Dinner

Tonight my mom asked me what I usually eat in Boulder and I said, truthfully, pasta and sandwiches. So I go into the kitchen for dinner and see that she made pasta, and i'm like "frick yes!!!" buuuuuut turns out they don't use marinara sauce here.. or pesto.. or alfredo.. my hermanito put ketchup on his... I just chose to eat mine plain.
So.. haha.. things are a little different here, in conclusion. Ketchup with pasta...
I am very thankful for my reserve box of Scooby Doo Fruit Snacks on nights like tonight :)

(Also check out my bedspread. its dope.)

(Editors note: They do actually use marinera sauce here sometimes, apparently that's just not what we were having that night. Also dinner's got progressively better as I stayed I think, or else I just got used to it :) )

Student Protests & Tear Gas

Okay Mom (and all the other adults who read this) you aren't going to like this, and I know I'm going to get chastised for this but here goes:


So we had heard last night that there would be some protests going on today near where we have class. So after class a few of us were wandering around the plaza and there were tons of Carabineros* (the Chilean police) but not a lot else going on. (*In Chile the police are military, not civilian, so the uniforms they are wearing in the pictures are pretty standard- minus the riot gear; thus why we weren't too freaked out initially.) So then one of the girls I was with gets a call that two boys in our group were hanging out in the park and they got tear-gassed and sprayed with a water cannon! So, naturally, I headed towards the park to check it out and I ended up meeting up with those guys. I knew that it was actually pretty serious when I started passing people in gas masks and saw that businesses were closing their doors and barring the windows.
Anyway.. long story short it was CRAZY and AWESOME! We ended up right in the thick of things and it was great. (To the adults: obviously we were careful, we made sure to stay in the back of the pack or across the street. We obviously weren't chanting or throwing stuff, and we had our escape routes planned, and also our "we're just lost and confused Americans, please save us" faces ready, just in case.) But I figure my pictures/videos can explain better than I can, so here you go:

This is from the Plaza, at this point we were confused because there were lots of police and no protesters. This was the tame part.

That is the water-spraying tank thing. Formidable, no?

Stole this from my friend, but this is the view from where we were standing.

And some videos:

So this is students getting sprayed by the water cannons. That truck eventually chased them down that road.

This is them dispersing tear gas. It happened a few times but I quickly learned to stop recording and just run because.. turns out that stuff really does hurt!! (It was pretty windy today so that made it worse.)

So anyway, no one worry because it was awesome and I'm fine.. (my contacts are probably ruined but other than that...) and now I've seen first hand how the Chilean police overreact to these protests (although the students definitely don't help the situation.)

Oh and I almost forgot the best part. In class today we were giving presentations about Chilean society, and my theme was "How the student movement for education was going". And I'm pretty sure I said, verbatim, that "it was much more calm now days, clearly since there aren't protests in the streets or violent clashes with the Carabineros. For the most part the students have turned to negotiating with politicians." So I am probably going to get an 'F' on that.. the internet totally led me astray! 

Another quick story

Tonight I went to a family dinner/birthday party with my host mom & brother. It was super cool because a lot of their family was displaced during the dictatorship in Chile during the 70's, so everyone there could speak some combination of Spanish, French, Swedish, and English. I ended up having a conversation in English with a girl whose first langugage was Spanish, second language was French, and third was English (in order of how good she was at speaking them.) And with a guy whose first language was Swedish and second language was English, and another guy who spoke Spanish and then English. It was a lot of fun and super cool to have all the languages going on at the same time!
(In case you were wondering I also had conversations in Spanish, but the the one with everyone but me speaking English-as-a-second language was definitely the highlight of the night.)

Longest day ever! 6:30am-6:00am

Yesterday I went to Valparaiso, WOW TALK ABOUT BEAUTIFUL! It was amazing!! We visited one of Pablo Neruda's houses, which was dope! and then we walked around town. It was super cool. We also went inside a zen garden/butterfly rehabilitation thing, it was beautiful. So what follows is some pictures of Valpo including a montage of some of the crazy awesome street-art (graffiti) that we saw.

                

Not sure how I managed to mess up that formatting so bad. Anyway this is Valparaiso. The day started out really gloomy, but it ended up being sunny and beautiful. The houses here are all different colors, and the whole city is on a hill so there is always a great view of the ocean.

 

 

                                                       

                                                              Patagonia without repression

                             Fake Banksy (Fanksy)          "The enemy is in your house. Turn off the TV"

So cool!!!!!!

Oh and last night was my Chilean friend's birthday. Chileans stay out sooooo late. We were leaving the club at 4:30am and one guy was like "ay temprano" (essentially: wow we're leaving early.) So basically my day was: wake up at 6:30am to go to Valparaiso. Spend day in Valpo. Come home to shower and get ready. Go to party. Go to bed at 6am after the birthday. 

Long day but lots of fun!

Me & Asu, and on the right is Daniella. They are both super nice and hilarious.

Lots of amigos!! I can barely understand anything when they all start talking and arguing but its fun to listen anyway and occasionally I'll throw in something, but usually by the time i've figured out how to say it in spanish they are already talking about something else.

The weirdest thing about kids my age here is none of them can drive: thus 9 girls in a tiny car because only one girl can drive. XD

Anyway having a great time! Missing home only a little bit!!

