Mi Semestre en Chile

Chao Chile

2011-02-24T15:53:00.000-08:00

So after getting back to Chile I had a very sad realization to make. I had just a few days left in the country I had come to love so much. It wasn't going to be easy leaving the friends I'd made, with their great hospitality and sense of humor. But I was torn because at the same time, I was excited to get home to MN and ND and see all these friends I had missed. The biggest thing I'll miss from Chile is definitely my family. Even though I left to travel a lot of weekends, a whole semester is a long time to spend with a family and you get to know them really well. I'll miss playing ping-pong with my uncle Ricardo and sister Cami. Even though it's hard to admit, I'll miss Vale constantly criticizing and correcting my Spanish. I'll miss getting beat by my brothers time after time on the Wii but maybe showing them a little about playing soccer. I know I'm going to miss my dad Leo's amazing asados, or barbecues, every Sunday. I'll also miss talking all things soccer and especially Colo-Colo with my cousin Max and all my conversations predominantly about food with my mom Leticia. Last but not least, I'll miss the fun and always cheerful, even if somewhat random, conversations with Abueli, or my grandma. I know I'll go back to see them someday.

Lastly, a shameless plug for Chile. You should all visit. And what will you do with your time there? Well let me provide a few suggestions. First of all, you need to visit Valparaíso. It's so close to Santiago (which you will undoubtedly also visit) and such a unique city that it definitely merits a visit. After this, the best parts of Chile are at the extremes. The Atacama desert in the North is sensational, and the best place to explore the area is San Pedro de Atacama. After this, travel down the the Southern tip of the continent to Patagonia. The highlights here are Torres del Paine, La Carretera Austral, and Parque Pumalín, but you really can't go wrong visiting anything down here. I have no regrets from the semester except that I wish I had had more time.

New Years on the water and Buenos Aires

2011-02-24T15:51:00.000-08:00

The adventure continued as we left Patagonia. We spent one night in an incredibly uncomfortable car ferry where the crew thought it would be a good idea to play old John Travolta movies on full volume for the whole night. I mean, Saturday Night Fever really isn't that good. So after a very poor night of sleep, we headed out to the great national park Vicente Peréz Rosales. We saw more incredible volcanoes, the magnificent Petrohué waterfalls, and some more of the beautiful Chilean South. After a day in the park, exhausted, we climbed onto another overnight bus, meaning that for 2 straight nights now, we had not slept on anything resembling a bed. I'm real nice to my parents, aren't I? Immediately after getting into Santiago, we left our luggage at the bus stop baggage check and tried to find a bus out to Valparaíso. Buses are run by tons of companies and leave about every 10 minutes, but because this was New Years Eve, and Valparaíso is such a popular destination for this holiday (more to follow on this), buses were 100% sold out! So we bit the bullet, hired a private car, and made the trip out amongst what seemed like the rest of Santiago.

I soon had the opportunity to introduce my two families, as we were meeting my Chilean family in Valparaíso. Although I had introduced them over SKYPE, it was fun to introduce them in person. We had a great lunch and made our way down to the harbor for what was to be an amazing night. First of all, it's important to understand what Valparaíso means on New Years. Every single Chilean told me that I needed to do whatever possible to get to "Valpo" on New Years. Year after year, the spectacle is incredible, and as the bicentennial, this year promised to top the rest. So both families and other Chilean friends boarded a small boat and set off into bay. From here we had a perfect vantage point for the coordinated fireworks that ran up and down the coast for probably 25 miles. It was far and away the best fireworks show I have ever seen and left everyone in awe, made all the better by the fact that we were looking into the lit hills of Valpo behind the fireworks. Certainly something I will never forget. After the show, we had to get back to Santiago. Due to the popularity of New Years in Valpo, hotels and hostels literally up their prices by multiples of 5 to 10, so staying in Valpo was not really a feasible option. Instead, we were lucky enough to have my great Chilean host dad Leo champ up and drive the 2 hours back home. Despite our best efforts, we all fell asleep in the car, leaving Leo to carry the team.

Having my two families meet was absolutely fantastic. After a semester of trying to tell each family what my other family was like, it was great to get them together and see how shocked my sisters were that I looked so much like my brother and dad.

After a short stay in Santiago, we headed off to Buenos Aires, a must see destination in South America (I feel like I'm saying that about everywhere...). We rented an apartment in the really cool neighborhood of Recoleta and spent 5 days visiting as much as we could of this awesome city. It's very different from Santiago and was built when Argentina was the more prosperous country of the two (as opposed to Chile is today). This means that there are grand buildings mimicking the best of Europe all over the city. It's really a great city to walk around in and just kind of get lost. We spent time in the old port area of La Boca, which is also home to the much loved Boca Juniors soccer club. We toured the stadium and got a taste for how much Argentinians really do love their fútbol. We also spent some time in the cobblestone lined neighborhood of San Telmo, one of my favorites of BA, the large beautiful parks of Palermo, and the hectic downtown area of El Centro. Before South America, I'd never really realized the interest in visiting cemeteries, but the Recoleta Cemetery was a really cool attraction. But one of the highlights had to be the steak. Argentina is famous for its beef, and the acclaim is well deserved! One night my parents spoiled my brother and I by bringing us to one of the best steakhouses in BA, Cabaña Las Lilas. It was absolutely sensational, twice as good as any steak I've ever had in my life, easily. So tender and juicy, cooked perfectly. And to match every customers taste, the restaurant has an impressive 100 page wine menu! Somewhat overwhelming to say the least. But our time in BA came to an end and we boarded our plane back to Santiago.

La Carretera Austral

2011-02-21T15:48:00.000-08:00

From Puerto Montt (near Puerto Varas), my family and I rented an awesome pickup truck, outfitted it with a flashy tarp to waterproof the bed, and boarded an overnight ferry to Chaitén, a major starting place for the famous Carretera Austral, or Southern Highway. Chaitén itself was largely destroyed by the 2008 eruption of nearby Volcán Chaitén. Today it's an eerie sight, still littered with abandoned and destroyed homes and covered in volcanic ash. It's very much a ghost town and reminds me of the descriptions in Cormac McCarthy's book "The Road" if anyone has read that (or seen the movie). A little background on La Carretera. The farther South you get in Chile, the harder it becomes to navigate. The country starts to become a multitude of islands instead of a continental mainland, and the mountains make the terrain very rough. But during the 1970s and 1980s, the Chilean government decided to connect the small isolated towns with a major highway. But lets be honest, the "highway" is just a glorified dirt road through the most beautiful landscape I have ever seen.

The road meanders through mountains, over rivers, past waterfalls and glaciers and through ancient forests. It's a very windy road, full of pot-holes, and rarely wide enough for two cars to pass comfortably. The combination of the dangerous road and beautiful scenery force you to drive slowly both for safety and for an opportunity to draw all the sites in. Although I had anticipated slow moving on the road, I had been overly optimistic and we soon realized that for the next 5 days we were going to be driving about 10 hours a day, a pretty major undertaking. Our first day of driving brought us down to Coyhaique, the largest city within hundreds of miles with a whopping population of about 45,000. As the major draw for us was not the cities/towns, we didn't spend much time in Coyhaique but instead continued down to Chile Chico the next day. Set on the southern end of Lago General Carrera, the biggest lake in Chile, it sits just a couple miles from the Argentinian border. The drive into town is easily the most incredibly driving I've ever done. With a steep cliff up to your right and an equally steep cliff down into the lake on your left, the windy and narrow road requires every bit of concentration you have as a driver. We spent a day of rest here, visiting a nearby national park with ancient hand paintings before heading back north. This is also where we spent Christmas. Let me tell you, it's strange to celebrate Christmas without snow, but even stranger for it to be the summer. Something just didn't feel right. Especially since most of the decorations are based off of Christmas in the Northern Hemisphere, so Santa is dressed in a winter jacket and is surrounded by snow. Whatever...

Thanks to the kindness of a Chilean man we met at our hostel, we were able to take his spot on a car ferry and save several hours of driving and see a slightly different part of the landscape. We continued north past Coyhaique to Puerto Chacabuco, a major drop off for cruises in the area and spent the night in 4-star luxury at the only real destination in the port town. The town wasn't much to see, but it fell on a good spot on our route and let us sleep well for a night and gave us the first internet access in several days (something very important when I realized the ferry company was about to cancel our return trip from Chaitén to Puerto Montt!). After sorting that mess out, we set off the next morning to a highlight of the trip, Parque Pumalín, a monstrous private park founded and owned by Doug Tompkins, the founder of North Face. He bought the land to protect it from further development and has created an absolutely amazing place. Despite suffering damage from the same eruption of Volcán Chaitén, the park was just recently reopened when we visited and was absolutely amazing. From ancient and gigantic alerce trees (Chile's version of the redwoods) to dolphins and beautiful waterfalls, it's an incredible area where we all wish we could have spent more time.

Pickin up the Fam

2011-02-21T15:47:00.000-08:00

After a nice overnight bus ride to Santiago, I got to pick up my family at the airport. We were both pretty exhausted from the previous night's travels, but I decided it was still a good idea to run the ragged around Santiago. We hit a lot of the big hotspots in Santiago like Cerro Santa Lucia, La Moneda Palace, and my favorite ice cream place, Emporio La Rosa. It was great to see them and be able to show them around my home for the past 5 months. That night, in order to not let them get too comfortable in their new surroundings, we took an overnight bus right back to Pucón (wasn't I just there not 24 hours earlier?). I wanted to make the most of their time here and knew we'd have time in Santiago later in the trip. The only difference about this bus trip was that we opted for the luxurious cama, or bed seats, with comfy seats that fold almost flat. It's nice to travel on something more than a shoe-string budget!

In Pucón, I had saved the best tour to do with my family, the all day ascent of Volcán Villarica. At over 9000 ft, and as one of Chile's most active volcanoes, it is truly a big undertaking. We were equipped with a full jacket and snowpants suit, climbing boots, an ice pick, helmet, and crampons (metal spikes for your boots) in order to help us climb the snow covered smoking volcano. It took a lot of effort, and got steadily colder as we got near the top but we made it. An unexpected consequence of this was that we were stuck breathing in toxic sulfuric gas, a sensation that made for just a quick stop at the summit. After the requisite pictures, we started the descent, a giant sled ride. We strapped canvas sheets to our butts and slide the whole length of the volcano, a distance that had taken us about 4 hours to climb. Needless to say, the ride down was a lot quicker and I was surprised at the speed that we picked up. In Pucón we also did the most extreme white water rafting I've ever seen, a class IV+ descent of the Rio Trancura. The river was so rough that at one point, we actually had to get out of the raft and walk past an especially rough section while our guide maneuvered it.

