house. This is a city of six million people, for God´s sake, you´re not in Kansas anymore!
OK, ok, I´m not that stupid that I didn´t already know all of this. BUT, I knew that it was close, I knew I would recognize street names and landmarks, and it was a beautiful day during which I had no other pre-arranged engagements and I do need to figure out how to get around. Besides, I had cell phone numbers for Maggie and Felipe if I got desperate....
Just as I had expected, upon arriving at the Plaza, I begin recognizing streets...and taking them. Wherever they may lead me. I found myself very quickly on a street by the name of Irrazaval, which has an intersection with Simon Bolivar very close to my house, so I knew I must be on the right track. However, upon reaching Irrazaval, the question was--which way do I go? Left, or right? Well, thanks to Robert Frost, I know that it makes all the difference to take the road less traveled...when you´re in the woods. However, since I´m in the middle of a city, I figured things are probably different here, so I better do the opposite. With that in mind, I followed the direction of traffic on this one-way street.
(OK, honestly, that has nothing to do with my decision making process. In all honesty, I went the direction I went because the other way would have my back to the Andes, and I like to look at them. But my first reason is so much more poetic...)
Turns out, I suck at deciding things. Regardless of how I reached my conclusion, it was the wrong one, and I walked and walked and walked from probably 10 blocks before deciding that I probably was never going to find a cross street whose name I recognized (it´s important to understand that the previously divulged information about the intersection of Irrazaval and Simon Bolivar I had forgotten during this time; I was just walking and searching for a familiar street, still). I got tired of walking. You´ve probably lost track of this lovely little bit of information by now, but remember early when I told you I had a small blister from the little bit of walking I did in the morning? Well, since then, I´d been walking for literally miles and miles. Things had changed a bit. I now had raw spots on both of my heels, and they HURT. Screw this walking crap. I´m taking a bus. I don´t care where.
SO. I stopped at the next bus stop I found, waited until I saw one with a street name that made me feel good inside (are you seeing a pattern yet?) and got on. I rode the bus around for a while, feeling at times like I was in a familiar area and at other times like I was pretty far off, and maybe leaving town towards Argentina or Bolivia. I knew that somewhere in my bag was a piece of paper upon which I had written the bus number I was supposed to board, and I figured all I needed to do was find that number, get off at the next bus stop, and wait for that bus to arrive. However, I couldn´t for the life of me find the paper. I was shuffling through things in search of it when I happened to glance up and see Cine Hoyts, a movie theater that we had walked to from our house a few days early.
I knew exactly which direction our house was from there, so I got off the bus at the next stop and headed down a street which I know I had walked on before. I thought that all I needed to do was walk in a straight line down the street, and I would eventually cross Luis Periera, the street I live on. So I walked, and walked, and walked, once again feeling occasionally familiar with my surroundings and at other times way far off. I walked for six or seven blocks, which felt like an eternity, before finally deciding that I must be on the wrong street because I wasn´t even seeing street names I recognized, let alone landmarks. It was still very early in the afternoon, and I wasn´t concerned because I knew for sure during this whole time that I was in a safe part of town, very close to where we live. I just didn´t know very close in which direction... The only part about all of this that was making me upset was the blisters. They were big and ugly now, and they hurt like a mother.
I turned around an started back towards Cine Hoyts, with the intention of getting there and calling my house for directions. Actually, I ended up walking past a payphone on the way back, and tried to stop and us it, but it didn´t accept the size of coins I had so it wouldn´t work. Pessima. I wasn´t getting frantic or worried, but I was ready to be home, so I could put some bandaids on my poor feet and eat some lunch (it was now about 3, and I´d only had half an apple and a granola bar all day.)
This is where the story gets lame. I gave up. As I brainstormed how exactly I intended to eventually find my way home, I noticed that I was approaching a taxi cab with a woman getting out. She was closing the door right as I got there, and so I hopped right in and told the driver the name of my street. He delivered me there in less than five minutes; sure enough I was about a block away and headed in the exact wrong direction.
It was an adventure, to say the least.
