Valparaiso

So this past week and a half was highlighted by my trip to Valparaiso this past weekend. I decided to go all on a whim. I ran into a guy from Northwestern I had met at the beach who is also studying at La Catolica and we decided we needed to go to Valpo for the weekend. So Mike and I, along with 3 other friends from Northwestern set out Saturday morning on buses. On a side note, Chileans have really perfected bus travel. I paid $10 for a round-trip ticket to Valparaiso (would have been cheaper in advance) in an incredibly comfortable, punctual, and convenient bus. An extremely easy way to travel that I am sure I will take advantage of in the coming months.

We pulled in to Valparaiso and it was immediately obvious that this was not Santiago. The best word I have to describe the city is "quirky." The city is composed of a multitude of hills (Lonely Planet guide book tells me 42) surrounding a bay. The brightly colored houses are all built on these hills. It was absolutely incredible! It's a perfect city to wander aimlessly in. I also found that although I'm not a big picture taker, there was just so much in Valparaiso to capture on a camera that I took an unheard of 130 pictures. At first we were disappointed that it was not a clear and sunny weekend, but the fog and clouds really added a great aspect to the views. As you can see in the above picture, the fog just seems to engulf the houses high on the hills. We spent the day wandering around, the night at a 4-story club, and very few hours sleeping in our hostel. When you only have a weekend you might as well minimize your sleep right? All in all, Valpo is one of the coolest and most interesting cities I have ever visited...and I was only there for 30 hours!

The next morning, Mike and I hiked our way up the coast to Vina del Mar, Valparaiso's sister city, as the other three boarded their bus back to Santiago. Vina is more of your typical coastal town. Cleaner (Valpo is covered with very beautiful graffiti, but also trash), safer (a German guy in our hostel did get assaulted and mugged during the weekend), but less interesting. I've found that most Chileans prefer Vina to Valpo, but as a tourist, don't even worry about Vina. Spend all your time in Valpo. That is, there was one major exception. After our all-you-can-eat buffet (fantastic choice if I might say so), we visited the Quinta Vergara Park, which is the old estate of an aristocratic family that has been since turned into a park/museum. The grounds are absolutely beautiful, with trees from all over the world and one of the biggest homes I have ever seen. There is also a huge modern amphitheater built on the grounds for outdoor concerts. As we walked through the woods towards the modern concrete structure, Mike and I both had the illusion that we were living a scene from Jurassic Park. The way the huge concrete structure grew out of the forest made us think that we were approaching a wall built for protection from dinosaurs. Crazy? Probably, but you had to be there.

We quickly realized that 30 hours was hardly enough to really explore these two cities, but fortunately, I'll be going back in a month or so with my ND program! And this time we'll get a chance to visit Pablo Neruda's house, which I elected not to visit this trip because I'm a cheap college student.

On to the more somber. The Friday before I went to Valpo, our ND program had the great opportunity to tour Villa Grimaldi, one of the main locations for institutionalized torture during the dictatorship of Pinochet in the 70s and 80s. The actual facilities were leveled by the military dictatorship in an effort to conceal what had happened there, but certain aspects have been rebuilt to turn this area into a memorial park. We had the amazing opportunity also to be guided in our tour by a man named Pedro who had been an inmate at the facility in the mid 70s. In an effort to root out all socialism from Chile, the dictatorship under Pinochet sought out leaders of socialist groups, kidnapped them, brought them to numerous torture facilities, and tried to undermine any socialist threat or uprising. It was a chilling experience to walk these grounds, and even more so with Pedro as our guide. Later in the day, we also toured the General Cemetery of Santiago, where among others we saw the burial grounds of Orlando Letelier (a very influential Chilean socialist who was assassinated in Washington D.C. by the Chilean secret police in the mid 70s) and Salvador Allende (Chile's Socialist president from 1970-73 who was killed in the military coup of 1973). It was also interesting to see the difference in social classes based on styles of being buried. In this cemetery, it is immediately obvious of what social class someone belonged based on the size and elaborateness of their tombstone or mausoleum.