After Pucón, we headed farther south to the beautiful town of Puerto Varas, another German-influenced town set on Lago Llanquihue. We strolled the streets, grabbed some empanadas, found a dog that wouldn't leave us, and eventually visited a small little restaurant that famous food critic Anthony Bourdain had visited a year back. Awesome seafood place called Donde el Gordito, or "Where the Fatty."

El Sur: Chiloe, Valdivia, Pucon

2011-02-10T11:21:00.000-08:00

My next stop as I ventured farther north was the island of Chiloe, famous for its myths and legends. My first stop on the island was the Chiloe National Park on the Pacific coast. To try to understand the beauty, try to imagine a pristine coast, surrounded by dense lush forest with absolutely zero developed tourism. Think Hawaii minus the tourists and hotels. As you can imagine, getting to this somewhat remote area took a little bit of effort, but was not without its own value. I actually ran into a group of Notre Dame grads, as well as a couple of students from Carleton College in MN who ran cross-country with a high school friend and recognized my Armstrong High School windbreaker. I ended up hanging out with these guys for the next couple days and had a blast. We managed to bargain our way into a night in an unfurnished cabin right in the park for the whopping price of $7 each! I've never been so pleased to throw a sleeping bag on the hard floor. After the national park, we headed to Castro, the capital of the island. The island is famous for its seafood and palafitos, or houses on stilts hanging over the water. It's a really unique city and I wish I would have had more time to explore. As far as food went, I grabbed a $2 bowl of choritos, or mussels, from a vendor and ate my fill of a pichanga, or a plate of french fries covered with steak, chicken, sausage, cheese, avocado, tomato, onion, and just about everything else you could imagine. A delicious heart attack waiting to happen!

The next stop was Valdivia, a college-town with heavy German influence built on the convergence of two rivers. I enjoyed it because it isn't your typical sterile tourist town, but rather a hardworking and sometimes dirty city with some real character. One day in Valdivia I bussed/hitch-hiked on a school bus out to Curiñanco, a small, rarely visited private park set beautifully on the coast. As I pushed my way through overgrown trails, it was obvious that no one had been here for a while. Another big destination in Valdivia is the famous Kuntsmann brewery, home of the definitive best beer in Chile. They've got about 8 beers on tap, some of which are unfiltered varieties that are not sold elsewhere, and it's easy to see why we decided that this would be the perfect place to celebrate Shu's 21st birthday. I had met up with him here in Valdivia for this very purpose. We ordered a columna of beer, or a big giant 3 liter, probably meter tall, tube of Torobayo sin filtrar, our definitive choice after running through the taste tests of the others. We mixed the beer with the biggest burgers I have ever seen and had a great time.

I headed east to Villarica and Pucón, two cities that sit on opposite sides of Lago Villarica and in close proximity to the famous Volcán Villarica (more to come on that in the next post). The first day, after staying in a great hostel owned by a Swiss couple, I set off on a full-day mountain bike trip to the base of the volcano. It was exhausting, but something about having an active volcano in front of you the whole time is oddly inspiring and motivational. In Pucón, the undisputed adventure capital of Chile, I did my best to tackle all the adventure I could. The first day I went hydrospeeding, a sport I had never heard of, but knew I had to do as soon as someone told me about it. It involves putting on a wetsuit, flippers, and a helmet, grabbing a glorified boogie board, and running down class IV rapids. The guide actually sent us down the more extreme of the two rivers near Pucón, something he hadn't even done in several months. It was a pure adrenaline ride. Check out this video. It's hard to make out which guy is me, but you get the idea. The next day, I went zip-lining through a canopy course. There were about 15 wires hanging from trees more than a hundred feet up in the air. The biggest thrill was going across the same river that I had hydrospeeded on the previous day. Although safety was definitely very relaxed, and involved us actually clipping ourselves in and out without a safety line, it was a blast and am glad I did it (good logic, right mom!). I also went for a day-hike in the nature sanctuary El Cañi, and climbed to a spectacular lookout with views of 5 surrounding volcanoes.

More Patagonia: Glaciers and Fjords

2011-02-10T11:17:00.000-08:00

So after Torres del Paine, I set off from the group for a little solo travel. This was something my adventurous self was looking forward to all semester. The first stop was the Argentinian town of El Calafate, famous for it's proximity to the Perito Moreno Glacier. So I was on my own here, excited about not having to balance my schedule and what I wanted to do with anyone else as well as the chance to meet a ton of new people. Well what do you know, I run into 7 friends from La Universidad Catolica! They were visiting the glacier before going to Torres del Paine and I decided to head out the next morning with them to check out the glacier. Incredible! The glacier itself isn't all that big in relation of many other glaciers in Patagonia, but it is unique because of how close you can get to it. Standing on a series of walkways on the shore, you can watch chunks of the glacier fall off and shatter into the water or on top of other ice. It's an incredible sight but an even more incredible sound. The glacier is also famous for it's occasional "rupture," where it has partially dammed the lake and the building pressure leads to what I assume is an insane explosion. I didn't get to see it, but check out minute 2:15 of this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXsJJKSpBH8

As for the rest of El Calafate, it is very touristy, but set on the shore of Lago Argentino, the largest lake in Argentina. Like most other Patagonian lakes, it exhibits a beautiful turquoise color. I was also lucky enough to get the very last bus ticket out of El Calafate for Puerto Natales in a span of 3 days! This was hugely important because I had a boat to catch.

This boat was something special. Earlier in the semester, after reading through my trusty Lonely Planet guidebook, I found something that really caught my attention. The company Navimag ran 4 day tours on an old converted shipping freighter through the Patagonian fjords. When I say converted, I don't mean completely converted. Our ship was still predominantly a shipping freighter, carrying semi trucks, personal cars, live sheep and cows, and who knows what else. The upper decks had been converted to modest bedrooms and a simple cafeteria. The trip was absolutely amazing, despite the poor weather. I met a ton of other travelers from all over the world and found that speaking English as a native language is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, I rarely got a chance to practice my Spanish while travelling around here because nearly every European traveler is more comfortable speaking English than they are Spanish. Yet on the other hand, it is convenient to be able to communicate with everyone in your native language.

While most of the boat trip was through the calm waters of the fjords, in order to make it to Puerto Montt, our destination farther North, we did have to brave the open Pacific Ocean for 14 hours. The crew warned us about getting seasick and recommended that we take medication if we were prone to seasickness. Having never really experience the rough ocean, I thought I'd ride this one out and see how I felt. This was part stubborn arrogance, but also part curiosity. How was I to ever learn if I'm prone to seasickness if I never actually try it. I think you know where this is going. Despite my best efforts, I did get seasick and ended up puking over the side of the boat (The crew called this "feeding the dolphins" if you want to use your imagination). The next night, our final night on-board, after a good night's rest and recovery, we had bingo night and a dance. This was a lot of fun, and dancing on a moving ship (albeit less than the night before) is a unique experience. We landed the next morning in Puerto Montt.

Patagonia was simply amazing, far and away my favorite part of Chile. The landscape is breathtaking, the sights are almost unending, and the weather is pretty awful (but exciting!). It was certainly a different experience than most other parts of Chile, especially Santiago. Unlike the capital, tourists from around the world flood to Patagonia. I met Russians, Frenchies, Finns, Aussies, and just about anyone else you could think of. The highest concentrations of tourists were definitely from Germany, Switzerland, and Israel. Most are travelling for independently several months and often have plans to visit most of South America and then move on to South-East Asia. Their plans made me pretty jealous, but I'll have other chances to travel.

Torres del Paine and other Patagonian adventures

2011-02-10T11:15:00.000-08:00

So this is overdue. The last month and a half or so of Chile was really hectic and getting back home and settling into life at ND has been pretty busy and I've neglected finishing up the blog. Unfortunately, although this last month was possibly the most interesting and exciting part of the trip, I'm gonna have to run through the highlights quickly.

First off, I flew from Santiago to Punta Arenas, the southernmost city on the South American continent. First thing I noticed was the cold. You are literally so far South at this point that it didn't feel like summer. A couple of the highlights in Punta Arenas were taking a day trip out to Isla Magdalena, a penguin sanctuary in the Strait of Magellan. This was unbelievable! The island had 100,000+ penguins, and they were scattered around everywhere, digging their nests, coming in from fishing, or just not doing much. As an added bonus, we saw dolphins on the 2 hour boat ride to the island and a whale on the way back. Another highlight of Punta Arenas was the cemetery. Patagonia gained all its wealth through giant sheep farms, and many of the families were quite rich. Walking through the cemetery was an interesting look back at this wealth through the elaborate mausoleums.

We next took a bus up to Puerto Natales, a small, quiet town most famous as the gateway to Torres del Paine National Park. As we arrived the evening before we were going to enter the park, rounding up all our rental gear was pretty hectic. Matters were made worse by the fact that 1/2 of our group had missed their plane our of Santiago and weren't going to be getting into Puerto Natales until around 2:00 am. After a couple hours of running crazily around town to round up all the required gear, we finally had it all. A bit of unneeded stress, but hey, one of the rental shop guys gave me a free winter cap because I came back so many times with more business!

The next morning came early, but we boarded the bus at 7:30 and made it into Torres del Paine. The park is phenomenal! A must see for anyone going down there. We did the classic "W" hiking loop, a 5 day trek, carrying all our gear. Above all else, we got a great appreciation for the weather. They say you can have 4 seasons in a single day down here, and that is 100% correct. We hiked through rain (luckily never very heavy), cold, and even a pretty fierce snow storm. But far and away, the wind was the most intense. Wind gusts can come at up to 120 mph and make you feel like you're going to be blown to the ground. It seemed humorous at first when we looked at the park map and there were sections of the trail that had warning signs for strong winds, but after our first day in the park, we knew that this was in fact a serious warning. As for the sights, they were simply breathtaking. The park is named after 3 granite towers (Las Torres) that are reached by a strenuous uphill climb, but in my opinion, Los Cuernos (the horns), a series of sharp jagged light colored granite rock formations that are tipped by darker granite, are even more impressive. Not to be left out, Glacier Grey is an gigantic glacier covering half of the creatively named Grey Lake that looks to be caught up on a giant island in the middle.

