Falling Behind

So it has happened again. I have fallen behind on my blogging duties and I apologize.

Not a whole lot has been going on, so there isn't really a whole lot to talk about. Today a group of 8 of us went on a tour of some museums in Santiago. We started out having a lecture on the history of Chilean art in Spanish.

If you read any of the blog post from orientation, I probably complained about charlas, or long-ass lectures that put us all to sleep. This lecture was in the same room, but wasn't half bad. If you are reading this, you probably know that art isn't really my thing, so if the most prominent Chilean economist could put me to sleep, than an art history professor certainly could, but didn't!

After the lecture the 8 students, Soledad, the program assistant, and the lecturer headed out onto a bus and off the the museums. We started with the Museo Colonial which, as expected, is full of colonial art from Chile. Basically a lot of European influence on religious themes. The best part of the museum was the architecture and the courtyard. There were some cool things there, but nothing that really caught my eye.

Next on the list was Museo de Bellas Artes. This is a really nice building with a couple of sculptures and paintings. Not much to say since I'm not an artist, but it was worth hearing it's relationship with Chile. It doesn't get a much funding from the government at all, which is odd since it's a pretty big attraction. It's the same as if the Air and Space museum didn't get funding. Not cool. The tour guide told us that when it rains, the roof leaks. I'm no art major, but I don't think that's good for the paintings.

The next stop was lunch. We were walking through the theater district and passed by a café with a salad bar. I didn't let the group pass that one up so we slapped 4 tables together and ate ourselves a meal. The salad bar was amazing! Yeah, some vegetables had mayo on them, but hey, it's Chile, and if there is a salad bar, that's incredible. So what if it comes with a little mayo. I also tried ceviche for the first time today.
The flavor was great, the texture was terrible. I ate most of it, but couldn't finish it. Dessert was chocolate mousse. Now that, I could finish!

The next and last stop on the tour was the Museo de Artes Visuales (MAVI). Again, not much to say, but art students get in free, so that was a plus.

Checkout Facebook for the full album.

Chilean Happenings

After skiing on Friday, everyone was pretty tired. We all dragged ourselves home and ate, showered, and rested like there was no tomorrow. Not exactly sure how you can rest like there is no tomorrow, but we did!

Nine o-clock rolled around and I was bored of resting like there was no tomorrow. Aaron's host brother's friend was having a small gathering in his apartment in Providencia (right near the border with Las Condes). It was close and a great chance to hang out with Chileans, so I convinced Kamillah and Aspen to come along and the three of went with Aaron and met Katrina at the apartment building.

We ended up drinking some piscolas and having a blast. We also played the Chilean version of Kings. Before I knew it, it was 2 o-clock. Everyone decided to head out to a club, but I was too tired and headed home. It turned out to be a good decision because the cover charge for the club was outrageous and most of the people changed their minds when they got there.

Last night was another chance to hang out with Chileans. Emily and her host brother hosted a wine and snack party. I bought 2 liters of cheap red wine that came in a plastic bottle as well as two bags of potato chips (corte americano, of course!). We were drinking pisco sours, wine, and piscolas, and listening to some great tunes while chatting with Emily's host brother and his friend. The low-key gathering later turned into a nice little dance party. The night ended around 2am, I would say.

No hice algo demasiado interesante este fin de semana, pero fui a la nieve para esquiar y aprendí que no lo odio tan como yo pensaba. Aunque no hice algo muy interesante, me divertí mucho. Normalmente, prefiero estar con amigos y tomar algo mientras escucho música. Entonces, lo que hice este fin de semana era perfecto para mi. Creo que el grupo va a Valparaíso el próximo fin de semana. Creo que alugnos de nosotros vamos a qudarnos en un hostel allá para disfrutar de esa ambiente.

Stay tuned,
Dan

P.S. Romy Oltuski is amazingly hott!

Dicho

The sound of ping pong balls is the same worldwide.

El sonido de las pelotas de ping pong es igual por todo el mundo.

Seriously Not Serious All The Time

Ubicar - to locate

That verb has come up a lot since I arrived in Santiago. I finally decided/remembered to look it up. Sharing some knowledge is always a good thing, right?