A couple more things before I leave you. Last Sunday Chile received the great news that all 33 of the miners who were trapped in a collapsed mine for over 2 weeks were found alive. The only problem is that they are about 700 meters under ground and there rescue will take 3-4 months. But right now they have a small tunnel dug to them from the surface where they can pass communication and supplies. The trapped miners had dominated the news in the previous weeks and to be completely honest, the general sentiment was that they were not going to find the miners alive. Sunday was therefore a day of great joy for the country of Chile when they found out that not even one of the miners had died.

Also, I've forgotten to keep you up to date on my beer preferences. Escudo is much better than Cristal. More on the upper end of the quality/price spectrum, Kuntsmann is also very good, and micro-brewed Cerveza del Puerto from Valparaiso is fantastic.

I'm sure this next bit will please my mom. I have made a conscious effort to try every single type of food that is offered to me here. I actually told my host mom that I eat everything in an order to broaden my sometimes picky tastes. And the results? I have grown accustomed to eating tomatoes, squash, artichoke, and sometimes even olives. Proud mom? After all these years of staying far away from these foods?

So I'm off to La Serena/Valle de Elqui this weekend. It's 7 hours to the North. I'll fill you in when I get back.

Ski!

Two things tonight. First, I met with about half of my group yesterday to get a better idea for what kind of trips we want to take this semester and when we want to take them. Santiago has been great, but we're all a little antsy to get up and travel to other surrounding areas. I'm doing my best to balance trips as a group (we're 16 people from ND, so trips as a whole group will be hard) and trips by myself. One of my main goals for this semester is to take some weekend trips completely solo. I really believe you can learn a lot by travelling by yourself and I like being independent, with no one else to report to. I also want to take trips that involve serious travelling by bus or plane without short-changing myself on all the amazing places to see near Santiago. And as always, cost is an EXTREMELY important consideration. An additional variable is that I need to consider where I will be visiting with my family in December and January when they come to Chile. I really don't want to double-up on visiting any places (unless someplace really happens to be that cool), but want to have plenty of amazing places to visit with my family. By the sounds of it, I shouldn't be worrying because there is just SO MUCH to see in Chile from a natural perspective. That being said, if any of you have visited Chile/South America (or for some other reason are well informed on such things) and have recommendations for travel, they would be greatly appreciated.

But moving on. Today was one of the best days I've had here in Chile. I went skiing with my sister Cami at El Colorado. No, not that Colorado in the US, but one of the premier ski resorts outside of Santiago. After waking up at 6:00, we made our way to the shuttle company to catch our transportation into the Andes. It was an eery morning. Santiago was covered in one of the thickest fogs I've ever seen and at such an early hour on a Sunday morning, it is dead. And I mean dead. It made me think of scenes I imagined while reading the post-apocalyptic novel "The Road" if any of you have read it (I haven't seen the movie, so I don't know how it compares to that). Very few cars, dark, foggy, and quiet. We were at first worried because we didn't know if the fog would affect our skiing. Turns out we shouldn't have worried. The hour van ride East of the city into the mountains was worthy of an entire day itself. We started to climb and just never stopped. The road consisted of travelling maybe a quarter mile in one direction, taking a sharp turn uphill and continuing the drill. We must have made about 70-100 switchbacks. Even better, as we climbed, the weather just kept getting better. The fog of Santiago receded and the sun rose over the mountains. Eventually we pulled into the ski area, in full daylight, as clear as can be. It was a brisk morning, cold by Chilean standards, but nothing I'd call cold for skiing weather. After picking up our rental gear and throwing our bags in a locker, we hit the slopes.