Cafe Romeo

A quick funny story that I think everyone will appreciate:
Two days ago we were doing some tourist stuff at the Plaza de Armas and stuff like that and my friend and I were just wandering around looking for a little cafe to get a snack at. We got a little bit off of the "beaten (tourist) track" and found a cute looking place called "Cafe Romeo" and we were like oh perfect. So we walk up and there are beads hanging down right inside the door so I couldn't really see in, and there was a menu but it only had drinks on it so we turn to leave and the guy inside is like "No ven aca!" ("no, come inside.") So we walk through the beads and see that its like a tiny strip club and there are two girls like essentially naked.. we're talking like bikini top and thong.. and my friend and I, both temporarily shocked, immediately forget all the Spanish we know, but manage to say "Oh, ah, uh" and turn around to leave. The man was like "No, queden! Quieren tomar un foto?" ("No stay. Do you want a photo?") And all I could think was "No queremos comida, sirva comida?" (No, we're looking for food, do you serve food here?) Fortunately they did not serve food and we were able to escape unscathed. We ended up finding an ACTUAL little diner thing and got some empanadas. 
So that was my Gringa Lesson for the day.


(Editors note: I later found out that this is called "Cafe con Piernas" literally "Coffee with Legs" and is like our version of a gentleman's club, whoops!)

Update on Life

Okay wow I've been super busy doing all sorts of things so sorry its been awhile. Let's see since Friday I've made Chilean friends (AWESOME!) been to like a million tourist sites like the Plaza de Armas, the oldest church in Santiago, the Moneda ("President's Palace"), the oldest bar in Santiago, a castle (that's randomly in the middle of town), a giant market place, uhh I've gotten lost trying to take the metro, I've gone on a super long run (on accident.. about an hour and 15 minutes... turns out the mountains are farther away than they look)... umm yeah I can't think of what else but yeah. Okay pictures:

Chileans friends!!

Hung out with them on Saturday night. The girl bottom center is named Cami and she is suuuper nice and introduced me to all of her friends and yeah. I can hardly understand their slang and they mostly just make fun of me and laugh at my expense but there you go. I am the "Gringa" .. like permanently. I think here it isn't an insult like it is in the US/Mexico.. but still.

My apartment. Its super small, but i like it!

The kitchen, and through that door is the laundry room.

This is the riot buses that they use for the protests. We weren't sure if they like ram you with the bus, put the students in the bus, or if policemen come out of it.. but anyway it looks scary!

Oldest bar in Chile. Those drinks are called Terremotos, "Earthquakes". They have sorbet, white wine, and like a shot of whiskey (I think?) And they are so named because you can't tell they are very alcoholic (but they are!!) so after you drink them you feel like you've been through an earthquake. haha.

a church...

me at the church..

This is a statue in the Plaza de Armas. Its from the Mapuches and is supposedly a source of contention but i'm not sure why.

This is inside the castle that is randomly in the middle of the city. Its super beautiful!

Again, the castle.

The top of the castle, this is called "Cerro Santa Lucia" (Cerro="hill".) Super good view of the city!! These are my amigas from the US Mimi, Jess, (myself), Claire, and Liz.

 This is my host mom, Alejandra, my host brother, Cristobal, and my host cat, Clementina.

Okay well thats all for now!! Hopefully my next post won't take so long :) Ciao!

First days in Santiago

Typing in English is like the most relaxing thing I do all day. BUT today i bought a bunch of school supplies in Spanish, harder than I expected but still a success. For some weird reason they pretty much exclusively sell notebooks with graphing paper here. No idea why, but trying to explain that I was looking for a notebook with lines only going horizontal was super difficult. I got it figured out though. Santiago is so similar to the US but i keep finding random things that are just a little bit different.Okay more pictures:

Dinner last night. Beef and vegetables. The red-ish box is Jugo de Pina- pineapple juice. All the juice and milk 'mi mama' drinks comes in boxes. Water is like super foreign here, she thinks I'm weird for drinking water at dinner?!?! But vegetables here are super fresh and delicious. Oh and tonight for dinner we had Dominos Pizza. LOL. It's much better than in the US actually. (I was worried about starving here, but turns out I should have been worried about gaining weight!)

A park that we ate the most delicious ice cream ever in today. I had raspberry ("frambuesas") and pineapple, but other kids got green tea mango, ulma honey (ulma is some kind of tree), and lots of other weird options. It was super delicious though. This is considered "El Centro" or the center of the city. I still can't get over how green it is!!!

This is a "caracol" which directly translates to "a snail". Apparently to chileans ("chilenos") it looks like a snail because it spirals. I don't know if you can tell from the pictures but there aren't any stairs between the levels, they just spiral up, and there are like maybe 40+ shops in the whole building. Super cool!

Still not sure what this is but I tried it today. From what it tasted like its kind of like tea and canned peaches and "mote" which kind of tastes like chewy oatmeal, only the grains/kernels are bigger. At any rate it wasn't that good but these stands are all over Santiago and the people seem to enjoy them.  

This old looking, bright turquoise building is a gym. Pretty much the last thing I expected when I was walking by, so I took a picture. haha.

This is like the National Stadium for Futbol (I think, 'mi mama' was explaining to me in Spanish so that's what I discerned.) This picture makes it look really small but its actually huge.

Chile is in a valley so there are freaking beautiful mountains anywhere you look. They are waaaaaay bigger than the ones in Boulder but not quite as close. Super beautiful though!!

"Have you ever thought that the Earth is floating? Anything is possible."

They even have philosophical graffiti! What's not to love!?!?

Well thats all for now. Trying to be bilingual is way harder than I expected. When I'm listening to others speak its like "yeah okay, I've got this, I'm practically Chilean" but when its my turn to talk I feel like I'm trying to communicate in some sort of spy code. I have no idea what sort of subtleties i'm conveying. Not sure what "gringa" means but it seems to be synonymous with "Piper" (JOKING!!! kind of... the blues eyes and blonde hair doesn't help though.)