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.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
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!
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!
Friday, August 7, 2009
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.
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.
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