On a side note, it seems that every trip I took in Chile involved at least one day of waking up at the insane hour of 4:00 am. In Peru, we woke up early to get into Machu Picchu. In San Pedro de Atacama, we woke up at the same time to visit the geyser fields. And here in Torres del Paine, we woke up around 4:00 am on the last day in order to climb up to Las Torres in time to catch the sunrise up there. While it was a great experience to climb with a headlamp in the dark, the morning was unfortunately too cloudy for us to see the famous red glow of Las Torres when the sun strikes them in the morning. Oh well, it's not like they weren't amazing anyways!

Thanksgiving and the End of Responsibilities

2010-11-25T10:47:00.001-08:00

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

2010-11-19T14:03:00.001-08:00

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!

2010-11-07T17:04:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-04T15:36:00.001-07:00

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

2010-11-04T14:24:00.000-07:00

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.

Chile: Land of the Asado

2010-10-27T17:11:00.001-07:00

So on Sunday I rounded out my 4th straight day of asados, or barbecues. What a great stretch that was! Chileans love to grill, the meat ranging from choripan (chorizo + pan, or spicy sausage + bread) to pork to steak, and basically any other type of meat you could grill. Thursday night I had an asado with David, a Chilean friend of mine I met through a university program designed to help each of us practice our Spanish/English, David's brother, a friend of his, and my boy Shu. We grilled out on the 14th floor of his apartment complex. The views were incredible, and even better once the sun went down and the Santiago lights sprung to life. I can't get over how massive the city is. The lights stretch until the mountains in all directions. It's a city of close to 6.5 million people, but there are so few skyscrapers, that everybody is spread out horizontally instead of vertically as I am used to in major cities. Aside from certain small parts of more "downtown" areas, Santiago is dominated by one and two story houses and buildings. We ended up eating the meat in the dark, as we couldn't find the light switch on the roof, but had an absolutely great time. In the process, I discovered a great beer (imagine that, at a barbecue!). Austral, which is brewed in Punta Arenas, the southernmost major city in Chile (and for that matter continental South America) and is exceptional. I'd tried the standard Lager before, but on Thursday tried the Calafate Ale, made in part from a special berry (calafate) only found in Patagonia. I'm not usually a flavored beer fan, but the calafate was mild enough to add just the right hint of flavor.

The next couple of days of asados were at a friends' apartment or organized by CAUC, the university group that welcomes exchange students and plans events for them, and. Both a lot of fun, even though the security guards at the friends' apartment decided that we weren't allowed to grill on the rooftop deck. Instead we cooked on the stovetop in the apartment and carried the food upstairs, kinda unfortunate. Sunday was a special day here at my house. My dad Leo and brother Luca both had birthdays. After going swimming in the morning with my brother and his friends, I spent the afternoon and evening relaxing with my family and EATING! Leo really outdid himself on the grill this weekend (yes, he chose to cook his own birthday meal). After having my share of shish-kebabs, I dug into the biggest, juiciest steak I've eaten here in Chile. Delicious! There ended up being so much extra food as well that I had to politely keep declining more. Thankfully, I've gotten to eat the leftovers the past couple of days.

We also ate our fair share of deserts, including cake, ice cream, and homemade chocolate chip cookies made by yours truly. After emailing my real mom for the recipe and chasing around for brown sugar and baking soda (the two hardest things to come by) I got to work with the help of my brother and cousin and we whipped up some pretty impressive cookies. A couple of notes. Cookie dough gets WAY bigger when cooked, good to know for next time. Also, baking soda is bicarbonato de soda in Spanish speaking countries if any of you ever have the need to know. I had some trouble tracking this down, figuring out what was baking soda and what was baking powder here, and finally understanding that i had the right stuff even though my family never uses bicarbonato de soda for cooking but instead for cleaning. In the end, the cookies turned out great and my family loved them.

I'm particularly proud of the gifts I gave my family. Luca got the biggest bar of Toblerone chocolate I could find, 400 g, and loved it! My dad got a pack of homemade Dos Equis beer. Good story behind that one. Leo looks inexplicably similar to "The Most Interesting Man in the World" from the Dos Equis commercials. If you guys don't know them, definitely YouTube it. His picture is also in the picture below (the TV personality that is). So I figured it'd be a great idea to get him some Dos Equis. Only problem is, it can't be found here in Chile. So as a solution, I bought a pack of Austral Lager, the closest tasting beer I know of here, printed off my own Dos Equis labels, and wrapped it up. It turned out great and both of them loved their presents.

Last bit for tonight. I ran a 10 km race today at La Católica. It was a race put on by the PE department, and unlike most races in the US, wasn't done for a charitable cause, but instead to encourage exercise. It went great and I beat my goal.

Some More General Reflections

2010-10-17T20:13:00.001-07:00

I've got some time here and quickly wanted to fill you in on some more general things going on here in Chile. I'm still making every possible effort to speak Spanish and only Spanish. It's gotten hard, especially when the majority of the kids in my program (and therefore many of my classes) are speaking a lot of English, but it's become quite normal to think and speak in Spanish! I have a lot of Spanish-English conversations, but this hasn't really been a hassle. The way I see it my Spanish speaking could use more work than my understanding, which is usually the way it goes with languages, so I'm getting tons of practice with the part I need most. Although it's been a gradual change throughout the semester, and therefore harder to notice, looking back I do realize that my ability to speak coherently, quickly, and with a semi-decent accent (frikkin "rr" sound!) has improved immensely. As I assume is normal, some days are harder than others, and some times I feel as if I've plateaued in my ability to learn more, yet other days I pull out phrases, words, grammatical nuances, and a general fluidity I didn't know I had. Needless to say, it's been fun and rewarding. The one thing that has been giving me the most trouble is humor. Whereas in English I feel as if I can throw in a quick expression, a bit or sarcasm, or some other quick jive to pull out a bit of humor (you are all free to disagree!), this is harder in Spanish. As a result, I feel as though while speaking in Spanish, I am a more serious and introverted person. An interesting observation I've come across that shows the real valuable parts of spending serious time in a foreign country. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up a little more wittiness soon.

Next I'd like to shed a little more light on my favorite class here, Chilean Politics, Economy, and Culture, taught by an ND guy on staff here, Esteban Montes. First of all, Esteban is one of the most interesting professors I've ever had. Dynamic speaker, great ability to explain things in a manner we can understand, and of course first hand information on our subject matter. He is Chilean after all. The class has really taught me to appreciate the opportunity to study in Chile. I have to admit, I didn't know much about Chile before coming down here, but the country is just dynamic. It's so different from so many other countries I've learned about or visited. Some interesting facts I've learned: It absolutely controls the global copper market (with something like 1/3 of the global production); it has gone from being one of the poorest South American country 100 years ago to the richest per capita today; 4 families own 50% of the value of the Chilean Stock Exchange; the local indigenous population (Mapuche) were the most effective in all the Americas in fighting off the Europeans (this unfortunately means that poor relations between the Chilean government and the Mapuches still exists); despite being so successful at fostering economic growth and eliminating poverty, Chile is one of the most economically unequal countries in the whole world today... and on and on the list goes. I love the experience of being here more and more each day. Both in and out of class I'm learning things about Chile, the US, and myself that I just don't think I'd be learning back at ND due to the different culture and social setting.

Back to my adventures. Last Sunday I went to a Chilean soccer game between Colo Colo and La Universidad Católica. Despite being named after the university where I study, La Cato (as they call the team) doesn't currently have any connection. The name comes from the foundation of the team, when the university was involved. Colo Colo is the most popular team in Chile, often considered "the people's team" and also the most flaite, or ghetto. La Cato on the other side is regarded as the most cuico, or snobbish and elitist (probably from its roots alongside the university). This made for an intoxicating environment. We went with a group of about 18 (nightmare of a ticket organization), all of us sitting amongst the Colo Colo fans, and some of them rooting stronger than others (yours truly included). Needless to say, we didn't let anyone know we actually atended La Cato! The game was at least twice as crazy as the game in Argentina I told you about. It was completely sold out, and even though we arrived about 30 minutes early, we had trouble finding seats and all had to split up. From the report I heard, there were 700 carabineros, or Chilean policemen that often more resemble military, all dressed head to toe in riot gear. We bought tickets in the 2nd craziest section (craziest was all sold out), which in addition to being separated from the calmer sections (keep in mind no section was actually calm) with barbed wire, was also separated from the truly crazies, La Garra Blanca (the white claw) by more barbed wire. The game was intense, the fans were disrespectful, the refs and players from La Cato were verbally harassed beyond belief... AND IT WAS AWESOME. As my program has over twice as many girls as it does boys, I was privileged to sit with 4 gringas from ND amongst hoards of drunken Latin Americans. Boy did the guys love flirting with the girls! My nickname immediately became cuñado, or brother-in-law, because the Chileans all wanted to marry the gringas. After a great game, Colo Colo came out on top 3-2 and we celebrated the whole metro ride home. Great way to spend a Sunday.

Machu Picchu and Peru

2010-10-17T18:52:00.000-07:00

Machu Picchu... so where do I start. Well 7 of my friends and I spent the past week in Cusco, Peru, one of the greatest historical cities of the Americas. The main highlight of the trip was certainly the day we spent at Machu Picchu. The secluded and sufficiently hard to get to ancient Inca city took us a taxi ride, train ride, and bus ride to get to, but man was it worth it. I decided to pass on the extremely popular Inca Trail 4 day hike. Although I'm sure it would have been a great time, it was pricey and due to porters, sleeping in pre-arranged camping villages and eating food prepared by the guides, it wasn't really the hiking experience I would have been looking for. I'd much prefer a more individual hike, without the masses of people, and one that relies on my own ability to carry my pack, pitch my tent, and cook my food.

Instead, we took the other very popular Machu Picchu strategy, staying a night at Aguas Calientes (AKA Machu Picchu Pueblo, the town at the base of the mountain containing the ruins) and waking up obscenely early in order to be one of the first 400 people into the park, allowing us to climb Wayna Picchu, the mountain seen in the background of my ubiquitous post-card shot above. The summit promised truly unique views looking down upon Machu Picchu from about 1000 feet above. Our day started at 4:00, when we awoke in our hostel, with plans to hike up to the monument in the dark, assuring us one of the first spots in line when they opened the doors at 6:00. One problem... it was pouring rain! As a steep climb through mud and slippery stone stairs didn't seem to make a ton of sense, we instead went and stood in line for the first bus, departing at 5:30. After getting our spot in the surprisingly long line for such an early hour, we secured our spot to climb Wayna Picchu, as well as the opportunity to explore Machu Picchu before the masses of tourists arrived on their day trip from Cusco..

