Thanksgiving and the End of Responsibilities

Well Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I celebrated Thanksgiving here with a handful of good friends and one friend's mom and brother who were visiting from the US. And even though we're thousands of miles away from the US, we still threw ourselves an awesome Thanksgiving dinner, complete with mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, salads, homemade pecan and apple pies, and chicken (A pre-cooked rotisserie chicken was easier to find and prepare than a full turkey). It was delicious, and to be honest, I can't take any credit for the preparation. The best part was probably trying to explain the concept of forcing yourself to eat way more than you want to to the Chileans and German who were eating with us. It's pretty hard to convince someone that even though it hurts to eat more, you have to push on through and continue eating. Good ole US holidays!

As for other things, I finished my last class and turned in my last essay yesterday. So I literally have no more academic responsibilities in Chile and can be free to do what I really want to do, travel extensively. All in all, the semester wasn't too bad. My classes were purposely much easier than those at ND, and I purposely was less dedicated to my schoolwork than I am back home. All in all, I think this was a great choice, seeing as there is so much more for me to learn down here in Chile outside of the classroom than in it. That's not to say that I didn't have some very interesting classes in which I learned a lot, but only that I'm proud to say that I really believe I used my time wisely by not studying all the time.

As for a little glimpse into university life here in Chile, it's quite different than back home. La Católica has no student housing on-campus, and seeing as most students come from Santiago, they live with their families. This is largely for money reasons, as most Chileans could never justify renting a student apartment that doesn't get you much closer to the campus. I think a large part is also for cultural reasons, as Chileans are much more likely to continue living at home with their families after the graduate. This can be for a couple of years or more, often lasting until they move in with a significant other or get married. As much as I love my MN home, it's hard to imagine college without the dorm atmosphere. I've also found the classes here tend to be much less organized. An organized syllabus with set test and assignment dates simply doesn't exist in Chilean classes. Attendance is also often pretty low, at least in the basic intro classes I was taking. Furthermore, my tests and essays have not been graded to the same degree of difficulty as the Chilean students. This is probably a good thing, but gives me a pretty strong feeling of wimping out. But lets be honest, there's no way I understood those Latin American short stories well enough to get a 6.8 (out of a perfect 7.0) when the average Chilean pulled a less than a 6.0.

The end of the semester also means that my service project at the high school Colegio José Antonio Lecaros has finished. This past Monday we got to say our thanks to the students for their patience in working with us and making the job so enjoyable. In return, they gave us a huge round of applause. It was wonderful and really made me feel glad for having chosen this service site. The experience taught me a lot. First of all, it made me thankful for the kind of school I grew up in, as much of Chilean schools are underfunded, not very serious academically, and have much less discipline than what I am used to in the US. But it also showed me first hand the difficulties of teaching, especially younger children. It is no easy job! I found it really easy to be distracted and frustrated when a couple of students were goofing off in the back of the class or a lot of students left their books at home. It made me once again realize how lucky I was with my teachers growing up, how much I owe them for where I'm currently at academically, and how I probably didn't always pay my teachers the respect they due either. All in all, it was a fantastic experience and really put a nice touch on my semester, giving me a deeper perspective of what life is like in Chile.

A couple more things in closing. First of all, the grocery stores here have a really cool program to donate to the major charities in the country. Since about 480 Chilean pesos right now, 1, 2, 3, or even 9 pesos isn't really worth anything. Because of this, anytime your change comes in at less than 10 pesos, the cashier will ask you if you would like to donate this small change to one of the major Chilean charities such as Un Techo para Chile, which is dedicated to building homes for homeless Chileans, or Hogar de Cristo, which is a massive organization founded by the beloved Chilean Jesuit saint Alberto Hurtado and works with the country's poor in a multitude of ways. This is an awesome program put on by each of the major grocery stores, who each have their charity of choice. I'm sure the money adds up quickly, and it eliminates the hassle of carrying small, meaningless, and useless small change. In reality, I don't know why the US couldn't do a similar program with all change less than a dime.

Lastly, some of you may know the Notre Dame commercials that are shown during halftime of the football games. The theme for the few years has been "Notre Dame, fighting for...(some worthwhile cause)." It's a really cool campaign that highlights Notre Dame's commitment to international development. The themes have ranged from Fighting for Peace in Colombia to Fighting for the Advancement of Medicine. So just this past week, our program director here in Chile told us about one of the videos that highlighted Chile. The theme was Fighting for Democracy, and focused on Notre Dame's commitment to helping Chile return to a healthy democracy after the military coup in 1973 that lead to a 18 year dictatorship. And guess who was the main star (And it wasn't even the beloved Notre Dame president of 35 years Fr. Ted Hesburgh)? Esteban Montes, our program director! In typical modest Esteban fashion, he never brought it up until one of the students told him that they'd heard about the clip. It's an awesome clip, well worth the 2 minutes it takes to watch it. Check it out here.