So early in the morning the slopes were pretty empty. I split my morning between skiing with Cami and exploring on the far side of the mountain. The hills I found were completely mind-blowing! El Colorado is completely above the tree line, which makes skiing quite different than what I'm used to. Each slope is not separated by trees, but instead by an area of ungroomed snow, designated for free-skiing. Although these were marked "Expert," I didn't take this into much consideration. As there are really no pre-designated paths, if you're daring enough, you are free to trail-blaze your way around all day. These slopes were probably the steepest I've ever found, covered the roughest terrain, and were littered with huge natural rock formations. It was exhilarating, but I've also never felt so scared for my life while skiing. At one point I took one of the lifts to the highest point on the mountain, a whopping 3,333 m, or 10,936 ft. I never really knew where I was during these runs on this side of the mountain, but that didn't matter. I found a new slope for every descent, and it always lead me somewhere new and exciting. Chairlift rides and surface "T-bar" lifts (similar to a tow rope) were always enjoyable as well as I found myself riding up with random South Americans who were thrilled that I was visiting Chile.

One more memorable aspect of this skiing was the wind. Especially at the top, the wind was incredible. It could at times control the direction you were moving. Unfortunately, it often blew sharp icy crystals which were utterly unavoidable and stung like crazy. The best you could do was to stop, shield your face, and wait for it to pass, but even this just diminished the pain but never really protected you fully. One time, the wind was blowing uphill so strongly that it actually stopped me dead in my tracks. And I was going downhill! Granted it wasn't the steepest of slopes at this point, but this still amazed me. Oh and of course, the views were breathtaking in every direction you looked. As is usually the case, the pictures above just don't do it justice. Furthermore, I didn't risk bringing my camera to the more challenging backside of the mountain for fear that I would fall and crush it. I wish I had some pictures to share of this side, which was much more natural, less busy, and more naturally awe-inspiring. This was easily the best skiing of my life and worthy of a week-long vacation in and of itself. After lunch, Cami and I continued on the main side of the mountain until our bus headed back down into Santiago. The skiing was everything I dreamed it could be and then some. Buck Hill, Afton Alps, and Highland Hills just won't be the same afterwards

Exploring Santiago

A few worthwhile experiences to update you guys on. All in all, I guess I haven't been acting that Chilean recently. First of all, I went to sushi the other day here with Rosie and Shu, two ND students in our program. Shu, who is Japanese, scoured the internet and found the best and most authentic sushi restaurant he could find. Turns out it's called Japon (real original!) and The New York Times called it the best sushi in Santiago. Anyways, so we went one night and each ordered a good sampler platter that included tuna, salmon, squid, fish eggs (it wasn't caviar but went by some other name I can't remember), some Chilean fish and probably something else as well. We combined it with an order of hot sake (which Shu later told us was very low quality) which all in all made for a great dinner. I can also proudly say that with Shu's instruction, I ate the whole meal in authentic Japanese style, using solely chopsticks. We also sat at the counter and got to watch the sushi chefs (Shu told us the Japanese word fittingly translates better into artist) create lavish platters of delicious sushi. It turned out being a $20 meal (!), but I figured it was worth it. Especially because I've been talking with Shu for the past two years about how we need to go out for sushi.

Continuing my un-Chileanness, I went to Burger King the other day. As most of you know, I would rarely even do this in the US, but the reason for my visit in Chile was because possibly the most advertised product in all of Santiago is the Steakhouse Palta hamburger from BK (palta means avocado). I just had to try it. Turns out it's delicious! It doesn't taste all that different from a regular Steakhouse burger, but the avocado adds a great touch. It's delicious, but probably not worth $6 when I can find an equally delicious empanada around the corner for a quarter of the price. Back to the avocado though, Chileans eat avocado ALL THE TIME. It's easily become my favorite food here. It's great of sandwiches (especially when combined with ham), salads, burgers, just about anything. It's also not an expensive food like it is in the US because I think a lot of our US avocados come from Chile. I also bought tickets to a Dave Matthews Band concert here in Santiago. I've never gotten a chance to see him in the US and a bunch of us from our group decided to pick up some tickets.

