Doctor's Visit

Today I went to the doctor's for my toe. In a freak round-off accident in my gymnastics class, I did something to it that now prevents me from being able to bend my big left toe. So, it was time to get it checked out.

Here, individual doctors don't have their own offices or practices. They either work in hospitals, public run clinics, or private run clinics. I went to a private one a few minutes from my house, and it reminded me very much of going to the DMV. First, I waited in line to get a number. Then I waited in a lobby for my number to be called. At this point I paid for my visit. An interesting thing to note is that I was given the option of payments for my visit. Here in Chile, you have the option of payments for just about everything. That new t-shirt? Payments. Blender? Payments. Because of this, just about everyone is in some kind of debt.

After I paid, I headed to another area to wait for the Dr. The shinny, sci-fi interior continued, and expanded to include a little coffee bar, waiting to sell you coffee, salads, and sandwhiches while you are waiting.

Then I got called by the dr and we headed to the exam room. No nurses. The dr then spitfired a set of questions in my general direction about my toe, past medial history, and if I was enjoying my time here in Chile. Then a general exam at which point he said that my toe wasn't broken, but I was going to get a set of X-rays anyway.

Off to another line to pay for the X-rays, then a nice little sit. This wait was a little longer, so as I was looking around, I realized there were no reading materials. No years old vogue or highlights. Everyone else had brought their own reading material.

The x-ray was a process as well. At first they didn't want to give me one of the lead vests even though I was in the room where there was raditation. And it's not like they were lacking. There had to be about 10 vests in the room just not being used. When I asked for one they looked at me like I was crazy. They did eventually give it to me though.

I go back tomorrow to pick up my x-rays and to have a chit-chat with the Dr.

A swim in a river

So this past weekend I headed down south to Pucon and to Temuco. Temuco is a rather neat little city in Chile since it is very linked to the Mapuche and thier culture. (the Mapuche are Chile´s largest indigenous group). While in Temuco we visited the market where I was able to snag some amazing Mapuche jewlery, instuments, and clothing. It´s all so beautiful and different from most of what you find in Latin America. Lots of silver and a lot of darker colors with quick, small flashes of color. After the market we were off to the Universdad de la Frontera which is a Univeristy that a) specilizes in Mapuche learning like how to weave or learning about Mapuche religion and b) educating Mapuche University students. We were able to hear from two of the leading scholars on Mapuche culture who told us all about the Mapuche religion, history, language, and current conflicts with the Chilean government.

Then we all hopped on the bus again to visit a local Mapuche elementary school. There are about 80 students from preschool all the way to 8th grade. The kids were adorable and were really excited for us to be there. The boys were playing this cool game that was a little like hockey, while the girls were practicing their singing. After the game they had a performance that they had been working on for a few weeks where they danced and played music (all traditional Mapuche music and dance). It was a great experience and I was sad to go.

Afterwards though we headed to a Mapuche comunity where we were welcomed into a Mapuche woman´s home where she cooked us a traditional Mpuche lunch. All of the food was extrodinary. They offered us some dried red pepper spice called merken which was delicious. It started out rather flavorless, but quickly build up into a roaring, spicy fire in my mouth. After months of the not-so-spicy Chilean food, it was a startaling, but welcome change.

After our adventures in Temuco, we countinued further south to Pucon which reminds me of Lake Tahoe. Pucon is basically an adventure city situated on the corner of a HUGE lake which is at the base of an active volcano. This is where adrenalline kicked in.

While in Pucon I did an amazing canopy through the Chilean forest, including two zip lines that went over a raging river. At some points we were really high up, and I felt like I was a bird flying from tree to tree. Our guides were are about college age, and were having a great time as well. When they would go down the zip lines, they would spin or lean upside-down, or really whatever crazy thing they could think of.