Through the pouring rain, we trekked our way up the steep steps of Wayna Picchu, stopping frequently to catch our breath in the thin air and snap some impressive pictures (A great excuse to catch our breath!). Machu Picchu itself is not only amazing, but the surrounding mountains are also awe inspiring, their steep, vegetation covered cliffs simply gorgeous. Although at first the rain seemed to be a damper on our special day, the combination of the clouds, fog, and rain added a mystical sense to the already magical place. Weird as it is, I think I actually had a better time at Machu Picchu because it was raining! After descending from Wayna Picchu, realizing we still had a full day ahead of us (it was only about 9:00!), we started exploring the wonder that is Machu Picchu, being simply amazed with ever corner we turned. Without a doubt, THE coolest place I've ever visited in my life, combining natural beauty with amazing architectural accomplishments. It just doesn't seem sensible, let alone possible to build a city in such a remote area. I wish the pictures could do the place justice, but they can't. I found it fascinating to sit up on a high hill and just imagine what the city must have been like with real life, not hundreds of tourists running around.

After Machu Picchu, I realized that the rest of the Sacred Valley of the Inca's, home to many other spectacular Inca sites was going to have a real hard time living up to the thrills of the main attraction. Despite thinking that we maybe should have visited these ruins first, saving the best for last, the ruins of Ollantaytambo, Moray, and Pisac did not disappoint. We spent a night in Ollantaytambo, waking up early to visit the ruins in town and rent a taxi for basically the whole day (for only $10!) to visit the surprisingly distant ruins of Moray and Pisac. I found the concentric circles of terraces used as an agricultural laboratory at Moray to be especially interesting and loved our 4 km hike down Inca trails and stairs from the hilltop citadel at Pisac.

After getting back to Cusco, we spent our time visiting some ruins in town (most notably ancient Inca walls that are still in flawless condition) and and a couple of museums. But the highlight of Cusco was the food. Peruvian food is delicious, cheap, delicious, and cheap. Oh, and delicious. I ate every strange thing I could get my hands on. Topping the list was anticucho de corazon (shish-kebabed cow heart), but close seconds were ceviche (raw trout marinated in lemon), cuy (guinea pig), and alpaca (relative of the llama). For those of you who are curious, the heart tastes very much like regular steak, but with a much more intense flavor and extremely tender, ceviche tastes like lemony sushi, guinea pig tastes like chicken, and alpaca tastes like a mixture between pork and lamb. Man, food may very well be my favorite part of travelling!

A cool unexpected addition to my stay in Cusco was catching the end of a rally car stage on Wednesday night. As this didn't really interest the rest of my group as much as me, I joined the crowds and listened as the cars flew by, engines sounding like airplane jets. The sounds were intoxicating, well at least to a car buff like me they were.

An unfortunate aspect of my trip in Peru was that I missed the rescue of the 33 miners trapped in Northern Chile. Truly an amazing story that has captured everyone here in Chile and many outside. There is some serious Chilean pride in the air for the successful rescue. I'll plan to fill you in on more Chilean news in my next post.

On some other notes, I shaved my beard off. It was great while it lasted but wore off it's appeal to me and became more of an annoyance. It never really looked great, and I had a lot of bare spots, but it showed potential.

I also went to a Dave Matthews Band concert last night in Santiago. Not exactly immersing myself in the South American culture, but hey, it was a great time. Dave has really compiled an amazing group of musicians in his band, joining together for a truly unique sound. Highly recommended for anyone who has the opportunity to catch a concert.

Lastly, I took a trip back to my favorite South American city Valparaíso this past Friday and Saturday (Cusco being my second favorite). This time I went with my ND program. We had a fantastic tour, our guide sharing many of the eccentricities of the city with us. The fantastic colors, old port influence, and openness to showing the tourist everything about the city from the beauty to the ugly parts has really attracted me. I keep describing it as a beautiful city to my host sister and she keeps refuting me that it is not beautiful. It may be unique, fascinating, or interesting, but she holds beautiful is not the right word (probably with some truth).

That's all I've got tonight. I hope everyone back home is doing well. I miss you, but not enough that I want to come home yet! :)

Tour de Mendoza

2010-10-04T06:32:00.001-07:00

I just got back from a great weekend in Mendoza, Argentina on Sunday. Along with Chris and Shu, two guys from ND, I traversed the Andes Mountains by bus and spent a long weekend exploring the Argentinian city. It was great to get out of Chile (although I love Chile) and see a different part of South America. The bus trip over took about 6 hours of driving and an hour and a half of waiting at customs at the border, but WOW was it a great bus trip! The scenery was so incredible that this might actually have been my favorite part of the trip. There are not very many mountain passes between the two countries and most are closed during the winter because they are often impassable with the snow. On the other hand, in the heart of summer vacation time, getting through customs can take a whopping 7 hours! I´ve included pictures from the trip above, but the pictures just don´t do the mountains justice. The Andes dwarf you and the road is built on a steep hill with a precipitous drop-off. Driving a car here takes a strong stomach, let alone a 40+ pasenger bus.

To give you a perspective on the rest of the trip, it suffices to say that we slept all of about 7 hours all weekend. Kinda makes you wonder why we even paid for the hostel... We were busy. After arriving real early Friday morning, we found a breakfast cafe, dropped our stuff off at the hostel and set off to nearby Maipu, known for it´s numerous vineyards. Here we rented bikes for the day and set off for one of the best days of my trip so far. After riding down 7 km, with a bats-out-of-hell pace, we stopped at our first vineyard, Carinae, a little boutique winery owned by a French couple. We toured the traditional artesenal factory and reserves and followed this with a delicious tasting. After discovering that the olive oil factory across the street was closed, we set off for another vineyard, Vistandes, a larger, more modern production. And so continued our day, visiting wineries, a beer garden, and a liquor/chocolate/jam factory. In the end, I can honestly say I learned a lot about wine tasting. My expertise went from being able to distinguish a white wine from a red wine before the trip, to being able to distinguish a young wine from one that has been aged in oak. Not bad for a days work!

After the exhausting day, we went to an all-you-can-eat buffet. For $12 USD I ate my heart's content (and more) of Argentinian beef, pork, and chicken. Argentina is known for it's high quality cheap meat, and it certainly didn't disappoint. As for the Argentinian beer, let's just say I was less than impressed. For a country with so many German immigrants, they should really have better beer. We did manage to find some descent ones, but it took a lot of searching and the mainstream brands taste like water (cough, cough... Quilmes). Wine's a better accompaniment to steak anyways.

Our second day was spent wandering around Mendoza, appreciating the relaxed feel of the city. Coming from Santiago, it really feels tiny. The highlight of the day was however a soccer game. Shu and Chris were in a small soccer shop looking at some jerseys when the store keeper told us about a big soccer game that was in town. We didn't have anything better to do, so we made our way over to the stadium, bought some tickets with the crazy fanatics (we supported Godoy Cruz, the Mendoza team, over Independiente), and entered into one of the craziest atmospheres I have ever experienced. I thought ND fans could get wild, but I'm sorry, we don't even compare. I'll try to give you the best impression of the populares section, as they call the seats for the hardcore fans behind each net, as I can. First of all, the entire section was encircled with barbed wire, in order to keep these fans away from the families that were sitting in other sections and probably more importantly, the fanatics of the other team. Inside the barbed wire it was lawless. There were people next to us smoking marijuana, 10 year old kids swearing their mouths off, and fans throwing objects at the cops (they were behind a fence and wearing complete riot gear so no harm was done). Although there were probably over 100 police officers at the game, exactly zero were inside these populares sections. They were however strategically positioned outside of the section in order to prevent the spread of the lawlessness. The game was a blast, as Godoy Cruz breezed to a 4-1 victory. Not too bad for a team we decided to root for only on the way into the stadium, without any prior knowledge.

As for the Argentinians, I loved them. They are characteristically very outgoing and talk with a really cool accent. It was a little tough getting used to it after becoming accustomed to Chilean Spanish but everything worked out. As is the case in Chile, we also found in Argentina that random people on the street started impromptu conversations with us, loving to share whatever tid-bit of their culture they could. In both countries, they are very happy and proud that we have chosen to study abroad in their country.

As for the Chilean side of my weekend, my program attended a beautiful folkloric dance show by BAFONA (Baile Folcrórico Nacional) on Thursday before we headed out to Mendoza. BAFONA is one of the best known Chilean folkloric dance groups and they didn't disappoint, performing dances from Northern Chile, Central Chile, Southern Chile, and Easter Island (owned by Chile). I've gotten a ton of chances to see Chilean dancing while here, but this was clearly the most professionally performed with the best dancers (although I have to say that the show by my two brothers at their school was also pretty awesome!). We were also surprised to hear that the Chinese ambassador to Chile was in attendance and was brought up on stage with many other people from the audience at the end of the show to dance the cueca, Chile's national dance. That guy can move!

Sorry about the length, I just didn't want to leave anything out. I wish I could say future posts will be shorter, but I am heading off to Peru on Thursday to visit Cusco, Machu Picchu, and the surrounding Sacred Valley. Therefore, my next post will probably be a long one as well.

Pomaire, home of the clay potters

2010-09-28T18:39:00.000-07:00

So last Saturday my ND program took a trip to Pomaire, a small town about an hour outside of Santiago known for all the people who work with clay. First thing in the morning, we visited a house and met the family who lived there. They would serve as our tour guides and hosts for the day. We had an excellent breakfast at their house, complete with bread, jam, cheese, and an assortment of pastries. The house in and of itself was incredible. It was set back towards a hill, down a long dirt driveway, and had been made by the family themselves. After breakfast we set out for our tour.

Our first stop was the workshop for a couple of potters. But unlike most other shops, these guys worked the whole process. The greda, or clay, is brought in by the truckload, looking like nothing more than really rough, dry, and brown dirt. The clay used to all come from Pomaire, but after years of harvesting it, it now comes from the surrounding 50-100 kms. The next step in the process is to soak the dirt for a couple of days and send it through a ramshackle grinder, breaking up all the rocks and large pieces. The now moist clay is then formed into quesos, or cheeses, because they look like giant wheels of cheese, about 30 kg each (trust me, they were every bit that heavy!). After being cleaned for small twigs by hand, they were ready to be worked. I was the first to step up to the plate from our group and try my hands at the clay wheel, trying to make a simple bowl. It could have gone better, to say the least! It's real hard to find the right balance between molding the clay too hard and not hard enough. Eventually, with considerable help, I managed to create a semi-acceptable bowl. I wish I could have had more time with the wheel, but my friends were waiting. It was also quite humorous to see the shelf-fulls of much more intricate bowls made by the potter in a single day, while seeing how much effort and time mine took.