That ends my un-Chileanness for this past week. I'd like to think that in other aspects I have been acting Chilean. My primary piece of evidence, this past Thursday, when I ditched class (along with about 2000 other students from La Catolica) and went to the beach for an all day party. It was easily one of my favorite experiences here so far. It was a beautiful day and the beach was just filled with jolly college students. I met so many people and actually managed to remember a few of their names despite the fact that I am notoriously bad at remembering names. We stayed at the beach until the sun went down, then all climbed exhaustedly back onto the bus where nearly all of us took advantage of the comfortable seats and caught some ZZZs during the ride back. I eventually got back to my house around 10:30 with just enough energy to dump the sand out of my shoes and bag, grab a quick bite to eat and make it up to my bed. The day was a blast!

Continuing with my Chileanness, I've got to know the offices of the International Police and the Registro Civil (Chilean equivalent of a DMV) quite well. Don't worry mom, nothing serious. After already visiting both offices, I was ready to pick up my official Chilean ID card this past Wednesday. I made it up to the offices nice and early before classes, only to find that my application had been rejected because the entrance stamp in my passport was too faint to be legible. The worst part was that I was aware of the fact that the customs agent at the airport had stamped my passport lightly and the man at the Registro Civil had told me this was not a problem. Two weeks later I find out exactly the opposite. Well anyways, this past Friday (on my much needed day of rest), I woke up at the crack of dawn (6:45) to meet Sarah, another girl from the program who was dealing with the same problem, near the offices of the International Police. We get there before they open, and wait in line, only to be directed to another office to resolve our problems. We hike our way over there, where our issues are "resolved" (yes, those "-" are intentional) by the Chilean equivalent of an FBI agent. From them we received new papers, gave our thanks and headed back to the Registro Civil, which is across town mind you. Here, after waiting in another line, we were told that these new papers were not correct and we in fact needed something different (Don't you love it when different government offices tell you different things?). After discussing with the agent (slightly heatedly) we realized there was really nothing this office could do. It was out of their hands and we needed to go to another International Police office to receive the correct papers. We went to Sarah's house to look up the directions to this new office. Turns out it was right next to the last International Police office we visited! We took the 40 minute subway ride back to the center of town, paid another mandatory fee to be helped here (a recurring event), and got the new papers. By this point it was past 12:00. We found some hole-in-the-wall mini market, bought some empanadas and sandwiches (all for $2!) and were on our way back to the same Registro Civil we had just visited. Upon ariving, we found that the line was much longer than it had been earlier. We eventually made our way to the front, talked with the same agent who had helped us earlier, and got everything sorted out. He started a brand new ID card application with us, which included being re-fingerprinted, re-photographed, and again asked for our basic information. How fun! We got out of the office just in time to catch the metro back to central Santiago for a visit to a potential service location with a class. I head back to Registro Civil in 2 weeks to see if my application was accepted this time. Ultimately, I think it's safe to say that I now know more about how to apply for a Chilean ID card than a US ID card!

A couple last things before I head off to enjoy this beautiful day. I have discovered that someone random is mistakenly adding money to my pay-as-you-go phone here in Chile. Thanks whoever you are! Also, I have started documenting where I spend my money because I have realized that my money doesn't go as far I thought it would here. I guess when I'm paying $2+ every single day for metro rides and I am legally visiting bars my money seems to disappear quite rapidly!

Chao

The Start of Classes

School's out for the weekend! That's right, not classes on Friday for the whole semester. I wouldn't have scheduled my classes like that on purpose would I? Included in this entry are also a couple pictures from La Universidad Catolica and a picture of the Andes, taken from my bedroom.

