Last Tuesday (10/6) after dance class I had lunch at La Vega, the big market I visited the week before, with Alli and another girl from class. It was great and incredibly cheap. Some Chileans don't even know that there is prepared food there because they do not go there. Another social class difference - the rich do not shop at La Vega. Then as Alli and I were walking to the office we passed a movie theater and saw a HUGE line down the entire block so we stood around trying to figure out what it was all about. We asked the security guard and he said tickets were only $2 that day. As we turned around a TV camera and interviewer were right in front of us and asked what we were seeing that day. Alli answered something along the lines of "oh we are just here looking at the line because we are confused." We laughed for a few blocks about how they would definitely toss that bit. That night a friend of ours said she saw that clip on CNN. FML but really hilarious. That night Alli, Becca and I made butternut bisque at Becca's house - they like to cook and introduce Becca's Chilean family to new cuisines.
Last Wednesday after class Alli, Becca and I went to Maca's house to make fajitas and watch Sex and the City. Spanish subtitles on that show are hilarious. Generally everything is funnier in Spanish. We spend a lot of time laughing at the actual meaning of the things we say incorrectly. Reflexive verbs are a hoot.
I got back my paper for the history class and got 4.7/7 which I think is considered decent. In any case I was happy with it because I'm taking it pass/fail anyway. The professor made zero constructive criticism and just scribbled illegible things all over my references page, which I believe I know how to do after psych classes at Tufts.
Mendoza
Thursday 10/8 - After frantically packing and skyping mom, dad and Anna after class, Alli, Becca and I headed to Mendoza, Argentina on an overnight bus. We got to the wrong bus terminal but luckily the right one was only a few blocks away. Around 2 we were woken up for an hour of standing in the cold for customs which was painfully slow.
Friday 10/9 - After a nap at the hostel we spent the whole day exploring the city on foot. We saw all of the plazas, some of the major streets, and their big park. All day we made mental lists of things where Chile vs. Argentina get a point. (Chile: creatively gross hair, Cerro San Cristobal, completos, currency, Plaza de Armas, po, cabs) (Argentina: pastries, the statue on top of the cerro, unidentified meats, height of males, clothing, customs officials). We had mixed parrilla, the traditional grilled meat, for lunch and I'm really not a carnivore. After another nap we stumbled upon a celebration of Spanish culture in honor of Columbus Day aka Día de la raza in a plaza. We got great paella and sangria and watched a performance of Spanish dance.
Saturday 10/10 - We went on a bike tour of wineries. Saw 3 different wineries where they explained the process, gave us a tour, gave us samples and taught us how to be pretentious about drinking wine. Who knew a wine could smell like honey and pineapple but taste like tobacco (or other such hilarious descriptions)? For no reason at all I fell of my bike and scraped my knee but luckily didn't break another front tooth. The tour also included an olive oil factory and a chocolate/liquor factory. At night we met up with Alli's friend who is studying in Mendoza and his gringo friends and had dinner at a fancy Italian place followed by very not fancy wine at a gas station with a patio. We considered going out but were tired and had another early day ahead of us.
Sunday 10/11 - We went rafting which included a lot more time waiting around than being in the water but it was fun. We got to wear full body wetsuits and still freeze when the water splashed us.
Monday 10/12 - Instead of 7 or 8 hours, it took us 12 hours to get back to Santiago. A one lane road with lots of people coming back after the long weekend, a protest blocking the road, really slow customs and I don't know what else, caused this. We spent at least 3 full hours in standstill traffic. Children got out of their cars and sled down the snow on the Andes. Not sure if it was worth it but the idea was to go during the day to see the beautiful drive through the Andes and beautiful it was.
Traveling has been great and I've never seen so much in my life but I always come back so tired and looking forward to some down time and just staying in Santiago. We are all beginning to understand why people say you should stay for a year. With only half a year you try to fit in so many things that you don't spend enough time just living in Santiago. By the time you are comfortable with the city and the language and have started to make some Chilean friends it is time to go. The thought of that makes me sad and even though we still have almost 2 months left I already don't want to leave. Two people have decided to extend for the full year and I think in the back of our minds many have considered it but for me it is not a serious option. I need to go back to Tufts because I am not doing anything academic here for my major. Sometimes I have to convince myself that I really care about my major. Also I am not staying because most of my friends from the program are leaving and it would not be the same at all and I would probably just be homesick without them.