Our next stop took us to another artisan, one who specialized in making piggy-banks. Our whole group spread out along the table and followed his lead, forming our clay into chanchitos, or little pigs. I was real proud of how mine turned out until it started to dry and I realized that I hadn't scored the clay for the snout well enough. You can see the crack starting to form in the above picture. My piggy is now in two parts, the main body and the snout. Oooops! I guess it's a learning experience. And nothing a little super glue can't fix.

We returned for lunch, were we were served the largest empanadas I've ever seen. I happily ate mine then helped out a friend, with half of hers. We were then served salad, vegetables, and cazuela, a delicious soup I've eaten quite regularly here with beef or chicken, rice, corn, squash, potato, and always a healthy portion of aji, or chili pepper (personal preference). On a side note, I'm kinda disappointed they don't call chili chili in Chile (follow?). On a second side note, Chileans have a sweet word, cachai, they use all the time to ask "Do you understand?" or "Do you follow?," perfectly applicable in the earlier sentence. Back on topic, this was a HUGE lunch, and I almost didn't want to get up from the table. In the end I did, as we made it into town to buy some pretty awesome and cheap clay cups and mugs, seen above. Some might say the large one had the intention of being used as a beer stein...

On another note, I recently went golfing with my tandem partner David (he helps me with Spanish, I help him with English). We played the Mapocho course, out by the airport. Real fun time. At over 6900 yards (for some reason they measure golf courses in yards here while everything else is metric) it was far and away the longest course I've ever played. I also had the unique experience of being dive-bombed by birds on the first two holes. I hooked a drive into the long grass and must have disturbed their nest. As I went to find my ball, birds flew directly at me, squawking away like crazy. Through the use of my golf bag and clubs as shelter and protection, I avoided any injury, but I'm convinced they would have actually hit me if not for my efforts to repel them. David told me that I was being ridiculous, and that that's happened to him tons of time with no injury, but it still scared the crap out of me. I calmed down for the rest of the round and ended up playing pretty well. I was real happy to get out golfing because it's not a very popular/accessible activity for most Chileans. It's considered a very cuico, or snooty high society, pass time. $20 for 18 holes might not sound like a lot to us (in fact it's quite cheap considering the quality of the course), but to many Chileans this is out or reach. I'm hoping to get out again with David and his girlfriend's dad. Chao

Bicentenario!

2010-09-24T16:31:00.000-07:00

So guess, what? Since my last post, Chile turned 200 years old! Not everyday that your study abroad experience lines up with such an important celebration. Although many friends took off from Santiago to visit Linares, the beach, or other friends and relatives around Chile, I stayed put here in Santiago. Saturday the 18th was the actual bicentennial, while the 19th was the day to celebrate the armed forces.

I spent the whole weekend more, more than anything else, eating. Saturday and Sunday were days for huge asados (BBQs). Leo, my host dad, whipped up some INCREDIBLE food. Saturday we had shish kebabs, and Sunday was steaks, pork, sausages, and prieta (a dark sausage made with blood), always accompanied by vino tinto (red wine) and empanadas. Delicious doesn't even begin to describe it all. Furthermore, for these asados, many of my extended family and close family friends came over. We had a great time celebrating in the amazing backyard patio area. As you can see from the above picture, the patio and grill outside are absolutely perfect for entertaining.

As for other festivities, we saw an air show, went to a fonda (a typical independence day state fair like event. Several huge parks around Santiago were all set up with food and drink vendors, music, and trinkets for sale. It reminded me a lot of the MN state fair minus all the animals and with more focus on drinking and food - if it's possible to have more focus on food than the MN state fair), and went to go see a fantastic light show at La Moneda (the presidential offices)... 3 times! We wouldn't have had to go to the light show 3 times, but each time we got there a little earlier and got better spots in the huge crowd. The light show was absolutely incredible, I can't believe they could make the building appear to shake, warp, grow shapes, and change colors so convincingly. My favorite parts of the show included when La Moneda moved like an ocean wave, beat like a giant speaker, grew Moai (the typical human-like statues found on Easter Island), and was enveloped in neon colors. Fireworks also accompanied the show.

Monday, a national holiday as well, I went biking with my uncle and sister. We climbed Cerro San Cristobal, a mini-mountain in the heart of Santiago, along with herds of other people enjoying the holiday. The ride up took some effort, but was well worth it for the view, let alone the ride down. The 5 km ride back down the hill was spent dodging walkers, slower bikers, and cars. It was absolutely exhilarating weaving between the cars at top speed!

I've come to love Santiago and Chile in general for all it has to offer. Geographically speaking, it truly is the most remarkable country I've ever experienced. In just over an hour you can be soaking up rays on the beach, and more interestingly for me, in half that time you can be climbing the mountains. I did one of these climbs this morning. Two ND friends of mine, Katy and Rosie, climbed Cerro Pochoco. Although containing a relatively well marked trail, we enjoyed "trail-blazzing" more, or creating our own approach to the top and back down again. There is something romantic about climbing giant hills and mountains that just really grabs me. It's just incredibly inspiring to look up a hill, tell yourself you are going to climb it, and then do it. The simplicity of the task and the challenge of completing it thrill me. I have loved taking in nature this way, with a good understanding of our minuscule size. All this natural excitement and activity I have done really makes me happy that I came to Chile. Sure, I could be touring historically important buildings and visiting ancient palaces in Europe, but Chile has provided me with amazing opportunities for more environmental experiences, something I am very happy to be doing.

A couple of quick add-ons. On Friday I made pizza for my family, complete with homemade dough. My technique could still stand to be perfected, but it was a lot of fun and delicious. My family loved it too. Turns out I didn't make enough! I have found that food has really been a great way for me to bond with my family, especially my mom and dad. Whether we're talking about the differences in food from different countries or I'm helping them cook/grill, it has been a great way for us to really connect. Plus, any of you know I love to talk, think, and dream about food!

I also continue to be amazed with the power of the ND network. Just last week I had lunch with a friend of one of my cousins. They studied at the Notre Dame's Seminary together. Chris is a great guy, has lived in Chile for just under 20 years, and is currently developing university level English programs. It seems that there is nowhere in the world that I go where I won't find an ND alum willing to grab a bite to eat and share their experiences with me. Simply amazing.

On a more somber note, my grandma here - who I see probably 4 times a week, as she lives so close and often comes over for meals - was recently hospitalized after a heart attack. It happened a week back, and was misdiagnosed as a stomach condition. After being bed-ridden for a couple of days last week, she was up on her feet and her usual animated self again, yet she now has to stay in the hospital for the next 2 weeks to undergo more tests. It's going to be tough for someone as active as her to stay in a bed for so long, and I plan to go visit her in the coming days. Any prayers are appreciated.

Lastly, my sisters have continued to question my eating habits. They can't seem to wrap their heads around the fact that I will eat lentil soup with a ham sandwich and apple on the side, or some other equally strange gringo mixture of flavors, sweet and salty, and texture. They continually tell me I'm going to upset my stomach (I still haven't). And above all, they can't understand why I like to drink a glass of milk with every meal. I guess that's the Midwest roots in me. Cami and my uncle Ricardo even came up with an expression for the apparently crazy things I do: "Gringo tenia que ser," or "That had to be a gringo."

Current Events in Chile

2010-09-14T21:44:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd take the time to share a little with you about Chilean current events. Currently the big news story (aside from the bicentennial celebration of Chilean independence on September 18!!!) in Chile is that 30 some incarcerated Mapuches (the most prevalent indigenous group in Chile) are on a hunger strike, trying to change the way in which the anti-terrorist laws are applied to them. These prisoners, who have committed various acts of arson, and destruction of public property, are seeking to be tried in a civilian court instead of a military court. This would likely cut their prison sentence by 2/3. The hunger strike has lasted over two months, and many people are worried that the death of one of them would shed a very bad light on the bicentennial celebrations, let alone be an internationally recognized failure of the current administration. There's been a lot of discussion about whether the crimes which were committed should be considered terrorism or whether the government is unjustly applying this law to the socially-disadvantaged and discriminated Mapuches. There is also concern over whether the government's bending to these demands would set a precedent for future groups. I haven't yet been able to get a sense for what the majority public opinion here is, but it's certainly complex.

On to more personal events, I recently got REAL lost on the Santiago bus system, known as micros. I was coming back from a birthday party with my friend Shu and we jumped on a bus going the opposite direction. Let me clarify that we did know we were going the opposite direction, but it was a cold night, we hadn't seen another bus in quite a while, and we figured we'd just ride the bus to the end of the line and turn around. Not a bad idea right? The end of the line can't be that long. WRONG! The bus took us to one of the poorest sections of Santiago, a good hour away from where we started (and an hour and a half from where we wanted to be). After getting off at the terminal station, the bus drivers on duty there quickly asked us what in the world we were doing there. Didn't we know this part of town was dangerous, especially at 4:00 AM? We explained our situation and hung out with the drivers until the next bus headed back. The ride back was also exciting, as the bus driver called us up to the front at one point to ask if he could drive with the inside lights off because this was such a dangerous area. Kinda gives you the chills if a public bus driver doesn't even feel safe driving through. Well we eventually made it home, 3 hours after leaving the birthday party. And the craziest part of the whole trip was that it all took place on September 11th, which in Chile is also an important date. It is the anniversary of the coup-d'etat in 1973 when the Pinochet and the military overthrew Salvador Allende's marxist government. Every year there are protest marches and riots (the most dangerous being in these poorer neighborhoods). Even moreso, this year was supposed to be worse because it is the first year of a right-of-center government since the military dictatorship. Probably the kind of stuff Notre Dame warned us not to do. The things I do for life experiences!

Lastly, I found a sweet Chilean reggae group called Gondwana. They're older and don't produce music together anymore but are absolutely awesome. Probably second best reggae music I've ever heard behind the one and only Bob Marley.

That's all, on the the 4 day weekend! Friday and Monday are national holidays.