Moving on to the past few days. This past weekend, my family here in Santiago officially welcomed me in. That is to say we had a great feast of asado, or BBQ. I guess they have an asado nearly every Sunday (Lucky me!) where other family members come over, but they took a moment this week to formally welcome me into their home. Very nice, but more importantly... the food. We had pork ribs, steak, and some delicious garlic scallops. Leo is the master of the huge outdoor grill and whipped up a feast. I ate like a king and still had steak left over for lunch the next day. It was great to spend time with the rest of the family as well. I played some intense games of ping-pong with Cami and Tio (uncle) Ricardo. Both are quite good. We're sure to have some intense games. We also watched City of God, an award winning Brazilian movie with the family. Interestingly, since the movie was in Portuguese, I found myself reading Spanish subtitles. Didn't think I'd ever have to do that, haha. Highly recommend the movie by the way. Not for the weak of heart, but very powerful.

I now have something very important to tell my dad. Remember all the times you've given me crap for studying business and not something real like engineering? Well after much difficulty in trying to concisely explain to Chileans that I study Finance, I've resorted to telling them that I just study business. In reality, a business degree here in Chile is more general and not as specific as a U.S. degree in Finance, Marketing, or Entrepreneurship would be. And what do they happen to call the study of business here...Ingenieria Comercial, or Commercial Engineering. So now we're on an even playing field dad. End of story, haha.

Now to the boring part. Feel free to stop reading. Seriously, I'll never know. This past Monday was the start of classes. My schedule was somewhat already fixed, with two required classes: Spanish for Foreigners and Chilean Politics and Society. I have also elected to take a class at La Universidad Alberto Hurtado (named for Chile's beloved Jesuit saint, Alberto Hurtado). This class is called Poverty and Development, and combines in-class lecture and weekly service work. We have many options for where to perform this service and although I have yet to decide, I think I'd like to work with adults. I believe I'll learn more from this experience than from working with kids. Plus it's different from what the majority of the group wants to do, working with kids. I guess that's just who I am.

Are you really still reading? You must either be my mom, dad, or grandparents. So after scouring through the course book trying to find interesting classes that will also count for requirements back at ND, I think I've found two: Aesthetic of the Hispano-american Story and Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church. The first will fulfill a requirement for an upper level elective for my Spanish major and the second will be credited as my university required second theology class. The problem is, these are very popular gringo classes. I really hoped to take a class by myself, without the crutch of another ND or even American student but this didn't prove to be possible while also taking a class that would count as something at ND.

Aside from that, I've been settling in very well and I'm enjoying each day with my family more and more.

I've also started up another blog with my good friend Shu specializing on Chilean adult beverages. Feel free to take a look. It promises (maybe) to be a worthwhile (somewhat) guide to Chilean wine, beer, and liquor because of our refined (certainly not) palates. You all saw right through that one, right?

http://chilewinend.blogspot.com/

Touring Santiago and Isla Negra

Good morning. I'm writing to you from my desk in my Santiago bedroom. I've got a huge picture window facing East with a great view of the Andes Mountains. They seem almost close enough to walk to. For a little geography lesson, Santiago is situated between the Andes range to the East and the coastal range to the West. As a result, the city pollution doesn't have an opportunity to escape and the city is usually covered in a layer of smog (as it is this morning). I'm told the smog is worst in winter, so I'm looking for it to improve as the seasons change here. Because of this smog, Santiago is often under an exercise warning where is is inadvisable to exercise outside. Gym classes and school sports teams are prohibited from practicing outside as well. This also means that I have not been able to go for any runs here in Santiago. I would love to take a jog exploring Las Condes, the neighborhood of Santiago where I am living, but it is currently just not an option.