Last Wednesday while teaching English a girl in 11th grade asked me if I want to have children. I told her yes but not for a long time because I am too young. She told me she has a 4 month old. This is a very common thing in Chile but I was surprised because my school is not an average school and it is not common with girls in my school. Then when I thought about it I realized that my surprise was ridiculous. With minimal sex ed. (if any) and outlawed abortions I should be surprised that more people aren't pregnant. I definitely took sex ed. for granted and we always acted like it was so obvious and we knew all that stuff on our own but that is not true. We are lucky to have all that stuff drilled into our heads repeatedly.
Last Wednesday was also one of the most fun nights I have had in Chile. Alli's friend invited her over to watch a soccer game with his friends and she invited me. It was about 8 of us and everything about it was very Chile. Soccer, completos and piscolas - what more can you ask for? This was the first full game I had ever seen, Chile vs. Ecuador, and when Chile won everyone was running around in the streets and yelling. Afterwards we learned that in Chile they play kings too, and call it cuarto rey. It was just really fun to hang out with people our age.
During some group work in my history class this week I got to talk to some of my classmates, after an initial awkward period during which I tried to understand what they were saying to each other and had nothing to contribute to the discussion. It was nice and agrees with my theory that individually Chileans are really nice and want to get to know us. Also it was nice to learn that they dislike the class as well. They thought it was hilarious that none of us are majoring in anything remotely related to Anthropology, Sociology or History but are in the class.
This Friday Alli and I baked a birthday cake for Becca for Saturday. It was my first time baking here but like others had said it was an experience. Ovens don't have temperatures on the dial, there is no baking aisle in the supermarket, they didn't have a mixer at home, the only pan they had was enormous and the vanilla cake mix had a very strong lemon scent. It turned out alright because how bad can a cake called "Better-Than-Sex" with chocolate, an entire can of condensed milk and bag of manjar, whipped cream and strawberries be.
Friday night my host brother invited me to come out with him and his friends for terremotos (those wine-like drinks with pineapple ice cream that I have mentioned before) because they have made an institution of trying them at different bars. Becca, Alli and I went with him and around 8 of his friends who were really excited about gringas. The bar was equally as sketchy as La Piojera where we first tried terremotos but the drinks and the chorrillana were delicious. For most of the night his friends spoke English with us to practice. After we went to another bar in Bellavista and had a long discussion about different cultural norms here and what they think of Americans. After that we went to a club called Tunnel in Bellas Artes but it wasn't even midnight and that is way too early to go out here so the place was empty and the music was horrible. Sitting in an empty club we got bored and tired and the boys got drunk and annoying. It was overall fun and really nice of my brother to invite me.
Saturday I stayed home instead of going on what sounded like a boring trip and going to Pomaire (the pottery town) again with Becca because I needed to get some work done before leaving for BA. Finally started, and almost finished, my internship journal this weekend, which I have been putting off for over a month. At night I went out to celebrate Becca's birthday. First we had dinner and cake at her house and then we went out to Teclados Bar in Vitacura (the really rich neighborhood) with Maca and Rodrigo, one of their friends, a bunch of people from the group and one of Becca's Chilean friends from class. You can tell you are in the rich neighborhood by the crowd, Santiago can be full of interesting contrasts that way. We considered going out dancing afterward but didn't leave until 3 at which point there was only an hour until the club closed so we called it a night.
Buenos Aires on Wednesday, which I am looking forward to a lot. It is nice not to have to plan every detail because in a city you can kind of wing it day-by-day. Unfortunately I will come back to another paper and group project for my history class waiting for me. I still have so many things on my list of places to go to in Santiago and so little time. I don't foresee myself having a lot of free/bored time in the next two months.
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