After the canopy I went on a white-water rafting trip down what had to be the coldest river in the world. Since it´s now Spring here in Chile, the river is fed by snow melt. Brrrr. I was able to get a first-hand experience to the temperature of the water when I was tossed overboard during one of the rapids. I was compleatly drenched to say the least.

The following day I was supposed to climb the volcano, but since it had been raining all weekend, the conditions would have been terrible. We would have gotten maybe a third of the way up and then hit a white-out. Instead I wandered around the city enjoying the lake and buying chocolates. Super yum!

I wont have any adventures for the next few weeks since I´ve hit finals season. Wish me luck!

Racing through my mind

This past Saturday I ran in the Ultramaraton de los Andes. It was a 10k in which we gained, and then lost, 1600 feet of elevation. Not to mention that we started out at about 3,000 feet above sea level. Needless to say I still hurt. Sooooooooo, instead it's time for an instalment of Spanish Words You Never Knew You Always Wanted to Know.

flexiones: push-ups
rondat: round-off
gusanitos: worms
caspa: dandruff
varitas de algodon: Q-tips
apretapapel plegable: binder clips

Needless to say, my Spanish vocab is expanding in unwexpected ways.

To the land of poets and UFOs

This past weekend I had a crazy weekend in Norte Chico which is about a seven and a half hour drive from Santiago. I took an overnight bus to Vicuña in which I actually got a lot of sleep. Here in Chile the overnight buses have seats that recline really far back (almost to horizontal) and foot rests which are surprsingly comfortable. On Friday, our first day in Vicuña, we went on a nice hike to the nearby mountain/hills. At the top there was a beautiful vista and a statue of the Virgin Mary.

After the hike we went to the birth home of Gabriella Ministral, one of the two poets from Chile who have won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The following day on Saturday we went to Monte Grande which is the city where she spent her childhood. While there we visited her tomb as well, where there was a beautiful poem she wrote about burying her heart in Monte Grande.

Down the road from Monte Grande is this HUGE rock with a bunch of pictographs from the Incas on it which we also checked out. From there it was on to Pisco Eilque where we bought dried fruits and had an amazing horseback ride through the mountains. It is here where we also saw the soccer match between Chile and Colombia. Chile won, which was amazing because that means that Chile has now qualified for the 2010 World Cup. WEEEE!

Sunday saw us head over to La Serena where we chilled at the beach, saw the beautiful churches that littered the city, and made a quick pitstop at a hydroelcetic dam. That night we when to an observatiry to see the starts (Chile is the best place on Earth to see the stars due to the incredibly clear skies they have in the north. All of the highpowered telescopes are here.) We learned about the Southern Cross and how to use it to find South, as well as how to spot several constilations. It was incredible. As a side note, La Serena and Vicuña are also some of the best places in the world to spot UFOs. Unfortunety, we did not see any.

We had school off Monday since it was Columbus Day, so we went to Colquimbo which is a port town south of La Serena. There we saw sealions, pelicans, and assorted fish. We also climbed up to the top of this huge cross buit to celebrate the millenium. After, we headed on back to Santiago, just in time to start our homework for the week.

Fiestas Patrias

So much has happened, and I will update about it all later, but that will be a very long post, so I'm going to leave that for later.

Last weekend was September 11, which is the day that Pinochet had his coup. Tensions run a little high on this day since the country remains deeply divided on this issue. About 25% of Chileans are firm supporters of Pinochet, while the remining 75% are firm supporters of Allende and are against Pinochet. Since I'm living in the capital (Santiago) me and a few friends thought it would be a good idea to get out of the city and try and avoid the protests which tend to become violent.

So off we headed to Viña del Mar which is a costal city just north of Valpariso. Since we are still technically in the winter months here in Chile, the beach was a little cold, windy, and grey, but it was still wonderful to get out of the city. It was rather relaxing and the sounds of the ocean were wonderful to listen too. I will definitly be making a return trip.