PS If you´re one of those people who, upon reading this, broke into a cold sweat, felt your pulse raise and considered coming down here to bring me back home (Dad), no te preocupes. OF COURSE I didn´t wander around looking lost; I was smart about everything. AND, I was familiar (relatively) with my surroundings the whole time, and it was the middle of the day in broad daylight, and I wasn´t carrying my passport or credit card with me in case anything did happen, and my neighborhood is super super safe and yada yada yada fill in the disclaimer comments here....I pinky swear I wasn´t in danger.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
An email home...
This is an email I wrote home to my parents today...it pretty much describes what I´m thinking about this whole thing...
Hola hola hola!!!!
It´s great to hear from you!! It sounds like there are indeed a MILLION things going on at home! I kind of miss that, to be honest. Well, I don´t know how true that is, really. I don´t know if it´s Chileans in general, or just my family, but there is absolutely no rush in anything. It could be partly because Felipe and Maggie are on their winter break right now, but we all wake up pretty late, sit around and slowly enjoy tea together a few times a day, and don´t really get around to doing anything until what seems like hours after we first decided to do it. However, that´s probably perfect for me, because otherwise I´d probably feel completely and utterly LOST! I already get that feeling pretty regularly, so it´s probably good that we sit around and discuss the same thing forever because I get a few chances to understand it! (Not that that always even helps...) I know the whole idea of coming down here is to learn Spanish, but I don´t think there´s any way in the world to explain how it feel to be surrounded by it and not able to a) always understand what´s going on or b) express your thoughts and ideas about something in a coherent manner. For example, in that last sentence I just wrote, I don´t know how to say coherent or surrounded, which are pretty essential to understanding why I even wrote the sentence! It´s pretty frustrating, to be honest, because I feel like people are probably dumbing things down for me, which is something I´ve ABSOLUTELY DETESTED since I was a little kid---I can remember thinking that in first grade, honestly. Also, I have to talk to them at the same level they´re talking to me (because that´s where I´m at, duh!) and I don´t think at the level of a six year old!
However, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I have learned more in the past five days than I learned in probably an entire semester of college Spanish-no joke. I am enjoying it here, but I´m pretty scared about my gringa guide Maggie leaving this week. She´s quite the indispensable resource right now. It seems strange, but one of the coolest parts about having her here is that we´ve been spending time with her other friends from California who are in the same program, who´ve been here for a semester and are all still speaking Spanish--and they obviously don´t have a thick Chilean accent nor do they speak super fast, so I can understand and converse with them! Hooray! They really have all told me that I´m doing way better than they were doing when they arrived here, and that I have nothing to worry about, and I´ve heard that from Chileans, as well, but I can´t ignore the fact that I still can hardly understand a word my Chilean father says.
Speaking of him (his name is Hernan), I should let you know that my family here is awesome. They are very loving and caring, ask me regularly if I´ve spoken to you guys and questions about you (what do you do...what our family is like...etc.) What´s funny to me is that more than amazement at the fact that you let me come here, they can´t believe that I go to school in Montana---´That´s so far away from home!! Why did you want to do that?´ (Speaking of...I just told Maggie why I was writing such a long email, and she said to send you my congratulations on the new job, as well!) Anyhow, they are very very nice and caring and loving, and it reminds me exactly of being with Megan´s family in Montana.
Right before leaving home to come here-- the day before-- I went innertubing for the last time with, well, the innertubing team, (duh!) and got sunburnt. Today, I noticed that it´s just now starting to peel...it seems like now the last indication of the fact that in my other life, it´s summer, is now disapearing. I packed sunscreen before I came down here, and it looks sunny outside, but dammit it´s the middle of winter! Que lata. (Bummer.) Of course, just after thinking that I went out with Maggie and picked fresh lemons off the lemon tree in the yard, then came in the house and made lemonaide to drink with lunch. So I guess I can´t complain too much.
Friday, July 14, 2006
Un dia mas...