Anyway, yesterday was Friday. Most of us, if not all of us, don't have any classes on Fridays so we have some group trips planned. We went skiing in the Andes yesterday. It was a blast. I can only remember one other time I have been skiing. I didn't like it at all. I wasn't going to even sign up for this trip, but everyone else in the group did, so I succumbed to peer pressure and actually ended up enjoying myself. See, sometimes peer pressure is a great thing. How else am I going to know what to like unless society tells me? A lot of people like to ski and would kill to have the chance to ski in the Andes, so I had to take advantage of the opportunity.

We had a quick lesson before I hit the bunny slope. I was nervous because I didn't expect to have any sort of success. All of my attempts to make light of my inadequacies with bad jokes fell flat. Our instructor was English, so it wasn't a language barrier thing, the jokes were just really bad. But a lot of you would have expected that.

I didn't fall at all during the lesson and had a pretty successful first run. I went down the bunny slope and had a blast. Trying to get back up the T-bar lift for the second time proved difficult. I got half way up and then lost my grip and fell. I tried to ski back down and try again, but I skied right into a snow bank and got stuck. It was hilarious. When Alli posts the pictures on Facebook, I'll add one here. I finally got un-stuck and made my way back to the ski lift to try again. I fell after about 30 seconds of holding on. It was embarassing. I finally got back up the hill and went down again. I'm not a skier, but I no longer hide in the corner when someone mutters the phrase "ski trip."

In an effort to not take myself as seriously as I used to, I bought a ridiculously obnoxious, 80s, one-piece ski-suit from a thrift store for less than $4 US. That one was for Ben Jay, Jeremy Guterl, and Ian Hainline. Thanks guys. You better appreciate the sacrifices I made to dawn this thing in public in a foreign country.

Boston in Santiago

So today was a rainy day. It reminded me a lot of Boston in the Spring. It's frigid and there is water everywhere. You cannot escape it, so all that's left to do is accept it. You are going to be wet, you are going to be cold, and the only thing you are going to want to do is go home, but, alas, you are going to have a busy schedule and water isn't about to get in the way of that.

I had an interview for an internship this morning. I woke up early and got dressed. I learned that my idea of proper interview attire doesn't really jive with the workplaces of the organizations I'm interviewing at. Yesterday I was way over dressed for my interview at Fondo Esperanza wearing a collared shirt, a sweater, khakis, and shoes. Today I dressed down with a collared shirt and jeans. The people at Kairos, today, didn't dress any differently than the average college student. Some were more professional than others, but there didn't appear to be a dress code of any sort. I'm not complaining, just observing. It would be nice to work in a place without a dress code especially when the Summer comes around in late October and there is no air conditioning.

In order to get to the interview this morning, I had to walk to Cristóbal Colón, a metro station on the blue line, take that one stop to Tobalaba on the red line, and stay on that for about 25 or 30 minutes until I reached San Alberto Hurtado. Lucky for me, I ran into Leanne at Colón and we traveled together until she had to switch to the green line at Baquedano. It was really nice running into a familiar face when I wasn't expecting it, especially since I knew I had a long trip ahead of me. Once I got to San Alberto Hurtado, I met up with Christy who was also going to the same interview. We hopped into a "collectivo" which is a cab that goes longer distances at fixed rates. It's not private, so two other people jumped in and were dropped off at their respective destinations. The streets in the town where the interview was, Renca, were completely flooded. This is another example of socioeconomic disparities in Santiago. The wealthy neighborhoods have streets with drainage systems whereas the poorer communities have nothing. It was an interesting sight. A normal rain looks like a flood in Renca. We ended up waiting about an hour and fifteen minutes before someone actually interviewed us. We were explicitly told to be on time, but because of the rain, we were 3 minutes late. When we arrived, we were told that the woman would be there shortly and we could have a seat. Half an our later, we were told that she would be another hour. It wasn't fun waiting, but we wandered around, got some bread a cheese to snack on. It was really good, or most probably, I was really tired and hungry...

After getting back to the city, I went to a meeting where I was trained how to be a TA for an English class. I think it will be a lot of fun working with Chileans my age and being the TA instead of a student in awe of the TA's speaking skills. Hopefully there will be more to come from that story.

