True Confessions

Oh. I forgot... I had trashy American moment #2 in the airport today.

I went to Starbucks and got a grande skim chai... and it was American and it was more expensive than at home and it was worth every peso.

Los Papás

   Well hello, world!  Sorry it's been so long since my last post, but the vast majority of my fan base is right here with me (aka my parents are visiting me) so it didn't seem quite as necessary to update... plus I had no wifi. 

   Anyway. Marcia and Baird arrived last Thursday into Santiago, and so we spent the day walking around Santiago/ the fish market/ Plaza de las Armas and ended up in Bella Vista for dinner (super cool) where they had their first pisco sours. 

   After visiting the Cerro Santa Lucía on Friday morning, we headed to Vinã and walked along the beach and saw a REALLY beautiful sunset from a glass restaurant. 

 

   Saturday we took a micro (bus) and headed into Valparaíso and walked around my university's main campus (la Casa Central) and walked around a fruit market and then went up to Cerro Concepción on an ascensor! Sadly, it was pretty cloudy, so the view wasn't too pintorseco, but it was still really fun to poke around and we had a SUPER delicious lunch up there. That night we came back and went to this awesome dancing/singing espectáculo de música folklórica Cubana y Chilena in Viña! Afterwards, we had a very late, very greasy Chilean dinner of Escudo (Chilean beer) and chorrillana (Chilean dish: fries with egg, onion, chorizo, beef,  and many other things on top). While we were walking back to our hotel that night, I was nearly robbed! 2 guys came by and tried to pull my purse right off my arm- Rude! Having the excellent reflexes I do, though, I somehow bent my arm to inhibit the purse from escaping whilst they continued to pull... pulling me until I was face down in the street! They continued running into the fog with nothing except my hope and faith in humanity, and, suddenly seeing me on the ground, my mom confusedly asked me if I had fallen. "Uhh, no Mom... just attempted theft." Needless to say, we headed back to our hotel and I contemplated the idiots in this world. 

   Sunday we went to the ocean again and walked down the boardwalk and looked through all of the artisan gifties/junk in the stands there, and then went to an asado at my host family's house for lunch!! What fun/ delicious food! My 2 friends Jessica and Kelsey came (the girls with whom I went to Patagonia), too, and it was a big old translate-every-word party! 

  Monday I went to class (lame) while Mom and Dad went East to see the mountains in the town of Los Andes! We met back up at night and went out to dinner to eat Chilean empanadas with about seven of my gringa friends - what fun! 

  Tuesday, I went to another class (my professor said "no cierto," which basically means "right," 169 times... not that I counted for an hour and a half...) while the padres walked around Calle Valparaíso, which is a big shopping/hustle-and-bustle street in Viña. At about noon we hit the road to return to Santiago, and walked around until we had lunch and 'artesan' ice cream. Afterwards, we went back to our room and some of us had naps while some of us ran in our fancy new American tennis shoes and explored the city more.

   So then, that's the basic play-by-play of the partial-Smith-clan's partial-week in Chile. I'm now sitting in our (super nice) hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina- we arrived this afternoon! So far we've just kind of explored the streets filled with a bazillion shops around our hotel, but an update on this adventura Argentina to come soon, I promise.

  Chao chao, world! Que les vayan bien! 

Santiago trip y el Jardín Botánico

  Well world, I went to Santiago last Saturday! I went with my friends Kelsey and Jessica (the girls I went to Patagonia with) and we met up with a few of Kelsey's friends who are students la Universidad Católica de Santiago. What a fun day!

  We took the bus to the station in Santiago, took the metro into the center of town. We started out at La Moneda, which was the former presidential palace, until to-be-dictator-Pinochet's tanks came up to it and President Allende killed himself.... yeah, oops. Pretty palace, though! 

  Then we went to the Museo del Arte Precolombino - free and a super legit museum (not like the science-fair-types we've found in other parts of Chile)... and they had mummies that were older than Eqyptians. Very little people. 

  We met up with Drew and his polola, Anna, in the Plaza de Armas, had lunch, and then headed up to el Cerro Santa Lucía, which is just a big hill in town with pretty parks and random European buildings and churches.. and then a good view of the smoggy, smoggy city; 3rd smoggiest in the world, ya know! 

  

 Then we went to the Museo de Bellas Artes, which again was somehow free and really legit! We went out for coffee and once, and got back on the bus to Viña where we had a deeelicious empanada/salad dinner! 