Today, Felipe and I went to the campus San Joquin of the Universidad Catolica, where most of Felipe´s classes are held. There, we met Maggie and her friend from the intercambio programa de California. It´s a pretty modern campus, and it was quite nice. We walked around there for a while, ate lunch, then Maggie and Mytrain (the friend) left while Felipe and I went to la feria Santa Lucia (a sort of full-time Saturday market, with crafts and jewlery and such) to look around. Then we crossed the street to climb Cerro Santa Lucia, a b-e-a-utiful hill (cerro is castellaño for hill) with an ancient fortress built on top. It reaches rather high above the city, and from the top there is an amazing view of city as far as the eye can see, the ancient building upon which you´re standing, and teenagers making out in every nook and cranny possible (of which there are many...apparently it´s quite the popular place for ´pololoar´ (going on dates.) Then, we returned to the house for tea (instead of dinner, they have a very light afternoon tea), chatting with the family (whom I hadn´t seen since my first day here), y aca estoy (here I am.)
That´s the boring ´this is what I did today´part. The fun stuff is to reflect on what´s new and different about being in frickin´ Santiago de Chile of all places. Numero Uno--I´ve been here for four complete days, and have not seen a single other redhead. In a city of six million people--how is that possible? It´s not like I´ve been locked up in the house the whole time, either--I´ve spent time downtown and on public transportation every day I´ve been here so far! Speaking of public transportation, it´s quite different here in comparison to the States. The metro is, como se dice aca, ´super-linda y super-limpia!.´ Te amo. Also, there are security guards and lights everywhere--it feels (and I´m sure it is) very safe. While we´re on the subject of transportation, they have the silliest little phenomena I´ve ever heard of with regards to one way streets---periodically, they change direction! Can you believe that? In the morning, there are two-lane one way streets which have both lanes directed toward the center of town. During the day and at night, each lane goes a different direction, and at certain hours in the evening, at the end of the work day, both lanes are only used in the direction leaving town. WHAT? Can you DO that? Apparently....yes. Yes you can. As for now....voy a acostarme...I´m going to bed...because tomorrow is going to be a day llena de carretas...full of festivities....with the family and Maggie´s friends, since she´s leaving soon. ¡Buenas noches!
That´s the boring ´this is what I did today´part. The fun stuff is to reflect on what´s new and different about being in frickin´ Santiago de Chile of all places. Numero Uno--I´ve been here for four complete days, and have not seen a single other redhead. In a city of six million people--how is that possible? It´s not like I´ve been locked up in the house the whole time, either--I´ve spent time downtown and on public transportation every day I´ve been here so far! Speaking of public transportation, it´s quite different here in comparison to the States. The metro is, como se dice aca, ´super-linda y super-limpia!.´ Te amo. Also, there are security guards and lights everywhere--it feels (and I´m sure it is) very safe. While we´re on the subject of transportation, they have the silliest little phenomena I´ve ever heard of with regards to one way streets---periodically, they change direction! Can you believe that? In the morning, there are two-lane one way streets which have both lanes directed toward the center of town. During the day and at night, each lane goes a different direction, and at certain hours in the evening, at the end of the work day, both lanes are only used in the direction leaving town. WHAT? Can you DO that? Apparently....yes. Yes you can. As for now....voy a acostarme...I´m going to bed...because tomorrow is going to be a day llena de carretas...full of festivities....with the family and Maggie´s friends, since she´s leaving soon. ¡Buenas noches!
Aca en Santiago...
A empezar... I posted this message on myspace the day I got here....
´´Well....in case you were wondering...I´m here. I pretty much spent an entire day on a plane--which isn´t very fun for the record. Especially since it was overnight, and sleeping in noisy, cold, cramped spaces isn´t exactly my idea of ideal conditions. However, I had a very nice woman meet me at the airport and deliver me to my new home (as we listened to the Black Eyed Peas and Greenday on the radio), where my ´brother´and another American student studying here, Maggie, were waiting for me. I´ll post pictures of the view from my room --lemon trees on the patio with scenic snowcapped Andes mountains in the background -- as soon as I take some. I´m already pretty much totally immersed in Spanish, and Maggie and Felipe both have told me I´m doing pretty well (they´re probably just being nice.) That´s about it....until later.....adios.´´
This is my fourth day in Santiago de Chile, surrounded by people and Spanish. I remember before I left my family and I had a discussion regarding things which I would find different and strange here, but wouldn´t anticipate. So far, certainly the most different thing is that they don´t flush toilet paper here. Instead, they throw it away in a trash can beside the throne. Gross, huh! I guess that the plumbing systems can´t support large volumes of solid material, so this is the solution. A little secret--I can´t quite bring myself to do that, so I usually flush anyways. I figure if everyone else isn´t flushing, my tiny contribution shouldn´t bring the sewage system of the city to a screeching halt.