Hasta mañana,
Dan

Keepin' up with the Jones'

Just trying to get in the habit of posting everyday or as frequently as possible. This blog should be a great thing to come back and read in a year or 2, or 5, or 10, when I have a boring desk job and need to waste time on the internet and Facebook is blocked, still. Hopefully I wont be on Facebook that much then.

ANYWHO:

So after my disjointed, sleep-deprived post, I went to Bellavista, a neighborhood in Santiago known for it's Happy Hour and after-hours scenes. A group of us gringos just hung out there in the afternoon, and it was a nice place to walk around. As Americans, we stick out. Every place we passed sent whoever could speak English to try to get us to sit down and have a drink.

Sundays are slow here in Santiago. Nothing much really happens around the city on Sundays. It's a little eerie.

Life inside the home is still good. I'm watching Entourage with Spanish subtitles with my younger host brother, Pierre. It's fun because I've never had a brother, and now whenever we're home with nothing to do, we watch an episode or two of Entourage.

This morning I had an interview with a microfinance organization in Chile. It's located in a not-so-nice part of Santiago, but it sounds like I can be a lot of help to them this semester. I have another interview tomorrow, so we'll see which organization I pick in the end.

Till next time,
Dan

Firsts

Last night was my first trip to a Karaoke Bar. It was quite entertaining. Chileans singing Spanish and English songs will always be a good time.

I am now on Chilean time. I went out last night at 11 and didn't come back home until 4:17. I ended up going to bed at 5 and waking up at 9:30 to accompany my host brothers to a Warhammer tournament. It's a strategy game. It wasn't my kinda thing, but any chance to bond with the family is worth it.

I haven't been extremely pleased with my Spanish lately. Sometimes I think I am improving and others I think I'm losing my skills. I have tried to tell myself that I am going to have a whole day without any English. It works up until a certain point, but it always gets ruined. Usually the gym ruins it because all of the cardio equipment that I use is English. The directions and the software are in English. If it's not the gym, it's the music that I hear throughout the day, or Facebook, or something else. I think it's an interesting observation that in Santiago, it's really hard for one to escape the English language. Then I started to think how often I hear at least a little Spanish in the US, and it's at least 5 days a week between music, television, the internet, and chatting with friends.

Sorry this entry is really disjointed, but I'm running on 4.5 hours of sleep. That means there will be no Spanish in this entry. My English isn't really that great right now.

I want to thank Lucía "accent on the 'i'" Flores because last night at the karaoke bar, I heard at least 4 songs in Spanish that she gave me. I felt prepared for that experience. Thank you, gorgeous.

Later,
Dan

Hurones

Last night I went to La Piojera with a bunch of friends from the Tufts program. It was a little bit of a trek. I met up with Katy at Cristóbal Colón metro station and we took the blue line to Tobalaba where we switched to the red line and took that all the way to Los Héroes, where we switched to the yellow line. I walked up the steps and Katy wasn't far behind on the escalator, so I turned around to make sure she was able to get on the train, but didn't see her. I was looking all around, and finally looked right in front of me. I saw her staring back at me on the other side of the closing doors of the train. That's what I get for trying to make sure we stayed together. I pushed and shoved my way onto the next train and we met up again at Cali y Canto, where La Piojera is located.

La Piojera is the oldest bar in Santiago and is famous for its Terremotos. (Sorry, there was no English entry for the drink.)
For the Spanish impaired:
"Terremoto" means earthquake. Chile happens to be known for its earthquakes. This drink is a mix of cheap wine, cheap liquor and pineapple ice cream. There is a bitter version and a sweet version. The liquor you add to the wine and ice cream is the difference between the two. The bitter one is overwhelmingly more popular, more traditional, so the bartenders make about 20 at a time and the line is out the door. You have to order the sweet one, but they are way to busy to take orders at the bar, so that will have to wait until next time, and there will be a next time.