My next post might not be for a while, as I am taking off tomorrow for the South and won't really have consistent internet access for at least a month. Can't wait!

Linares, Money, and Quirks

I think it might be the end of my semester here that's affecting me, because I've been doing quite a bit of reflecting recently. Friends parents are coming, classes, papers, and tests end on Wednesday, and my big end of the semester trip to Patagonia and El Sur, as Chileans affectionately refer to they gorgeous southern part of the country. I can't wait for my parents and brother to get down here in exactly a month! It's been forever since I've seen them, not including a SKYPE webcam of course. I'm also really proud that I have such an adventurous family (kinda explains where I get it from) who is putting their complete faith in my ability to plan this trip for them and isn't afraid to try something out of the ordinary and go on a real adventure, past just the surface view of Chile. It promises to be a great time!

Man do I have so much to share about my life but I'll have mercy on you (and myself) and not type it all now. First off, last weekend I returned to Linares for the first time since being there in July. The first comment I got from my family (after a warm hug) was "Pato, porque tardaste tanto en regresar?" or "Why'd you take so long to come back?" I unfortunately didn't have a good answer and had to settle with the accurate but bad excuse that I've been busy. It was a great few days catching up with them and they were just as glad to see me as I was to see them. Linares is a much different city in the summer, with people wandering around town everywhere and no propane heaters and wood stoves going to keep the houses warm. It was especially great to share with them now that my Spanish has improved so much. Go figure, communication is easier when you speak the language better! On that topic, it's been really tough to gauge how much my Spanish actually has improved. It has probably changed little by little every week, which makes the progress very hard for me to see and appreciate. Sometimes I feel that I haven't learned very much at all, while others days I say things I didn't even know I knew how to say. The truth is that I am immensely more comfortable with speaking grammatically correct and at a faster pace. My accent, although far from perfect (I hate you "rr") has also improved dramatically.

I have also long since realized that I am going to blow through all my savings here (well, actually I'd already done that in 2 years at ND), but do not worry about this one bit. I travel as economically as possible and enjoy every minute of my time and haven't ever regretted a trip. The US dollar situation hasn't been helping though. Since getting here, the US dollar has fallen from being worth 538 Chilean pesos to it's current value of 480. This means that I'm basically getting $23 less every time I go to the ATM. Ouch!

I also got an awesome invitation this weekend from my Chilean friend David to go 9 hours South of Santiago to go fly-fishing in the mountains near Temuco. Sounds absolutely amazing right? Most unfortunately I had a test, mandatory program meeting, and online registration for ND classes that made it impossible to go. Any one of these problems alone could have been solved, but together it was just too much. I'll probably look back on this in a couple months and regret not doing more to work around these conflicts.

I've also been doing some thinking about the quirks of life in Santiago. First off, my basically $4 Chilean cellphone refuses to simply tell me I have a missed call and from whom but instead insists on sending me a text message with the number that called me, no name included. Really? You want me to look through every contact in my phone, scanning all the numbers to see who called? Also, La Católica has an absolutely mind-boggling printing system. Instead of having a simple computer lab and print release station like ND, La Católica insists on having someone work full time staffing the printer. Their sole job is to take my paper, put it in the printer, and then tell me to go to the release station, all of course done at a snail's pace. Does the administration really think that Chilean university students at the most prestigious school in the country are not capable of putting their own paper in the printer? Slightly more important than these two bothers is the commute time in Santiago. Every morning and every evening I have to take a combination metro and bus about an hour each way to get to school and back home. I try to read, do homework, read LonelyPlanet while planning a trip... but in a packed metro this isn't always possible. I guess this is the real world though and ND just spoils me.

Lastly, in order to end on a better note, the Santiago metro, which is the cleanest and best metro I've ever ridden by the way, just got even better. Come the summer heat, the fans on the platforms have little nozzles that spray water into the fan, cooling waiting passengers with just the right amount of water to be refreshing, but never enough to actually make you wet. It's awesome!

What a Weekend!

What a weekend this has been. I stayed in Santiago, but didn't really feel like I spent anytime at home, seeing as I went on day trips into the outskirts of Santiago Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Friday (after a Thursday night when we ended up in the same night club as the brother of the incumbent Chilean president!) we started off with an ND program tour to the primary wine growing region around Santiago. Chilean wines primarily come from 7 valleys stretching from several hundred miles north of Santiago to several hundred miles south. We visited 2 wineries, the ever-present Concha y Toro, which is the largest Chilean vineyard and a huge export name, as well as a boutique vineyard William Fevre, which is nearly 100% dedicated to export. Interestingly, this means we sampled from a bottle that was written partly in Portuguese and already had the label certifying which Brazilian company had imported it. I guess we beat them to it! The two setups were decidedly different, ranging from mass industrial production to smaller, more quality conscious production.

