I Love Life... Life is Good

Last weekend our entire group went on an excursion to Santiago, the capital of Chile. We left bright and early Friday morning and toured several landmarks throughout the day. We toured a concentration camp where political prisioners were tortured during the Pinochet regime, La Moneda (the equivalent of the U.S. white house in Chile), and ended the day at the Agosto Pinochet Headquarters where we were presented for the first time with a view from a military general who supported Pinochet and called him "my general". I left this last stop feeling extremely weird. On my way out I had shaken the hand of the military man who had just talked to us and your guess is as good as mine as to how heavily involved he was during the dictatorship. I wasn't sure that I had really wanted to shake his hand, but I did anyways. Part of me just wanted to go and wash my hands immediately before I had the opportunity to touch anything else. Although I felt this way, I feel extremely forturnate to have had the opportunity to see so many different places and sides of Chilean history. That night our entire group stayed in a hostel together. It was a fun experience and after trying several times and finally succeeding to get our gas heater lit, I surprisingly had one of the best nights of sleep ever. The next morning we woke up early, were served breakfast in the hostel, and then took the subway to the cemetary in Santiago. Afterwards we had lunch at a typical Chilean restaurant in a neat neighborhood and then preceeded to tour the house of Pablo Neruda, a famous Chilean poet. After an exciting robbery attempt while riding the subway, we arrived back at the bus station where we hopped on a bus for the hour-and-a-half bus ride back home.



Last Monday afternoon a bunch of us met at the house of one of the girls in our group. Her host mom, or Profesora Patricia as I am to call her, has graciously offered to give cooking lessons to those of us who are interested. She is going to teach us to cook traditional Chilean meals and desserts including empanadas, pastel de choclo, leche asado, leche con arroz, and much more! I am very excited to go to a few of the "classes" and then bring my new-found knowledge back to Minnesota where I'll be able to cook for you all!



The 18th of September is the day that Chile celebrates their independence from Spain. It is a huge holiday here and everything shuts down the day before and stays closed until the day or two days after. Everyone comes to the coast to celebrate and I've heard that during this week each year Vina's population doubles. Although many universities do not have classes during this week, we had classes through Wednesday. That night I was invited to an asado by Javiera, the host sister of one of my friends. I went and had a ton of fun. We ate a lot of bread and meat, drank ponche, and I had the opportunity to talk with a lot of cool Chilean people.



Two days ago, el dieciocho de septiembre, I went to Sporting with my family. Sporting is actually a horse racing track that is turned into one huge county fair, minus the animals, during independence week. It has stands selling everything from chocolate to jewelry to wine to scarves. It also has games you can play to win prizes including bingo. Furthermore, there are rides and several ramadas. The ramadas are places to eat and they line the center of the horse track. There are tons of them, and each one has grills in front where men are cooking anticuchos, choripan, and empanadas. There is more meat than you could ever imagine, and you can walk by each grill until you see one that has exactly what you want to eat being cooked right in front of you. That's how you decide which ramada to eat at. For lunch I had a delicious pino empanada. Afterwards we walked around the rest of the grounds and I even rode the ferris wheel with my host sister. That night a bunch of my friends came to Sporting, so I just stayed there for the rest of the night. However, it was so cold that we made many passes through "meat alley" as we liked to call it (the long stretch of ramadas) walking as close as we could to the hot grills. I was extremely content standing right next to one of the grills for most of the night. Needless to say, I woke up yesterday morning (without having showered yet) smelling like meat!

Yesterday is a day that I will definitely remember for the rest of my life. I was fortunate enough to have been invited back to my friend Caitlin's house to celebrate Fiestas Patrias with her and her host family. I felt a little intimidated and slightly out of place at first as it was just me and then Caitlin, her entire host family, and a bunch of their friends. However, any type of insecurities that I had quickly faded. Immediately upon my arrival Caitlin's host mom, Marcella, introduced me to EVERYONE. We sat out in their driveway talking, drinking ponche, and eating bread with pico de gallo and choripan for appetizers. Then they threw all the meat on the grill. For the actual meal we had many types of salad, one of the best tasting potato salads I have ever had, and the choice of steak or chicken for the main entre. I opted for the chicken and was definitely not disappointed. Caitlin's host dad, Javier, is an amazing cook. After lunch Caitlin and I played with her little five-year old cousin, Santiago, and his "autos". It was so much fun and it was easy to communicate with him as he spoke more at our level. The whole time we were playing with his toy cars we were not allowed to talk about anything but cars and we had to make car noises or he would yell at us. After playing cars and the dishes were done, we all headed back out into the driveway to dance. And oh did we dance! I learned to dance the "cueca" (the traditional Chilean dance) and Marcella and her friends taught Caitlin and I how to dance "chilean-style". It was quite hilarious as everyone else sat around watching us dance and cheering when they thought we were finally getting the hang of it. Although the party was to last much longer, I finally caught a micro home after one of the best days I've had since I've been down here. I honestly do not know how I was so lucky to have been included in their family gathering. They were all so welcoming and I had such a great time. I felt so fortunate to have been a part of it all and will remember it for the rest of my life.

This morning I got up early and walked with my friend Adam to catch a bus to La Campana national park. After finally getting on the correct bus we arrived at the park just in time to depart on a hike to the top of La Campana. It was a treachorous 7 hour hike in all but definitely "vale la pena" (worth the pain). At the top of the mountain we could see the Andes mountains in the distance on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other. Unlike Meghan who climbed the same mountain when she was here, got lost, and was only able to spend 5 minutes at the top... we were able to spend quite a bit longer up there. I often wondered how she could've gotten separated from her group on the way up, but after climbing it today I know exactly how she did it. This is because I have had the opportunity to hike with Meghan before I know how much she LOVES hiking. I can only imagine her hiking up the mountain, getting somewhat fatigued as the rest of her group treks on, stopping for a break, and there ya have it... Meghan lost half-way up a mountain =) Although I told my friends it was a good thing my mom couldn't see me as I scaled the cliff on the way up because she would've been watching it as if it were a scary movie and I probably fell at least ten times (no joke) on my way down... it was definitely a great experience.

Tomorrow I must start all of the homework that I have been neglecting for the past week. We'll see how that goes... =) I don't have too much planned for this week, but on Friday our Social Conflicts in Latin America class has been invited to Santiago to watch the U.S. Presidential Debates with other Chilean students. It should be a great experience and I am really looking forward to it.

Goal for the week: To get only the homework done that I absolutely need to and to eat ice cream at Bravissimo on the beach... it's been TOO long!