La Piojera es un hoyo en el muro pero cuando se entra, tienes que caminar por un pasillo para llegar al bar. Al cada lado del pasillo hay salas donde hay mucha gente. Hay mesas con taburetes donde se sienten personas, pero la mayoría de los patrones están a pie porque el bar en lleno de gente. Sólo hay una gran puerta y un pasillo que se puede ver de afuera, pero lo que quiero decir es que cuando se entra, el ambiente no es parecido a lo que se imagina. Cada Terremoto vale 1.600 pesos o casí $3.00 (US). Las personas más grandes sólo requiere tres de estas bebidas para estar bien borrachas y por eso, es un bien oferta. A mi me gustan los terremotos, pero creo que no les gustan a todos. Sin embargo, todos que vienen a visitar Santiago de Chile tienen que probar esta bebida. La Piojera y el Terremoto son dos partes fundamentales de la experiencia de la cultura chilena, como la cazuela y la empanada, creo yo.

That was last night. I got home early, around 130, and then went to bed a little later. I woke up to a knock on the door, but it was one of those times where I wasn't sure what had happened until about 10 seconds later. Still in my bed, under the warm covers, I reached my arm out and grabbed the door knob to turn it to see if, in fact, someone had knocked. It was my older host brother, Matias. He was coming to see if I wanted to help him out with the ferrets he had imported. He imports animals from time to time and sells them in Chile as a side business. Yes, my host brother is an importer. We drove out to the countryside, about 45 minutes from Santiago, to his granparents house where the ferrets were. It has been a really disgusting, rainy day, so the transportation of 21 ferrets wasn't the most pleasant, but I got to spend time with my host brother, and that was a lot of fun.

I have been trying really hard to immerse myself in the social scenes here so I have a chance to improve my Spanish, listening and speaking. I was able to have a small conversation about politics with my older brother, and that made me really happy. It was a little frustrating becuase it was early and my Spanish is rarely ever acceptable before 10am.

On a similar note, my Chilean great aunt turned 93 this week. My host mother had a tea party for her. When I arrived home on Wednesday, there were 10 women chatting away in the living room. My host mom summoned me into the living room to chat with them. They spoke very quickly, but were extremely nice. It was a chance to improve listening comprehension, that's how I look at it.

More to come,
Dan

Hoy

Today, I woke up to my cell phone alarm at 900. I was still tired and didn't want to get out of bed. Heat is not common in Santiago at all, and the houses are usually colder than outside. Getting out of bed in the morning is especially hard here. I ended up sleeping in until 920 and then darting out the door in order to get to the gym. I signed up for a month-long gym membership at a place called Pacific Fitness. It's about a 20 minute walk from my house. It may sound like a trek, but I figured if I'm going to work out, the walk can count as a warm-up and cool-down and it's a good way to get to know the neighborhood.

So I signed up for my membership for a month and they gave me a free fitness consultation. I was excited, and a little apprehensive, but I went with it. Study abroad is all about getting out of your comfort zone and experiencing new things, so why did the gym have to be anything different? To give you a time frame, I signed up on Monday, worked out Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and had my fitness consultation today, Friday. I met with a trainer and he sat me in a room, basically poked and prodded for 10 minutes and then told me I needed his expertise to achieve my fitness goals. That was nice. I decided to start with the fact that I don't have the money to pay for a personal trainer. His rebuttal was that he could train me and I could pay him later. This exchange went on for about 15 minutes. It was not fun. In the end, I finally convinced him that I didn't have the money for personal training while abroad, and it just wasn't going to happen. He wasn't too pleased either.

This experience is really the icing on the cake when I look back on the gym as a whole. It is located in the basement of an office building. It has a small pool, a large room for Spinning, a small cardio room with 18 machines, each one within 1 inch of the next, and a small weight room. The manager sits at the tiny desk at the entrance and the personal trainers hang around him. It's a weird place to say the least. No windows, no clocks, and American music from the 70s, 80s, and 90s playing. I would use my iPod, but I broke my headphones three weeks into this experience and the music is too loud anyway.

I get home from the gym and finally meet my host aunt who lives a block down the road. She was visiting my host mom because she fractured her arm yesterday. I end up going to lunch at my host aunt's house, meeting her daughter and her Nana. I ate fettuccine with a cream sauce, carrots, cheese, and tuna. It wasn't all that bad. We also had a really delicious salad of avocado and lettuce dressed with lemon juice. It was really delicious. For dessert, and there is almost always dessert, I had a typical Chilean dessert. I believe it was called Postre de Compote. I would add a picture here, but I was at someone's house and didn't have my camera.