THIS weekend is the 18th of September which is Chile's Independence Day. The city is already a little empty feeling since many families take to the countryside for the week or go and visit family members in other cities. Not to worry though, the remaining Chileans will all take to the streets and celebrate in what are called Fondos. They are huge parties with empanadas and dancing in the plazas of the cities. Most likely I will dance the cueca, the national dance, several times.

The cueca is a very interesting dance, which I find difficult and fun to dance. I've had several lessons and classes on how to dance the cueca, including durig my gymnastics class, and I think I've just about mastered it. It´s based of the matting dance of chickens and roosters. In addition, everyone has hankerchiefs called panuellos that they wave around in the air. Here's a link to a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvGURVqOmH0

Musical!

So this past weekend, something so amazing that I still cannot believe it happened: El Ultimo Viaje de San Pablo. It is a musical about Saint Paul and this boat trip he went on. I didn't totally understand everything that we on, but basically, Paul is in Rome and the Roman Emperor decides to banish him or sell him into slavery, so he is loaded onto a boat with some Roman soldiers, people I can only hope were pirates, some Jews, and rand0m group of women, and some slaves. They are saling along, and everyone is making fun of Paul since he is a Christian, and I think that there were two other Christians on the boat as well, including one who was narrating the story from the future, so present and future guy bumped into eachother a few times and gave eachother strange looks. Then there was a lightning storm, and possibly an island, which made all of the people on the boat convert to Christianity. Then the Virgin Mary appeared on the boat to cannonize Paul.

Did I mention it was a musical? There was an electric guitar who had quite a few solos. The entire play was also sung, unlike the musicals in the states where there are some lines of dialogue thrown in. It was an enjoyable experience and I hope that there will be more performances while I am here.

Been a while...

Well, it's been a while since last I updated this blog, so I figured it was time. Much has happened since last post, too much to write here, so I will give the highlights.

Last (?) weekend I went hiking in the Andes with a new Chilean friend Francisco and some other people. What I thought was going to be a nice, relaxing trip into nature turned out to be climbing up to the top of an Andean mountain. Boy was I sore after that trip. However it was beautiful at the top and completely worth it. We had several amazing vistas of the city on the hike up and at the top we had an amazing view of the snow capped peaks further off in the distance. We also met a few condors! The hike (what they call "Treking" here in Chile) has made be start itching to get back outdoors. According to Francisco, if we climbed over another mountain we would have reached a plateau of sorts covered in flowers. I hope to make it back there, but probably later in the semester when I am in a little bit better shape and more used to the thinner atmosphere.

The following Tuesday me and a few of my friends went to a benefit concert called 'Leche para Hati' or milk for Hati. It had four different bands/performers come and sing thier songs for free to help raise money to buy milk for Hati, Latin America's poorest contry. The songs were amazing and it was great to see so many people come together to help out a fellow Western Hemisphere country.

This past weekend I met up with my bud Allie for some sushi, which I got a craving for after watching an episode of Bones where they ate sushi. This was strange since before I had never really enjoyed sushi. Nevertheless, I had the craving and am now in love with sushi. That's right folks, I had to go half-way 'round the world to learn to love a food that I can get anywhere in the US.

On Saturday it was raining, so I headed to some museums to keep the gloomies away. The first I went to was the National Natural History Museum. It looked as though it hadn't been updated since the 50's and was full of dead animals either stuffed or in a jar of embalming fluid. There were also tons of signs and diagrams without any explination as to what it represented. It was still really cool because it was set up so that as you were going through the museum, you were walking through the different regions in Chile. It was a great introduction to the country. They also had this huge whale skelton set up in the middle.

The second museum was this art museum called Artequin which doesn't have any orignial pieces of art, but focuses more on the using art to express yourself and create. They have several workshops and classes where kids and adults alike learn about art by creating thier own masterpieces influenced by the great works of art.

That about catches you up. Tonight I'm going to a Kareoke bar to sing some wonderful 80s pop songs. Wish me luck!