We took bikes around this beautiful wine region of Pirque, which despite being less than an hour outside of the hustle of Santiago, has a completely different feel to it. In my further pursuit of wine knowledge, I tasted a couple reds as well as one of the very few whites I have ever liked, a Concha y Toro Sauvignon Blanc Trio wine (made with grapes from three different valleys, hence the "trio" name). It resembled more of a desert than an actual wine, with an incredibly sweet green apple taste. Almost like a jolly rancher! The tour of Concha y Toro also brought us through the famed Casillero del Diablo (Devil's Locker) section, for which a popular line of wine is named. The legend of the name goes that over a hundred years ago one of the principal winemakers had noticed that some of his best bottles of wine were going missing from the cellar. In response, he invented a rumor that this specific section of the cellar was inhabited by the devil. As a result, the robberies stopped! Now there is even a devil silhouette painted on the wall to encourage the rumor (see the above picture). I have since tried the Casillero del Diablo Camenere and can speak for it's quality. Check out my other blog if you're interested in a more in-depth opinion (http://chilewinend.blogspot.com/). On an interesting side note, as this excursion was paid for through my Notre Dame tuition, this marked the first time that my tuition money was used for alcohol. Not that we've been looking for ways to use our dining hall flex points for this use or anything...

Saturday played host to my favorite program excursion so far, a horseback riding tour through the Andes. Part of what made this day trip so much fun was that we weren't riding through any public park, but instead private property. As a result, we saw no more than 5 other people all day, leaving us endless vistas to take in, in solitude. All in all, we rode about 6 or 7 hours, stopping halfway to barbecue some fantastic shish-kebabs next to a waterfall. It was a beautiful day, and I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. We also got the opportunity to see a handful of Andean Condors, absolutely gigantic birds that circle overhead looking for animal carcases to scavenge. I tried to attract one by playing dead on the top of a large hill, but with no success. Menos mal, as they say here in Chile, or a semi-sarcastic "thank goodness". On top of everything else, I had a great time talking to Esteban, our Chilean Politics, Economics, and Culture professor, about all his experience climbing the mountains in the Andes. I really wish I would have gotten more of this in, especially earlier in the semester when I had more time. I feel like I could spend another 6 months here purely climbing mountains, there are just that many peaks and the thrill is that big! I returned back to Santiago to spend the night with my Linares brother Carlos and his girlfriend Kelsey in their Santiago apartment.

The weather didn't cooperate as much today. When I set of early this morning (after a late night of course!), it was clear that it was gonna rain. Perfect for white-water rafting, right? A huge group of 19 of us ventured up in the Cajón del Maipo, a beautiful narrow river valley to the southeast of Santiago to brave the elements on this freezing cold day that was raining and never rose above 50*. Yet the rafting was incredible. They gave us all neoprene wetsuits, neoprene boots, and a thin jacket. It sure didn't keep us toasty, but it kept us warm enough to forget about the cold during the rafting. The rain probably helped the rapids as well, as they very strong, mainly class 3 with a couple class 4 sections. Man was it fun!

All in all, it's been a fantastic weekend, spent mainly in the outdoors. I've gotten to Sunday night here with a total of 13 hours of sleep the past 3 nights, but all was worth it. I am however going to bed now.

Spiderman

Atacama Salt Flat, Chile

Atacama Salt Flat, Chile

Machu Picchu, Peru (Let's hope you guessed that one)

BBQ in Mendoza, Argentina

Cerro Pochoco outside Santiago, Chile

Yes, Spiderman. Bare with me for a second. A good friend Amanda Helgerson gave me a Spiderman action figure/pool toy before I headed down to Chile with explicit instructions to take pictures of him everywhere I go. Despite my initial hesitation, I'm sure glad she gave it to me and that I've stuck with it. He goes everywhere with me and most places I actually remember about him, take him out of the bottom of my backpack, and snap a couple cool pictures. The other kids in my program have been following the progress too and have helped out with some awesome picture ideas. All the pictures are available on facebook, in a dedicated album for those of you with access. Otherwise, I've included the highlights here above.