Through our program here at La Catolica, we have gone on several tours of Santiago. In two jam-packed days, we explored a better part of the central part of Santiago. Unlike many huge cities in the US, Santiago (with about 5 million people), is not really a city dominated by skyscrapers but instead is built much flatter and extends much farther. I guess skyscrapers aren't a very good architectural design when your country suffers some of the most frequent and strongest earthquakes in the world. In our tours we explored the Vega Central (huge open air fruit & vegetable market), the Mercado Centro (another huge market, but dedicated to fish & meat), the Plaza de Armas (colonial center of the city, containing the early government buildings and the Cathedral of Santiago), a couple of museums, and some surrounding

neighborhoods. We also rode a funicular up to the top of Cerro San Cristobal (a really tall and steep hill that would probably be considered a mountain in Minnesota but is dwarfed here by the Andes). Even with the smog (which was particularly bad on this day), we had a great view of Santiago. There was even an outdoor altar beneath the feet of a white statue of the Virgin Mary where Pope John Paul II said mass in the early 80s.

Friday started off with more administrative work as we had to go to the International Police to register our visas (or something like that) and to the equivalent of a DMV to apply for our Chilean ID cards (cedulas). Friday morning also provided some excitement as I woke up and left the house before the rest of the family was awake. When I returned, I found out that Dunkel, the huge dog that plays watchdog in the gated yard by night, got into the house. Upon leaving that morning, I did not put him back into his kennel and he is smart enough (and big enough) to open the door. Leticia told me that she awoke to find him in the kitchen scouring through the trash. Oooops! I know now the procedure though.

I met up with my Linares family for lunch, as Doris was in Santiago picking up her granddaughter Camila to bring back home. We ate at Carlos and Kelsey's appartment and I got a chance to see more of the "downtown" section of Santiago near La Moneda, the building that houses the presidential offices. During lunch, I also found out that the apparently harmless word maraca is not used to refer to a musical instrument as much as it is an extremely offensive word for prostitute. Oooops again! At least I messed up in a setting with family and not something more serious.

Friday night I (as well as Shu and Katy, two other students on the program) met up with Sergio, one of our good friends from Notre Dame and my roommate next year, who recently moved from Costa Rica to Santiago with his family. He and his dad picked us up and brought us to their apartment where we had a fantastic dinner of asado (grilled steak and sausage). Many of his friends came over and we later went to a different friend's house as experience has shown Sergio and his family that apartment security gets called if they make too much noise. After meeting more friends we went to el disco. After a long night of dancing and socializing, we headed back to Sergio's at 4:00 am, only to wake up the next morning a little after 8:00 am to head on another tour. All in all it was a great time and we'll surely hang out with Sergio again before he heads to France for his semester studying abroad.

Our tour the next day started frantically, as we almost missed our bus. Luckily we just made it and headed West to Isla Negra, a small coastal town South of the major cities of Vaparaiso and Vina del Mar, most famous for the favorite house of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. We enjoyed a very informative tour of this very unique house. Neruda loved the sea (his house was built with a great view over the ocean) and modeled the inside of his house like a ship, complete with small doors, rounded ceilings, and actual carvings that once served as the decoration on the bow of great wooden ships (those "hood ornament" things for lack of a better way to describe them). It was probably one of the most interesting houses I have ever seen. After the tour we headed to Kaleuche, a nearby seaside restaurant for the best meal I've had yet.

Before we arrived, we were asked to chose our entrée from a list that included steak, chicken, fish, and in my eyes the obvious choice, Paila Marina, a seafood soup that is hard to find anywhere in Santiago. I didn't really know what I had ordered until we got to the restaurant and I found in front of me a great steaming bowl of broth filled with every imaginable type of seafood. This included several types of clams, mussels, crab, fish, octopus, shrimp, scallops, abalone (a very specific sort of mollusk that is a rare delicacy. Shu, my Japanese friend on the trip told me that abalone is among the most prized and most expensive seafood available in Japan), and probably something else that I am forgetting. It was delicious, took forever to eat, as everything was still in the shell, and probably grossed out a good number of the fellow students on the trip. After lunch we boarded the bus again and headed back to Santiago. Just as we had on the trip to Isla Negra, every single student fell asleep.

That's all I've got for now. I'll try to get you guys a link with more available pictures. Also, my SKYPE name is patkissling. I'd love to talk to you guys. Just let me know.