   So on Sunday, we had another outing with the 7 foster kids at the Jardín Botánico de Viña-- so much fun!! We had a huge picnic and then just spent the day with them playing soccer and exploring the gardens-- unfortunately it's fall here, so there weren't too many flowers around, but it's a really pretty (and huge) garden/park. 

  THEN! We stumbled upon a couple taking their wedding pictures... and I couldn't have been more creepily excited to see them... may have tried to sneak into their pictures... 

  So yeah. It's Tuesday and I just took a prueba in my borrrrring Social and Economic History class.. I wikipedia'ed like crazy last night, so I think I did alright, but I can assure you that I have learned NOTHING in that horrible, horrible class. Other than that, my week shouldn't be too exciting until I meet my parents in Santiago on Thursday! We'll be there for the night, then come here to Viña until Tuesday, when we'll [probably] return to Santiago for a day and then head to Buenos Aires, Argentina from Wednesday to Monday! Yippee!

Sunset pictures

(These are in order from earliest in the evening to latest, just in case you couldn't figure that out... )

Also, sadly, apparently blogger hates making photos look good... so these are kinda jank (that's a word I learned from some of my programmates... it either means really great or really gross, depending on the context... or something...)

El Día de la Madre

   Feliz Día de la Madre! (And yes, Mother's Day is, indeed, a holiday here... except in my house... where evidently mothers are not appreciated.) 

   So today was Mother's Day here in Chile, and it was a lot less awkward than expected. I asked my host dad/brothers last Wednesday or Thursday about what we were going to do on Sunday... and received blank stares and then "Ummmm... I don't know... We'll have to see..." after informing them it was going to be Mother's Day. So, we had a big lunch with grandma, aunt and many cousins-- it was fun, but we pretty much do that every Sunday, so it wasn't particularly special... whatever floats your boat. 

   Note: At lunch, my grandma asked my what my sign was... I had no idea what she meant until she started listing off zodiac signs. Then we talked about the downsides of being cremated after you die(Having dust blow into your mouth as you spread the ashes was at the top of that list...) Yeah. My host family rocks. 

   Also, I called my real mom's cell phone for the first time, and called my grandma's home phone and pretty much shocked them both with my skyping cleverness- Yesssss

   Let's see... OH! I had a real dose of America last Tuesday after Bible study when I went to the 

PIZZA HUT here in Viña with some friends for 2x1 Tuesday!! Yes, it's a little trashy to go and eat American pizza while you're living in a foreign country, but ooh, there is something beautiful about gorging on multiple stuffed-crust pizzas whose ingredients are imported from the United States. 

  Yesterday the IFSA-Butler group went on a little journey to 3 cities...

   1. Curucavi: a Chocolatería with the CUTEST dueño in the world: a man about 80 years old, don Felix, who is just so in love with chocolate and the production of delicious chocolates in his tiny house-factory that it's insane. We got 8 free samples of some of his more exotic flavors- my favorites were albahaca (sweet basil), orégano, and mascarpone -- very strange but súper rico. Silly don Felix also tried to convince us that his chocolate was fat-free because it's so dark and has a "crack" when you bite it.. so maybe it was even health food?!

   2. Pomaire: Famous (in some circles...) for its pottery... which was suuper cheap and suuper plain... but, of course, when in Rome... had to come home with a bowl

   3. Isla Negra: We visited the second (of 3) houses of Pablo Neruda (Chilean poet/Nobel-Prize-winner/politician/all-around-big-deal) ...

Pretty, but I liked his home, La Sebastiana, in Valparazíso more... however it did have an awesome view and a very strong ocean-themed interior.  Also, we saw THE most beautiful sunset EVER from his beach... SOO incredible (see above post) !

   So yeah- that was my week! Not too shabby at all- gearing up for another week of learning, and then I think I'm gonna go and poke around Santiago for a day or 2 this weekend... you wish you could say the same. 

Hope all are well and enjoying their summers! 

Hasta luego, faithful readers!

My weekend !

Well I had such a busy weekend that it deserves its own post!

  One of my classmates in my speech class is named Raquel and she's a Mom returning to university. Last week, she invited my gringo classmates and me to her house for an almuerzo, so last Saturday, the 4 of us (Ashley, her friend from Santiago, Michael, Amanda, and myself) went to her house - about a 30min metro ride away, to have lunch! She made us homemade lasagna (she made the noodles!!!) and we ate with the 6 (out of 8) of her kids that live at home, her and her husband, and a grandson! It was such a huge and loving family- so very fun!