Some Reflections

2010-09-08T08:56:00.000-07:00

Well, while looking over blog, I realized that I had told you a lot about the adventures and trips I'd taken here in Chile, but hadn't really provided any big picture reflections on what life is like here. Maybe I got a little bit of inspiration from visiting Pablo Neruda's house here in Santiago (the second of his three houses I will be visiting), but here goes nothing.

First of all, back home I had heard people speak of the influence that the US exerts on Latin America, but hadn't really fully appreciated it until Chile. It is absolutely incredible what English and US culture mean here. Most movies are Hollywood produced, tons of clothes are from US brands (North Face is a huge, although still very expensive name here), and McDonalds and especially Burger King are everywhere. US music has also has a huge following here, but Latin American music is still very popular. I think this is something that those of us from the US really have to acknowledge and respect. We have to be aware of how our actions and culture affects the rest of the world. And appreciate the fact that we have it pretty easy with English as our first language. There is also a huge campaign in Chile called "Ingles abre puertas," or "English opens doors," meant to promote learning English in schools. I have heard many people tell me that without some English knowledge, their future career plans are substantially limited.

On this note, I have chosen to do my service work at a poorer Santiago high school, assisting in an English class. The teacher, a great lady named Claudia, is the only English teacher at the school and didn't actually start learning English until college! Despite her enthusiasm, it's tough to teach English with only this small foundation. Shu and I go every Monday morning to help out in the classes. We've been helping the classes with pronunciation and grammar more than anything and it has been extremely rewarding and enjoyable. The experience has also taught me a lot about the Chilean school system. The school is partly subsidized by the government, placing it between a full-on private school and a completely public school. As in the US, the Chilean school system has many problems. Fully public schools are notoriously bad and private schools are out of reach for most families. Therefore these partly subsidized schools provide education to middle and lower-middle class students. It's been an eye-opening experience to get out of the wealthier neighborhoods and downtown areas of Santiago. I also view this as a necessary experience because I don't want to leave Chile with a biased view of what life is like for Chileans.

I also felt my first small amount of homesickness this past weekend. Well actually, it was NDsickness. Before our victory over Purdue, I had a bunch of my friends over for a BBQ-Tailgater. It was a great time and a great chance for my sisters to meet the ND group. It was almost like the real thing, with everyone sporting "The Shirt" and grilling out. We headed of to a gringo bar around here to watch the game, where believe it or not, we ran into other ND fans. Some had just graduated and found jobs in Chile, some were natively from Chile, and some were just passing through. It was a fantastic game atmosphere, almost as good as the real thing. The happiest/saddest part was the pregame coverage when they showed pictures and videos of campus, including the typical pump-up videos. I've told myself that I'm going to enjoy Chile to the fullest without holding on to ND too much, but is it so wrong to miss it just a little?

On other notes, I've had some challenges trying to balance my schedule between everything I want to do. Although I have minimal homework compared to being at ND, an hour of commuting to school and an hour back seriously cuts into my day. It's been tough trying to balance my schedule between hanging out with my family, meeting new people, travelling, and hanging out with my ND friends. I have found positives and negatives about being in a program so formalized like mine. The ND program is great in that we have 2 full-time ND staff to help us with any problems, we have many already scheduled day-trips around Santiago, and I already have a network of friends. Yet at the same time, I really feel that my class schedule (with 3 gringo-only classes, 2 of which are all ND) and the general atmosphere of our program make it hard to break free. It's certainly different from any other study-abroad students here.

My classes, although easy, have been quite interesting. My favorite is Chilean Politics, Culture, and Economy. Although I complained about the all ND classes earlier, this one is great! The professor is a extremely bright, exciting, and funny guy. Esteban studied law in Chile but then got his Ph.D at Notre Dame in Political Science. I've realized that Chile is one of the most interesting countries to study politically. So far we have really only looked at the last 50 years, but in Chile this means a lot. They have gone from a democratic government, to a democratically-elected socialist government, to a military dictatorship, and back to a democracy, all in the past 50 years. Esteban has great first hand impressions on all of these changes in addition to a fantastic background of Poli-Sci knowledge.

Also, I've gotten real good at living on low amounts of sleep. Late night carretes (parties) followed by early morning trips or even classes is a regular occurrence. In the end, I really don't want to waste my time in Chile sleeping, so I've gotten used to running on fumes. And I'm proud to say I still stay away from caffeine and naps!

Lastly, I've found Chileans in general to be HUGELY welcoming and helpful. They have a reputation for being some of the most serious and least outgoing of South Americans, working hard and minding their own business. Yet this does not detract in the least from their willingness to help a lost gringo. Everyone from bus drivers to carabineros (police officers) to random people in stores and the street are always friendly and helpful. It's trully made these 2 months (already????) a great experience.

Back to my trips and adventures, I went to la Reserva Nacional Rio Clarillo this Sunday to do a little bit of hiking with Beau, a friend from Northwestern. Our of pure luck, we decided to visit the national park on Dia de la Patrimonia, and got free entrance! We spent the day (after yet another early morning) hiking on organized paths and trail-blazing new paths. It was a great but exhausting day hiking through the beautiful mountains and valleys. See the pictures above

Valle de Elqui

2010-09-01T06:55:00.000-07:00

Man, last weekend was great! 15 or th 16 kids in our ND group (+2 others from Marquette) traveled 7 hours North to the Elqui Valley. I left late Thursday night, taking an overnight bus to La Serena, a colonial beach town that is the closest major city to the valley. After arriving at 4:45 in the morning, I explored La Serena a little bit while we waited for the first bus of the morning (7:00) into Vicuña, a small town about an hour inland. Vicuña is a really pretty town, very quiet (at least for the winter off-season), and also the birthplace of Nobel prize winner Gabriela Mistral. After stashing our backpacks in a hostel, we set of for our first day. We visited the simple museum honoring Gabriela, walked around the town a little bit, then headed to the Capel distillery. Capel is one of the main brands of pisco here in Chile (remember, pisco is the traditional Chilean liquor made from grapes).The tour was really interesting, as we got to tour each stage of the production factory from fermentation to bottling. In addition to making the discount Capel brand, the distillery also produces the upmarket Alto del Carmen brand and many already mixed cocktails. After a very informative tour, and a requisite stop in the sampling room, we headed out to lunch. We ate at an incredible solar restaurant, where everything from the bread to the rice to the goat meat to the dessert was cooked using solar ovens that focused the suns light. Absolutely delicious and incredible to see the process. See the picture above for the ovens

After doing a little bit of hiking, and grilling up an awesome asado (BBQ) at our hostel, we headed up to the observatory for our night tour. The Elqui Valley is well known around the world by astronomers because it has one of the clearest night skies anywhere. I didn't know what to make of this beforehand, but let me tell you, this is 100% true! Instead of just seeing single stars, with the naked eye we could actually make up clusters of starts that appear as huge clouds. And this was all before looking through a telescope. The telescopes at this observatory (a tourist observatory, not actually used by scientists) were the biggest I've ever seen at a whopping 40 cm in diameter. Even more incredible is the fact that nearby you can find telescopes with diameters as big as 8 meters, yet these are actually used by real scientists, not easily impressed gringo tourists. We had tons of chances to gaze through the telescope, getting great images of stars, planets, and moons.

The next day, myself and two friends, Tom and Shu, travelled another hour inland to Pisco Elqui (renamed such to honor another of the biggest Chilean brands of pisco that is produced here). From here, after loosing and then finding my cellphone again (!), we started hiking even more up the valley. The scenery here was amazing. Despite being so dry, the valley is dominated by grape vines. Often, even the hills are planted, with vines growing at seemingly 45* angles! The farther up the valley we went, the narrower the valley got. After stopping at a panaderia (bread shop) for lunch, and actually eating in the owners own kitchen, we continued our trek upwards. Eventually, we made it all the way to Alcohuaz, our goal, some 15 km from Pisco Elqui, only to find that there weren't any public buses available to take us back. Hitchhiking it is! After starting a little tentatively, we figured it out. After catching a series of 3 rides (one of which was the open trailer behind an old rickety tractor! Check my facebook for an awesome video), we made it down. In the process, we even developed a hitchhiking theory: First of all, with three guys, you have limited options. The vehicle must have a bed or a trailer that is outside and separate from the driver/other passengers. Secondly, the vehicle must be built before about 1995. We tried to hail a ride from a guy in a brand new Mercedes, but to no avail (Not really a surprise, as we were covered in dust and sweat), Lastly, the driver must be male. We made it back to Pisco Elqui, where Shu and Tom set off for La Serena again, in order to catch an earlier bus back to Santiago.

This is where my solo-adventure starts. After finding my LonelyPlanet recommended hippie hostel (this place was so hippie! bubbly neon colored letters, overgrown gardens, outdoor kitchen, nature music playing, hammock), I cooked myself some dinner and explored the town. It's a very calm town, even quieter than Vicuña, but I hear that in the summer it is nearly overrun with backpackers. After enjoying the hammock I got to bed, exhausted from the last two days. I woke up early the next morning planning to hitchhike back to Santiago. Yes, my plan all along had been to peddle rides for the whole 9 hour trip. After setting off early, I realized that the roads aren't too busy on a Sunday morning around 7:30. Haha, I should have anticipated that. Eventually, a nice family picked me up and took me the remaining 2 hours to La Serena. Great family, we had a great ride and they wished me luck for the rest of my trip. After grabbing a quick lunch, I set off walking down the highway. Yes, the highway. My initial optimism soon dwindled however as I found myself walking km after km with no one even considering stopping. I told myself that if no one gave me a lift before then next major city (Coquimbo, some 12 km away), I'd take a bus from there. Eventually, at 10 km, a really awesome VW bus pulled over and gave me a lift, yet unfortunately, they were only going to Coquimbo. A fun 2 km ride though! I caught the next bus to Santiago, disappointed that my strategy hadn't worked, but proud of giving it my best. I can't say I didn't try!

A couple more things. I have decided to grow my beard out. Right now it looks pretty ugly, but I'll keep you updated. I can get away with it here in South America better than I can back home.

Also, I enrolled in a tandem program here at La Catolica. I have been paired with a Chilean student, David, who wants to improve his English. He's a great guy from Southern Chile. We speak a mixture of English and Spanish, helping eachother out along the way.

Lastly, big game for ND this weekend. Let's start the season off strong. Go Irish, beat Boilers!

Valparaiso

2010-08-25T20:36:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-08-15T18:38:00.001-07:00

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

2010-08-14T09:43:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-05T15:49:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

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.

