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!

Snow and School

This week has been fairly crazy. But first, THE WEEKEND!

After much planning and confusing phone calls in Spanish, me and several people from my exchange group went up to the Andes to go skiing! WOOT! It was a blast, and several times I felt like I was going to die. Luckly, I didn't. It was really cool being so high up. We went to a resort called El Colorado which went to the top of a peak about 9000 feet above sea level. It was a blast since we were up in the Andes and the sun was beautiful. We were also able to get out of the smogy Santiago city for a while (aparently July and August are the worst months for the smog. Once September rolls around, the smog should go away.) I stayed on the intermediate hills, but once I become a more competant skiier, I would love to come back and try the harder runs. One nice thing for a clutz like me was that we were above the tree line so there wasn't any trees to crash into.

This week classes offically started at both Universites. I can take classes at la Universidad de Chile, which is the oldest and biggest university in Chile. It is also the main public Univeristy in the country which means that it can be a little unorganized. I can also take classes at La Catolica which is equally important as U Chile, but it is the private version. It is also a catholic university, but the only really religous influence that I can tell is the crusafixes in the classrooms. Although Chile is a fairly Catholic country, so even this doesn't seem strange to me.

Learning to "work the system" here in Chile takes some effort. Each major has its own facultad which seems to operate compleatly independently from all of the other facultads. Next week when we register, I have to go to each department head and get their permission to enroll.

Another diffrence in the education system here is the readings. In Chile, there is a very high tax on books, and a very low repect for copyrights. This means that no one buys books here. Instead, each facultad has thier own photocopiest where you go and let them know what class you are in and they make the photocopies that you need.

Here is my (un)offical class schedual:

Gymnastics at La Catolica Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings.
Latin American Politics at U Chile Tuesday and Thursday morings.
Sketch Drawing at La Catolica Monday afternoons.
Geography of Chile at La Catolica Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.
Spanish for Foreigners at La Catolica Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.

So many things

So much has happened since last I wrote, and I have had so little time to write. Lets see...

First I went to see Harry Potter 6 with Spanish subtitles. It was an experience going to a movie in Chile. The theater we went to was huge, and was several stories tall. In addition to serving popcorn and soda, the concessions also served sandwiches. The theater was surprisingly crowded, especially since the average Chilean only sees one movie a year (a little factoid I learned in class). But it was still winter vacation for Chilean students, so they were all at the movies.

The following day was slightly more educational. We visited the Church of Saint Francisco, which is the oldest building in Santiago. It was beautiful inside. After that we headed slightly north to the Plaza de Armas which was the old city center. There we headed inside the National History Museum. They had all sorts of cool things to look at from Mapuche (local indigenous tribe) artifacts, to items from the conquest, to the sashes from the president. It was a little like going to a natural history muesum and then halfway through going through the Smithsonian. A little strange, but very fun.

From there, things started to get a little heavy. (Fun fact of the day, Chileans use the word 'heavy.' So walking around Santiago, you can hear, "La pelicula fue muy heavy") We watched a movie called Machuca in class. It's about an upper class boy who befriends this lower class boy during the Allende years right to the bombing of La Moneda. I highly recomend it, but it is a little intense. After that we went to the Parque por la Paz (Park for the Peace) which I was not prepared for. It was basically a Chilean Auswitz. It was this park that had been build at one of the locations where dissidents of Pinocet were troutured. It was a profound experience.

After our visit to the Park, we traveled to the cemetary. Beleive it or not, it was an uplifting expereince after the Park. We saw the memorial for Allende, the memorial for los desapericados, and the graves of some very famous Chileans.

Not to worry, I have been having some fun too. This weekend we had a dinner where there was traditional Chilean folk music playing, and to a concert by a Depech Mode coverband. Depech Mode is pretty big here, and several people's host brothers and sisters are excited at having tickets to their show when they come to Chile. I shall now leave you with these parting words:

"Reach out and touch faith."

Haiku

Today in Chile
The temperature was freezing
But I ate ice cream.

This weekend was nice and relaxing. I went shopping at a mall here in Santiago, which was a strange experience. The malls here are just like the ones in the States, transplanted here in Santiago, with all Chilean stores. The mall was crowded and rather busy because it is a fun activity to go to the mall with friends and hang out. Most people don't really buy anything at these malls, they only window shop. I did manage to pick up a nice warm sweater and jacket which was fortunate since the temperature dropped here. It's now a balmy 2 degrees Celsius. Brrrrr.

We have also started our class called Chile Contemporaneo. It's a class for my program that runs for two weeks about the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in Chile. It is very interesting. So far we have learned about the history, the political structure, and the society of Chile.

On Monday as a group we all went to La Moneda which is the presidential palace in the middle of the city. Unlike in the States, La Mondeda is only where the president works. She lives in a private home somewhere in Santiago. The tour was really cool since we were able to go inside La Moneda instead of just the interior courtyards. We saw the rooms where the president does the entertaining of foreign and other important guests, where the press confrences are held, and other such rooms. Then we were able to go upstairs and see a recreation of President Allende's office and where he died. It was a sobering moment, and I felt expecially privileged and greatful to be shown such a historic site, especially for Chile.

Last night it rained for the first time since I have been here. I was a little dissapointed since it did not really rain that hard. It was like a gental sprinkle, although it apparently it hailed in some parts of the city. The rain did clear out all the smog from the city so the sky was bright blue this morning, and you could see the mountains so clearly this morning. I still can't get over the fact that they are the Andes and that they are so BIG.

Food, Fashion, and Family

Yesterday I moved in with my family. I live with a senora who lives in the city center of Santiago about a block away from a metro station. She seems really nice, as does her family. Yesterday for once, a small meal eaten around dinner time, her brother, his wife, their two daughters, and another one of her nieces came over. We all sat around chatting for hours. Here in Chile, meals are a very social experience and last a long time.

One thing that I'm still trying to get used to is how cold it is here. It is only about 50 degrees, but none of the buildings have central heat so it feels much colder then it actually is. Instead all the Chileans wear several layers. There is a long-sleeved undershirt, followed by a regular shirt. Then comes a thick wool sweater and finally a warm jacket. Even with all of these layers, the women here still manage to look thin and stylish.

At night when the temperature drops, out come estufas or space heaters. They all have wheels on the bottom so that you can just roll them from room to room, where ever the people are in the house. In Chile, each household is also responsible for heating their own water so yesterday I learned how to use the calefont or hot water heater, so that I could take a hot shower.

At bedtime, I wear long underwear, my pajama pants, a pajama top, and a fleece jacket. In addition, my bed has three rug-like blankets and a comforter. I also get to use a guatero or hot water bottle that goes down near my feet. This has to be my favorite thing about Chile so far.

I'm also enjoying the food here. For breakfast its yogurt, cut up fruit, and a bowl of corn flakes. My madre likes doing things naturally, so I also get a cup of fresh squeezed orange juice. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day, and it continas a salad, rice or potatos, chicken or beef, and dessert. Once, or dinner, is a small meal of open-faced sandwiches of cheese, salami, other cold cuts, and avocado. The Chileans seem to eat avocado with everything.

My Arrival

So I have finally arrived in Santiago! The weather is nice, about 50 degrees. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but Santiago is not it. We're staying in a hotel for the first few nights. One one side of us we have the beautiful hills covered in pines. On the other, HUGE mountains that put the ones in L.A. to shame. All the trees here have lost their leaves, which makes me a little sad because I missed the leaves changing colors, but soon enough it will be spring in Santiago and there will be flowers everywhere. I'm off to lunch, yum yum!