My first day here was a bit exhausting--I didn´t really sleep on the plane, since it´s kind of impossible to be comfortable on a cramped, noisy, cold capsule hurtling across the world. I arrived in Santiago at about 9 in the morning, and was picked up at the airport by the very nice woman (se llama Veronica Pomar) who arranged my housing. She delivered me to my new home, where my brother Felipe and Maggie, the American student who has been living here for the past six months, greeted me. We spent the afternoon getting to know each other, eating a very nice lunch prepared by the maid (I can´t remember her name, but I don´t like calling her that--she doesn´t feel like a maid, she´s more like a second mom who does all of the chores.) Later that evening I went with Maggie to the final meeting of her ´afro-dance´class, where a handful of people ran around the room gyrating there hips and throwing their bodies through the air to the beat of the bongo drums being played in the corner. Then, we returned to the house, where I met Myrna, the mother who´s a nurse practioner & midwife (or something like that) and la polola (girlfriend) of my brother, Andrea. It was a very exhausting day, and I think I slept 14 hours that night.
The next day I awoke quite late, and spent the afternoon with Maggie--we walked around the city for a while and went to ónces´(evening tea) at the home of another Californian student here. I met several other norteamericanos there, and then Maggie and I left to attend a meeting (the last for her) of her mountineering club. It was quite an overwhelming experience, with probably 15 excited Chileans chatting away and drinking beer in a pub downtown. I tried my hardest to understand them, but to be quite honest I have pretty much no idea what I talked about the entire night. In spite of this, they were all quite convinced that I should return and be a member of their club, and they insisted that I give them my email address (since I don´t have a phone yet.) I´ve already recieved several emails... After that, we went to a small party at the home of one of Maggie´s fellow exchange students, where I discovered that it was already difficult for me to think in english. I began talking to this guy (in castellaño) who pretty much immediately asked me if I spoke english, since he didn´t speak castellaño. Turns out he´s from Austria and is here visiting his girlfriend, a student at the U de Chile. I had a terrible time trying to talk to him in english and to the people around me in castellaño--apparently my mind doesn´t switch back and forth easily. At this carreta (castellaño for ´party´) I tried my first Pisco--an sort of liquor with is ´super-Chilena´--in the form of Piscola...Pisco with cola. It´s pretty good, I suppose-about the same as any alcohol, really. A Chilean man with whom I was conversing that evening cautioned that the next morning I would ´discubrir una nueva forma de dolor´, but I purposefully didn´t drink much, certainly not enough to have that experience.
The next day, Maggie, Felipe and I went to the Universidad Catolica Campus Occidental to poke around--it´s absolutely beautiful. A very old campus, which used to be a monastery, I believe, it has very interesting and beautiful buildings with prehistoric looking plants everywhere. Then, we went to the downtown shopping center with Kari, where we looked for a U de Chile futbol jersey for Maggie. We didn´t have any success in that, but we did find the local Pizza Hut, where we enjoyed a totally Chilean meal of pizza. Afterwards we went to see and Argentinian movie, se llama Un Buda, of which I pretty much didn´t understand a damn thing. Curse this foreign language crap!