Wrapping-up Linares and arriving in Santiago

2010-07-27T19:59:00.000-07:00

Yesterday (Monday), we finished up our Linares section of the trip and made the trip back to Santiago. It was sad to leave our Linares families, especially since after a week of living with them I was beginning to really get to know them. A week just seemed like such a short period of time. I would have much preferred to skip at least some of the time living at the Chacahuin retreat center in order to spend a greater portion of our short two weeks in Linares with the family. I will most definitely return to Linares during the semester.

Our last days in Linares were very enjoyable and quite relaxing. We took a day trip to the Panimavida resort, well known for it's hot springs. After arriving early in the morning, we all got into the pools. Even the hottest pool wouldn't be considered "hot," and was quite a bit cooler than a typical hot tub, but it was unique because the heat was all natural. The water also contained a lot of minerals which are supposed to be great for your skin. Whether this is true or not was of little importance to us. The water was thoroughly refreshing and a nice change from the cold-water showers about half of the students were experiencing at their homes (I for one had hot water). After lunch (a $24 buffet, our only option!), some of the group went to the spa while some of the rest of us went exploring in the surrounding area. The resort was fenced in, but we still found some interesting stuff within the grounds. First we explored an old collapsing house. It was very much the stuff of horror movies, with a dark, damp feel to it inside and holes in the floorboards. It was a cool place, but nothing compared to what we found next, what looked like an abandoned spa. The large building was composed of two long and narrow, parallel hallways with probably 30 smaller private spa rooms connected to each hallway. The inside of the building was very dark, and there were broken tiles littered everywhere along the floor. After much urging, we failed to convince the majority of the girls (way to go Katy!) to follow us. But this didn't stop us as we ventured through the ominous hallway. In some of the rooms lay the remains of tile bathtubs. We had a few screams at the expense of the sanity of the girls outside, who were already sufficiently scared. All in all, the old spa reminded me of the scene in Shutter Island where DiCaprio's character is venturing through the poorly lit hallways of the old prison. It gave us all the chills, but was a lot of fun. The day at Panimavida was a mix of relaxation and excitement.

The next day, Doris (instead of Dori as I had accidentally put earlier) and I made a trip to a retreat center in Rabones with the rest of the students and their adopted families. Rabones is a very rural town filled with farms that fill the shadows of the Andes Mountains. We spent the day at the retreat center relaxing in the outdoors, sharing one of our final days with our families, and of course playing soccer, gringos vs. Chileans. We again lost, but the game is under protest for one-sided officiating.

Yesterday I also got a chance to be on Chilean TV! A fellow student of mine, her Linares mom, and one of our professors from Linares were interviewed live on a Linares news program. We were asked to share our experiences from the program and got to give our host families a special thanks over the airwaves. As we were leaving the building, the radio show hosts also asked us to join them on-air to do a similar interview. I didn't think that anyone would have caught us on TV, but when we arrived at the parish to catch the bus to Santiago, my friends and their host families all congratulated me on a job well done. Pretty cool experience! We paid our last thanks, said goodbye to our gracious hosts and headed North.

Once in Santiago, we were greeted by our host families at St. George's School, a Catholic elementary-high school run by C.S.C. priests, the same congregation as Notre Dame. My Santiago mom, Leticia, and one of my sisters, Camila, picked me up. We headed back to their beautiful house where I have been settling in these past two days. The family is composed of Leticia and her husband Leonardo, two sisters Vale (22) and Cami (20), two brothers Luca (10) and Stefano (9), and a big ole dog Dunkel. It is quite an energetic family where I look forward to many great months. Oh, and lest I forget to mention, I have an awesome bedroom with a beautiful view of the mountains!

Today I also visited La Pontificia Universidad Catolica, where I will be taking classes, for the first time. I met with Esteban and Estela, the two professors in charge or coordinating our program. Esteban also teaches one of our required classes, Chilean Politics and Society. I can't say the campus is as beautiful as Notre Dame (this shouldn't really come as a surprise, should it?), but it is still very nice looking and feels removed from the bustle of a major city like Santiago. Today was largely spent going over administrative details of the program, our classes, how to register for classes, how to get around Santiago, etc... It wasn't the most exciting, but very necessary. Tomorrow we have our first official tour of Santiago, given by fellow UC (for Universidad Catolica) students.

That's all for now, but I'll keep you updated as I begin to know Santiago better.

Food, Family, and Getting used to Chilean Spanish

2010-07-21T12:08:00.001-07:00

Whew! I’ve got a lot of updating to do.

First of all, I heard from Philip today that he is living in Alumni next year! He’d sent me a message online a couple of days prior, but I hadn’t had an opportunity to use the internet until today. Needless to say I am extremely excited to hear this news and can’t wait to hear stories from his first semester. Enjoy it Philip and I look forward to spending the following 3 semesters with you in the DAWG-House. But is Philip really reading this blog? Doubtful. Also, thanks for the nice card hidden in my luggage Mom, Dad, and Philip. I only just found it yesterday.

Next, my bank returned my $300 from my ATM fiasco. It’s a little confusing because they now have no record of ever withdrawing the money, but I have my money back and that’s all that matters.

On to more exciting things. I have moved in with an amazing family here in Linares, in the neighborhood of El Huapi (pretty cool name, huh?). My “Madre Chilena” is named Dori. She is incredibly friendly, a great cook, and a great person to be around. She works in a shelter for young girls who have been abandoned by their families or previously lived with abusive, alcoholic, or unstable parents. She is married to Pascual, a very laid back man (with a sweet ponytail!) who works as a lumberjack. He left yesterday for the next week to travel to the forests. Before he left we shared one of his favorite drinks, vino con arina (wine with wheat flour) over a meal. It’s a very interesting drink that requires constant stirring or else the flour settles to the bottom. The family also has three sons, Carlos, Marcos, and Alejandro. Carlos, the oldest, lives in Santiago with his girlfriend Kelsey (a fellow gringo who graduated from Marquette and attended the same program I am currently on two years ago). I spent Saturday and Sunday with the two of them and Camila, Carlos’ 12 year old daughter, before they headed back to Santiago. Marcos lives in a house a couple of blocks away with his girlfriend Pamela. I see the two of them nightly as they always eat dinner (or onces as it is known here) at Dori’s house. Alejandro is 20 years old and lives at home while taking classes to prepare himself for the college entrance exam. Like Pamela, his girlfriend Paulina always eats onces here. They’ve been a great family to spend time with, are extremely, and I mean EXTREMELY hospitable, and I will miss them when I head off to Santiago. I will however be able to meet up with Carlos and Kelsey in Santiago.

I also had my first experience with professional Chilean soccer. When we watch the news after dinner, none of us pay a lot of attention as we are talking about other things half the time. That is until the soccer highlights turn on and everyone turns silent for a good 20-30 minutes. Yes, they really have soccer highlights for 20 whole minutes here! Whereas in the U.S. all of the World Cup highlights might make up only 10 minutes on SportsCenter, the Chilean soccer league (a small league by all international standards) easily takes up twice that much time on local news programs. Soccer is such an integral part of the culture here that is doesn’t even make sense to ask any young boy what sports he plays because his answer will always be soccer. Also, in Linares, the favorite team is clearly Colo Colo, a team that has traditionally identified with the poorer and more rural areas of Chile. The other two major teams are Universidad Catolica (where I will be studying), and Universidad de Chile. Despite carrying the names of universities, these last two teams are professional teams, not collegiate teams. Their names come from the fact that these universities helped found the teams (I think…).

I’ve come to get a good feel for Chilean food in the past week and a half. I’ve enjoyed some of the favorites including sopaipillas (basically deep-fried bread, but not sweet like a donut), completos (hot-dogs overflowing with everything from tomatoes and onions to avocado and mayo-they eat a TON of mayo), and cebollas escabeches. This last selection is the one food I can honestly say I haven’t enjoyed here. They are whole onions soaked in old wine that’s gone bad and turned into vinegar. Something good to try once, but I won’t be seeking it out in the future. As a whole, Chilean food is not spicy like most other Latin-American food, and contains a lot of salt and bread. Tea and coffee is also drunk here in quantities bordering on excessive.

As for the language, I continue to improve. My family still talks to me noticeable slower and more clearly pronunciated than they do to eachother, but I do understand almost everything they say to eachother. That is until they start to talk using expressions. Chilean Spanish has more expressions than any other language I have ever encountered and although I’m doing my best to learn them, it is difficult. Life was also simplified once I began to understand the meaning, or rather lack thereof, of the word po they add to the end of nearly every sentence and often in the middle of sentences. It is a meaningless word added in informal conversations to fill space. Kind of like teenage girls usage of “like” in the United States. I’ve come to learn, and have been told many times, that Chileans speak terrible Spanish. They shorten words left and right, create what seems like hundreds of their own sayings and expressions, and tend to enunciate poorly and eat whole syllables of words.

A couple more things before I leave. A bottle of contact solution cost me $14! It might be cheaper in Santiago but I needed it now. Also, on Saturday I had my first true Chilean night out. That is I went out to a bar when there were actually other Chileans there as opposed to our obscenely early (on Chilean time) nights out last week, at about 10:00 to 12:00. Saturday we left the bar close to 5:00 AM! I tasted the local favorite, the piscola. It is a combination of Coca-Cola and pisco, the most popular Chilean liquor, made from grapes. Not bad for a mixed drink, but I still prefer my beer. We went to Bar Ganja, were I hung out behind the DJ booth all night. My host brother was really good friends with them. In addition to the very Hispanic music that was played, they also impressed me with their taste in old-school rap, including 2pac, B.I.G., Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg, and Public Enemy, all remixed to more modern beats. Great taste in my eyes!

The next entry might not come for a while as I don’t have internet access and it has been hard to find time to use the internet at the church where we are taking classes.

Schools, Travel, and unfortunately.....classes

2010-07-16T19:47:00.000-07:00

We've been so busy recently that I haven't been able to keep you updated. The last several days have been filled with more trips to schools and universities, classes, and a trip west from Linares to the towns of Nirivillo and Constitucion. I can safely say that this blog is the most English I've spoken/written since my last entry. I am doing everything I can to speak and think in Spanish. It's certainly not perfect yet but it is getting substantially easier.