If anyone has ideas for some creative pictures, I'd love to hear them

San Pedro de Atacama: a desert marvel

I've had a pretty busy week here in Santiago with an exam, paper, and of course trip planning (more on that later), so I'm sorry I'm just getting around to my updates. I spent the past weekend in San Pedro de Atacama, a tourist oasis in Northern Chile, with 3 other friends. Northern Chile is dominated by the Atacama Desert, the driest place in the world. Many places have not recorded any rain in recorded history! The relatively watery town of San Pedro (A booming metropolis of less than 2000 residents in the town proper. At any given time, there are thousands more tourists.) receives one sprinkling of rain a year. It is a beautiful desert town, carefully maintained so as not to become a sterilized tourist destination. The roads are all dirt (and rough!), the buildings are nearly all adobe, and I can't remember a single building that was over 1 story. Yet the truly awe-inspiring part of this area is found outside of the town. In a jam-packed weekend, we rented bikes, visiting Valle de la Muerte (Death Valley) and Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley), both incredible natural rock/sand/salt formations that are hard to comprehend. I've tried to capture the beauty in the photos above. We also rented sandboards one day (basically a snowboard) and rode down the massive sand dunes. It turned out to be easier than I expected (and easier than snowboarding), yet this doesn't mean I didn't have my fair share of wipe-outs. The most arduous part of the experience was however climbing back up the sand dunes. Climbing was made all the more difficult by the obnoxious tendency of sand to erode away every time you apply pressure! It was like putting in 3 times the effort for the distance you actually climbed.

We also took tours to Laguna Chaxa (Chaxa Lake), where we admired the Atacama Salt Flat (the 3rd largest in the world) and saw flamingos naturally inhabiting a salt lake, Lagunas Miscanti y Miñiques (Miscanti and Miñiques Lakes), a pair of intoxicatingly deep blue lakes at over 13,000 ft, Laguna Cejar (you get the translation by now right?), where we bathed in an incredible salt lake. The lake couldn't have been more than 200 ft across but is rumored to be up to a kilometer deep. This was likely my highlight of the trip, as the high salt content made the sensation of floating high in the water seem otherworldly. The last organized tour we took left at 4:00 am, catching a van to the El Tatio geyser field 14,000 ft high in the mountains. Despite the cold (nearly 10* F), the excursion was incredible. We had a truly unique breakfast including hot chocolate and hardboiled eggs prepared in a bubbling thermal pool and after went for a dip in the volcanic hot springs nearby. Getting out was near torturous, as the outside air temperature was probably barely above freezing.

The weekend was quite a bit different from my time in Santiago. Here in the capital, finding an English speaker (at least a decent one) is very hard. A very small percentage of Chileans speak English. In the tourist mecca that is San Pedro however, every tour guide spoke English. We did however always chose to conduct the tours in Spanish of course. It was also incredible to see how much the whole area is dependent upon tourism. At least 90% of the buildings you see in the town are hostels, restaurants, or tour agencies. On our tours we made small detours into towns with populations between 4 and 500, most of which greatly relied on tourism as a way of life. Thankfully, I found this didn't really sterilize the experience as much as I had expected. The town management has really done a great job of preserving the desert outpost feel.

San Pedro also allowed me an opportunity to fine tune my cooking skills. Despite the fact that about 15 of my friends from Notre Dame and Marquette were in San Pedro this weekend, I split off with 3 friends to make the planning and mobility easier. Despite curring myself ourselves off from many of our friends, I definitely found I prefer the smaller group experience. It simplifies all logistics and makes it a lot easier to meet other people. I did much of the cooking for the weekend. I kept it simple with pasta, rice, canned veggies, canned tuna, and instant oatmeal (and of course my trusty jar of peanut butter which I have found is invaluable as an easy breakfast/lunch/dinner/snack option on weekend trips), but the food turned out great, probably in large part because of the appetites we worked up during the days. Three things I learned from the cooking: 1)Rice cooks very slow, all the slower when you're starving, 2)1 kg of rice is an absurd amount of food for 4 people, especially when 2 of them are girls, and 3)Cooking isn't that bad, and can actually be kind of enjoyable (No this doesn't mean I'll cook every night back home mom!).

A couple last thoughts. My homework load here in Chile is so little that I find I spend more time every night planning trips, writing this blog, or even sorting through pictures than I actually do studying. This doesn't even consider my 1 hour commute to and from school every day or the time I spend with family/friends. It really is a nice work/leisure balance that I'll miss when I get back to ND. Also, much to my real mom and dad's dismay, in returning to Santiago from San Pedro, I actually had the sensation I was returning home! Kinda crazy seeing as I've only spent 4 months here, but a nice reflection. I guess Minnesota now has to compete with Notre Dame and Santiago for my home (just joking mom, please allow me to come back home...). Lastly, with summer arriving here, I've seen my brothers wearing the Minnesota Twins jersey/t-shirts I brought them as gifts. It's great to see, and they love them, even though they have no idea who Joe Mauer or Justin Morneau are (baseball isn't even a consideration here, completely supplanted by soccer, and to lesser extents tennis and basketball).

On to the last 3 weeks of classes before summer vacation! Can't wait to travel around the South and to show my family around Chile.