Compote is a potato-like vegetable that is usually served roasted as a side with chicken, duck, or turkey. It's also used in desserts. The dessert I had was basically a yellow compote jelly underneath merengue. It was very sweet, had an interesting texture, but was homemade by the Nana who has worked there for more than 14 years. It was made with love. Wasn't my favorite thing, but it was a chilean experience. After all, that's what I'm here for.

I must say, the one meal I ate at that house was better than at least half of the one's I've eaten at my host house. That Nana can cook. Hopefully I'll be seeing more of them soon.

My host aunt is really nice. We chatted over lunch about various things. Nothing too deep. She was really interested in understanding what Pennsylvania is known for. In Chile, many areas are segregated by the industry that they are part of. The north is known for copper, the middle for agriculture and business in Santiago, and the south for lumber, and fishing. I don't necessarily thing the U.S. operates in the same way. We have Idaho potatoes, Omaha steaks, Georgia peaches, and whatever else, but I don't see the U.S. as segregated by industry. I ended up telling her that there are a lot of pharmaceutical companies in the area, but that was about it in terms of specialization. I don't think she was satisfied with that answer. She's a really nice woman and hopefully I'll have more to say about her in the future. She also has the most amazing Golden Retriever. I love dogs...

Chau,
Dan

Yo sé que no escribí en español esta vez ni la última. Cuando yo empiece a escribir más frecuentamente, voy a usar el español más.

Sorry, Adriana Flores

I know I haven't blogged in a really long time. My schedule is starting to become concrete and I'll hopefully have more time to relive the triumphs and troubles of study abroad as I post them about the inter-web. The title for this entry alludes to the only person that I know that reads this thing. This one's for you, Adriana.

So. Classes started about three weeks ago. I signed up for a ton of them but only ended up attending Ceramics, Metal-working, Business Management, and Spanish. I quickly realized that metal-working was more interesting than ceramics, so I chose metal-working over ceramics to fulfill my arts requirement at Tufts. I stuck with Business Management until the first exam. It was an essay test and I couldn't handle it. I dropped that too. As of this moment, I am taking Spanish 121 equivalent, Metal-working, and doing an internship. This leaves a lot of open time for transportation, writing postcards, exercising, meeting Chileans, doing Chilean things, speaking spanish, and, of course, blogging. In addition to the IR-99 credit, the internship, I want to teach English to students here. Hopefully it will be at the college level so I can meet some more Chileans my age, but it might also be in a high school, or even younger. Since my speaking abilities are not much better than a 6 year old's, maybe I should just walk over to the elementary school on the corner and offer my services...

Aside from classes, there isn't too much going on, but I'll ramble on and we'll see what comes out. Yesterday, after class, I went out for drinks and dinner with 5 people from the Tufts program and our new friend, Mariluz, whom we met in class. We went to a "Mexican" restaurant in Plaza Ñuñoa. I ordered a Grolsh (a beer), Katy ordered a berry daquiri, Leanne ordered a Coca-Cola Light (pobrecita está resfriada), and the others ordered Pisco Sours. The Chilean ordered after me. Had I known she was going to order a Pisco Sour, I would have too. When in Chile...

I got home last night to find my host mother laying in bed with a fractured arm. She slipped and fell at the pool yesterday. I've been helping her around the house today since she doesn't want to move around to much for the first 5 days as the bone attempts to heal.

Tonight, I have plans to go out to the oldest bar in Santiago and get a Terremoto, "earthquake." It's a signature drink made with Pisco (a grape brandy, I believe), ice cream, and wine. I'm going with a bunch of kids from the Tufts program and Mariluz. It should be a great time. It's also Katrina's birthday. Hopefully that means we'll get into some decent trouble or whatever.

On to homeworks and other things until next time (hopefully tomorrow). Thanks for checking in.

Best,
Dan

P.S. If an English name appears, it means that person is part of the Tufts program with me, unless otherwise specified.
P.P.S. If you would like a postcard, please send me your address via Facebook.
P.P.P.S. If you read this blog and want a shout-out, like Adriana, let me know. If I know people read this, I might put a little more effort into it.