On Tuesday we visited another school near Linares, El Colegio Leonardo Da Vinci. It was similar to the school we visited earlier in the week in that the students were incredibly excited we were visiting. We were greeted early in the morning by the teachers for coffee and tea. Even just a week into our trip I can tell this is an extremely common pastime. The highlight of the visit was a highly-watched soccer game between us gringos (Chileans call all white foreigners gringos) and a group of students from the school. From the start the odds were stacked in our favor. Our 5 man team wore jeans and hiking boots, while the Chileans wore track suits and soccer flats. Yet we held our own and the game ended 3-2 in favor of Chile. If I were a betting man, I'd pick us in a rematch with proper equipment.

Wednesday we drove up to Talca, the capital of the Maule region in which we are staying. There we spent the day at La Universidad Autonoma, a university of about 3500 students. We met with students who were studying to be Spanish and English teachers. Their English skills were for the most part very good, so long as we made sure to speak slowly and enunciate very clearly... so pretty much exactly what we require of Chileans when they speak. We helped the students in the English class with their presentation of Romeo & Juliet and were lucky enough to see them present several scenes. All I have to say is that the combination of strongly-accented English and Shakespeare makes for incredible entertainment.

It has also been very interesting to hear the Chileans' opinions on learning English. I have always been told and believed that Spanish is much easier to learn than English because Spanish follows grammatical rules much more religiously than English, which seems to have rules but never really follow them. Yet without exception, every single student and teacher here has said that English is easier to learn. I guess they do have a point because in Spanish all nouns have genders and verb conjugations are more complex, but I'm still not completely convinced.

Oh, and Chileans are obsessed with facebook. Every student we meet wants to have our name so they can friend us online (which means add us to their list of friends for you older folk who are not acquainted with the lingo of social networking). I think I've gotten 40 friend requests in the past 4 days and I can't remember speaking to all but 3 or 4 of them. I think they all want to have a gringo friend online to show their friends and family.

On Wednesday we also experienced our first Chilean carrete, or party. After we got back from our tour of the university, we ate dinner and walked into town. We visited a couple of bars and sampled the local beers. So far, Cristal is my favorite Chilean beer but I'll keep you posted. We sang some karaoke (Billie Jean is surprising hard to sing and Michael Jackson is currently rolling over in his grave) and returned to Chacahuin.

Thursday was a big day for us. We left at 7:00 a.m. and jumped on the road to Nirivillo (7:00 was not to our liking after a night on the town). Nirivillo is an old colonial town that was badly damaged by the February earthquake. The town had an eerie calm to it as many houses had collapsed and many others were abandoned due to risk of future collapse. It was especially moving for our guides because they were accustomed to the usual upbeat feel to the town. Notre Dame students on this program have always visited a wine-maker in past years and eaten lunch at his house, but sadly his house was absolutely leveled by the earthquake. In typical Chilean hospitality, he found a way to still serve us a delicious meal typical of rural Chile in his neighbors home, complete with homemade wine that had survived the destruction. Fortunately, we still got to visit the home of a wood sculptor named Alejandro based out of Nirivillo. He's been sculpting for nearly 50 years and has some amazing artwork around his home. He built his home from wood and clay and it is thoroughly decorated with hand-sculpted furniture and carvings of everything from his daughter to mermaids. He's done some quite remarkable work and has achieved substantial fame within the region and outside. Although his home was largely undamaged (although not completely), it's been quite shocking to see the destruction and hear peoples' stories of how their lives have changed. Stories from during the quake are truly terrifying. Firsthand accounts tell of 40-60 seconds of intense shaking and screaming.

On the theme of earthquakes, I've survived several. The interesting part is that I haven't noticed any of them. The strongest was a 6.0 magnitude aftershock in the adjacent region (Chile is divided into about a dozen regions by the way) that occurred a couple of nights ago. None of us students noticed it. There was also a much gentler temblor during dinner yesterday. Once again, none of us felt it. We rely on on the Chileans to inform us on the shocks because we are not accustomed to what they feel like.

After Nirivillo we traveled to the coastal city of Constitucion. The city, especially the main beach,

Playa de los Gringos (Gringo's beach), was completely devastated. None of the beach side restaurants survived and the beach has receded hundreds of feet into the sea. It it still a gorgeous place (aside from the remaining rubble), but is also a little too quiet. We climbed the rock outcrops and enjoyed the great views of the cliffs and ocean. The most moving part of the visit was a quick stop-over we made at a neighborhood of temporary houses constructed by a Jesuit church. They were built to provide homes for some of the victims of the earthquake/tsunami, but are remarkably basic and only provide for a minority of the victims. None of the wood and tarp homes have bathrooms and the sad reality is that they will probably end up being a little more permanent than originally planned. One of the residents told us that he had no plans to move as he was older and had no money to build a new house.

We have also started taking our Spanish language classes. We have three teachers who have been focusing on improving our pronunciation and speaking ability. Ricardo, Julia, and Angela teach at surrounding high schools and universities. The classes remain informal and have been enjoyable. The classes are currently being held at Chacahuin, but will move to a nearby church when we move in with our host families here in Linares tomorrow. I'll keep you updated.

First Days cont.

2010-07-12T20:40:00.001-07:00

One more thing that is worth mentioning. Today I tried to take money out of a Chilean ATM for the first time. And after really focusing on the Spanish menus and figuring everything out, the ATM ate my card and wouldn't give it back. There were a few frantic moments were I pictured myself stranded in Chile, penniless and abandoned, followed by some more logical thinking. I called over one of the more official looking employees of the store, explained my situation and looked for her help. I communicated my situation well, but was told that there was nothing she could do (which I thought was fairly realistic, for various security reasons). Thankfully I decided to talk to another store employee, and with the help of Cecilia Espinoza, got her to call the bank which operated the machine. I left a description of my debit card (How many Notre Dame Federal Credit Union cards really appear in Linares?) and a phone number at which I could be contacted. After dinner, we received a call, quickly drove to the store and was amazingly returned my debit card. I can't imagine that this could have happened in the US, but because we explained that I was a student studying abroad in Chile who for all extents and purposes really needed money during his stay, I got incredibly lucky. I returned to our living center, quickly checked my account to see if anything strange had been charged to my account (nothing had been) and breathed a sigh of relief. My bank account had been debited for the approximately $300 I had withdrawn although not given my the ATM, but that is a problem I will deal with in the morning.

Buenas noches

First Days

2010-07-12T19:31:00.000-07:00

Bienvenidos a mi Blog.

I arrived in Santiago airport yesterday (Sunday) morning after flying all night from Dallas. 15 other Notre Dame students accompanied me on this flight and we met up with four students from Marquette at the Santiago airport as well as our host for the Linares section of our trip, Cecilia Espinoza. She is a wonderful Chilean woman who currently lives in New York but has worked with the Maryknoll Lay Missioners for many years. The flight was uneventful bus the view during the decent into Santiago was incredible. The Andes mountains stretch on forever. However my travelling wasn't over as I immediately jumped on a four hour bus that took me South to the town of Linares. The bus ride was pretty calm as most people got at least some sleep after a full day of travel beforehand. It took forever to get out of what I can only imagine was still Santiago. The city sprawls out for miles and miles. Once we got outside of the urban area, the landscape changed drastically. Everything is green (which came as a surprise because it is currently the middle of winter here in Chile) and mountains dominate the horizon at all times. We passed through plenty of sizeable cities as well as long stretches of rural areas. The vast majority of fields were planted with grape vines for the vineyards. They were of course not currently bearing fruit because of the season but were still impressive. As an aside, the vineyards in Chile are located in the central part of the country as the north is very dry and the south is rougher terrain.

Eventually we arrived at Linares. We are staying at a retreat center that has a connection to the diocese of Linares. It's called Chacahuin and is a very pleasant place. A husband (Juanito) and wife (Jessica) operate the place and provide us with three hot meals a day. Linares is located about an hour and a half east of Constitucion, a coastal town that was one of the main casualties of the recent earthquake and resulting tsunami. On a more pleasant note, we did arrive in Linares (much to my joy) just in time to catch the second half of the World Cup Final and see Spain rightfully win their first World Cup (success!). I also landed a free beer out of the game as I made a bet with my good friend and roommate Shu, but that's of no interest to any of you, right? After the game we settled into our space and headed to mass at the Cathedral of Linares. It's a beautiful old building that thankfully withstood the recent earthquake but not without damage. They are currently in the process of trying to raise 200,000,000 Chilean pesos (about $400,000) to pay for the repairs. We listened to a very traditional mass that included the renewal of wedding vows of a couple on their 25th anniversary. We returned to Chacahuin, ate a late dinner and spent the night catching up with eachother, family, and playing a game of Mafia (a great group card game), in Spanish of course. We then huddled into our sleeping bags for a somewhat chilly night of sleep. Thank goodness for mummy bags!

Today we woke up and after breakfast went to a nearby school. The school, Nuestra Senora del Rosario, included the equivalent of high school, middle school and some elementary school kids. The students were overjoyed to see us and even treated us like celebrities, asking for our autographs and the lot, even as we insisted that we were not famous. We shared conversations about sports, music, lifestyles, girls and anything else that happened to be of interest. Several students also demonstrated the cueca, the national dance of Chile, in a very well-prepared presentation.

We left the school after a very enjoyable and informative morning and walked around Linares. It is a very calm city of about 70,000 with a nice warm feel to it (not literally of course, as it is winter). Later today we also purchased cell phones. After the earthquake, Notre Dame now requires that we buy them for emergency use, and gives us an additional $50 of stipend. Surprisingly that money went quite far as I bought a prepaid phone with about 150 minutes for only 9,900 pesos, or about $20.

Lastly, I should fill you in on the weather, as I am living in the opposite season from all of you. It is currently winter here in Chile. July is the rainy month (Can you really call it winter if it's raining and not snowing?), and August is the coldest month. After that they tell me that springtime is beautiful and the summer is amazing. We'll wait and see. As for winter, it's been about 45*-50* here, warmer in the sun and colder at night. There was excitement this morning when it actually got cold enough to leave frost on the grass! Even though I will never come to admit that this weather is cold (Minnesota would probably disown me), Chile is unique in that there is no central heating in all but the ritziest of places. That means that you never really escape the "cold." As a result, we are all wearing many layers and are often seen in jackets, hats and gloves, even inside. It has also been a damp cold which has brought about some shivering (but it's still not cold, I'm staying stubborn).

Oh, and I've adopted the nickname of Pato here in Chile. It's a nickname for Patricio, the Spanish version of Patrick, but also literally means duck. Not half bad I guess. At least it brings about a few laughs and rolls off the tongue nicely.

That's all for now, I'll keep you posted as we continue to explore central rural Chile in the coming weeks. Hasta luego.