´´Well....in case you were wondering...I´m here. I pretty much spent an entire day on a plane--which isn´t very fun for the record. Especially since it was overnight, and sleeping in noisy, cold, cramped spaces isn´t exactly my idea of ideal conditions. However, I had a very nice woman meet me at the airport and deliver me to my new home (as we listened to the Black Eyed Peas and Greenday on the radio), where my ´brother´and another American student studying here, Maggie, were waiting for me. I´ll post pictures of the view from my room --lemon trees on the patio with scenic snowcapped Andes mountains in the background -- as soon as I take some. I´m already pretty much totally immersed in Spanish, and Maggie and Felipe both have told me I´m doing pretty well (they´re probably just being nice.) That´s about it....until later.....adios.´´
This is my fourth day in Santiago de Chile, surrounded by people and Spanish. I remember before I left my family and I had a discussion regarding things which I would find different and strange here, but wouldn´t anticipate. So far, certainly the most different thing is that they don´t flush toilet paper here. Instead, they throw it away in a trash can beside the throne. Gross, huh! I guess that the plumbing systems can´t support large volumes of solid material, so this is the solution. A little secret--I can´t quite bring myself to do that, so I usually flush anyways. I figure if everyone else isn´t flushing, my tiny contribution shouldn´t bring the sewage system of the city to a screeching halt.
My first day here was a bit exhausting--I didn´t really sleep on the plane, since it´s kind of impossible to be comfortable on a cramped, noisy, cold capsule hurtling across the world. I arrived in Santiago at about 9 in the morning, and was picked up at the airport by the very nice woman (se llama Veronica Pomar) who arranged my housing. She delivered me to my new home, where my brother Felipe and Maggie, the American student who has been living here for the past six months, greeted me. We spent the afternoon getting to know each other, eating a very nice lunch prepared by the maid (I can´t remember her name, but I don´t like calling her that--she doesn´t feel like a maid, she´s more like a second mom who does all of the chores.) Later that evening I went with Maggie to the final meeting of her ´afro-dance´class, where a handful of people ran around the room gyrating there hips and throwing their bodies through the air to the beat of the bongo drums being played in the corner. Then, we returned to the house, where I met Myrna, the mother who´s a nurse practioner & midwife (or something like that) and la polola (girlfriend) of my brother, Andrea. It was a very exhausting day, and I think I slept 14 hours that night.
The next day I awoke quite late, and spent the afternoon with Maggie--we walked around the city for a while and went to ónces´(evening tea) at the home of another Californian student here. I met several other norteamericanos there, and then Maggie and I left to attend a meeting (the last for her) of her mountineering club. It was quite an overwhelming experience, with probably 15 excited Chileans chatting away and drinking beer in a pub downtown. I tried my hardest to understand them, but to be quite honest I have pretty much no idea what I talked about the entire night. In spite of this, they were all quite convinced that I should return and be a member of their club, and they insisted that I give them my email address (since I don´t have a phone yet.) I´ve already recieved several emails... After that, we went to a small party at the home of one of Maggie´s fellow exchange students, where I discovered that it was already difficult for me to think in english. I began talking to this guy (in castellaño) who pretty much immediately asked me if I spoke english, since he didn´t speak castellaño. Turns out he´s from Austria and is here visiting his girlfriend, a student at the U de Chile. I had a terrible time trying to talk to him in english and to the people around me in castellaño--apparently my mind doesn´t switch back and forth easily. At this carreta (castellaño for ´party´) I tried my first Pisco--an sort of liquor with is ´super-Chilena´--in the form of Piscola...Pisco with cola. It´s pretty good, I suppose-about the same as any alcohol, really. A Chilean man with whom I was conversing that evening cautioned that the next morning I would ´discubrir una nueva forma de dolor´, but I purposefully didn´t drink much, certainly not enough to have that experience.
The next day, Maggie, Felipe and I went to the Universidad Catolica Campus Occidental to poke around--it´s absolutely beautiful. A very old campus, which used to be a monastery, I believe, it has very interesting and beautiful buildings with prehistoric looking plants everywhere. Then, we went to the downtown shopping center with Kari, where we looked for a U de Chile futbol jersey for Maggie. We didn´t have any success in that, but we did find the local Pizza Hut, where we enjoyed a totally Chilean meal of pizza. Afterwards we went to see and Argentinian movie, se llama Un Buda, of which I pretty much didn´t understand a damn thing. Curse this foreign language crap!
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