 

   Then on Sunday, I spent the afternoon with several other intercambio students to volunteer with a family in Valpo. 2 of my friends are here on Rotary Club scholarships, so they had to find a service project to participate in during their year here, and someone told them about this family. Their mother, Gina, has seven foster kids- from ages 8-16 who are all victims of sexual and/or physical abuse. She receives (very little) money from the government to raise the kids, but needs a whole lot of help, so my 2 friends have organized a group of about 10 "Tíos and Tías" to play with the kids and help her out. Yesterday, we had lunch and then divided them into 3 groups and had a scavenger hunt through Valparaíso-- they had sooo much fun- and so did we! We plan to do two large events (like yesterday's) each month, and then do lunch each Wednesday (while Gina takes some of the kids to the psychologist) with a few gringos, and a few other events as we're able. The kids were all really great- so well-behaved (very unique around here...) and just incredibly sweet and appreciative the whole afternoon.

  Well world, that's what I've been up to! I had classes today, so that was a bummer... but I'm going to Curacaví and Isla Negra with my study abroad group (read: free) this Saturday, so that should be fun! We're only going for the day and I think it's only like an hour to get there.... so hopefully there won't be quite as much excitement on this bus ride, but we'll just have to wait and see....

hasta luego, world!

Bienvenido, Mayo!

Well hello, world! Happy May!

   I've had a pretty bipolar week... started really badly, and has ended fantastically!

So let's start with the bad! 

   On Monday, my gringa friend, Ashley, and I got out of our class early because we had a test (which I think I did well on...?) and decided to go to the fruit market near school because we were both kinda hungry. 

   After about 20 mins of shopping around, Ashley got robbed! I saw it all happen in slow motion... he just stuck his hand in her (unzipped) bag and pulled out her wallet/clutch thing... so weird because I saw it all happen -he wasn't very sneaky- but we were just in such shock... After realizing what was happening, she hit him up against the wall right next to us to try to stop him, but he was persistent... then he took off running. Ashley (being a cross country runner for her school) chased after him for about 2 blocks, and all the while he's throwing her possessions in the street as he digs through her wallet to get what he wants (dinero) .. so as she returns, she's able to pick up everything of hers off the street, so all she lost was 30mil pesos, a little over $50. Mainly, though, it was just really scary because it was like 2:00 in the afternoon in the populated market... and no one did anything. Thanks, spectators. 

   Sooo then we went to the police (knowing full well that they couldn't do anything... but everyone urged us to do so, so we didn't have much of a choice) and they took us in an unmarked car to drive down the streets to see if we could find him. Yeah, because I would def hang around after robbing a very tall and vocal white girl.... After that failed, we went home to go to Ashley's apartment to kind of collect ourselves and watch some trashy old American TV 

to get our minds off of it / calm our (her) violent thoughts. Kinda worked.

   Soooo yeah- On to some good news! On Wednesday night, I went with 2 friends to another party at my University, thinking it would be like the super fun high school homecoming-style fiesta at the beginning of the school year. 

   False. 

   It was actually a party for the Socialist student group of the University... yeah. Woopsies. So we were at this Communist fiesta... and it was actually super fun! There was an open mic for moody power-of-the-people ballads, and very colorful posters around to remind us of the holiday we were celebrating- today is el Día de los Trabajadores, (Labor Day) and delicious sopapillas. Seeing as we were the ONLY gringas, and we didn't know any of their unifying group songs, I'd say it was pretty clear that we weren't exactly regulars at their meetings, but they were friendly (and actually did share a lot) and we had a fun time!

  Then last night, we had another one of our weekly gringo dinner parties, and this week I was the hostess! I held it at my friend Ashley's apartment (She lives like 3 blocks from me) because having 12 gringos over at my house would have been difficult and pretty awkward. We had breakfast for dinner (pancaqueques, huevos, tocino, and mimosas) and it was suuuuper rico and so much fun! Yaaay!

   So finally, today, as it is el Día de los Trabajadores, no one has school, (not that I have classes on Fridays anyway) so we had a family asado (barbeque) on our patio/deck thingie- fun times! Afterwards, my little sister, Antonia barged on into my room, and we played cards for far too long, playing a version of Go Fish I made up as we went along because I didn't really know any games that were either easy to explain or easy to play... Muy divertido.  

   ... Needless to say, things with my host family have gotten way better, and I feel very much at home now. I definitely still have my awkward moments (like when my dad essentially told me I was getting fat from eating too much bread... yeah.... thanks....) but all in all, it's really been great, as is life in general here :)

Hope all are well and that none of you have la gripe porcino!

Hasta luego!