Independence

FANtastic weekend. After Friday's ear fiasco, I cleaned up the wound, took a shower, put my hair up, and took to the streets to celebrate sweet sweet independence. Well, not exactly to the streets but to a fonda (like a mini state fair) not far from my apartment with some friends. We drank chicha (like wine but doesn't ferment as long so it's sweeter), ate anticucho (like a shishkabob with hunks of steak and chorrizo), and walked around looking at all of the chilean crafts. Aprarently that fonda was the most high-class of them all... as high class as a state-fair-like event can be I guess.

Saturday during the day I visited the general cemetery. I had heard that it's beautiful, and it's in my Lonely Planet book as a place to visit. When I first walked in, I was in an older section that must have been where the wealthy families are buried. The graves were big and made of old stone. One thing Molly had told me about the cemetery was that it struck her how many of the graves had fresh flowers, and she was totally right. A lot of them not only have fresh bouquets of flowers, but the whole grave would be planted like a mini-garden. Then there were big buildings that were like the apartment-building version of graves (photo), but even those were covered in flowers and had really sweet engravings. I was almost reduced to tears several times.



The less-wealthy section was really cool^. Most of the plots had pinwheels, soccer team flags, flowers, and even tents over them. I thought it looked like more fun to be buried there than with the rich people, but both sections had their charms. I'm really glad I went. That night I went out with Mariana!!! I met her and another friend at Mariana's house and from there we went to the fonda at the National Soccer Stadium. The crowd was definitely different from the night before, but we got terremotos and chorripan so I was more than happy. THEN we went to Providencia to find somewhere to dance and found a Cuban night club that was playing salsa and merengue. It was a smallish joint and for part of the night they had a live band! Siempre lo paso demasiado bien con la Flaca.

Sunday the weather was gorgeous so I walked to the park to do some homework. It was really busy with families with little kids, and kite-flying is something that everybody seems to do. It was fun to be surrounded by cute chilean kids and their parents for a while. The weather was absolutely gorgeous all weekend. Funny, because today is the first day of spring and it has been cold and rainy all day.

To welcome spring, there was a ceremony in the center of the city today where they threw flower petals and ticker tape out the windows of building around this small plaza. I went with one of my friends from soccer class. It was great and made me think that there should be something similar in every city to welcome spring. I guess in MN in March it's usually too effing cold to get everybody outside for something like that, but it made me feel really happy.

I'm throwing in a picture of the pizza I got when we went out for dinner with our program coordinator the other night, mostly for my mama the unofficial (Italian) food critic. And one of a wicked cool sunset that I saw out my kitchen window the other night. Life is good!

SUCCESS!!!!!!!

RAN UP SAN CRISTOBAL TODAY!!!!!!!! Now I can go home happy. There was a minor set-back when an overhanging tree took a bite out of my ear and I started bleeding, but I controlled the wound with my shirt and continued on up. It is so beautiful out today so when I got to the top I sunbathed for about half an hour (it's still winter, in case you were wondering). AND I ran into Jenners from Camp Hand in Hand up there! How nuts is that? Just bumping into friends in a city of 7 million.

I ended up staying in Santiago for the holiday weekend. The news reported that 1 million people left. I believe it, the city feels really empty. Wednesday I took a nice long walk to see Pablo Neruda's Santiago house. It was the only one of his three houses in Chile I hadn't seen yet. I would be extraordinarily happy living in any of them. This one is in Bellavista, the hip night-life neighborhood, at the base of Cerro San Cristobal. It used to have a river running right outside its window, but now the river goes under the property. He had really cool, interesting taste.

There are some North Americans visiting Santiago from Buenos Aires this weekend. We took them to La Piojera last night. It was more packed than I've ever seen it. We sat with a group of super nice Chilenas and two Chilenos. There were fútbol chants being chanted and everyone sang the national anthem at one point. One guy I was talking to wanted me to sing the USA's anthem but I declined. Hahahaha. Life is good!

Fechas Importantes

¡Hola! I got back to the apartment a little while ago from an independence day celebration at Mariano Latorre, the high school I volunteer at. This coming Friday is Chile's 4th of July: "El Dieciocho," or "The Eighteenth." It's the 199th anniversary of Chile's declaration of independence from Spain. Class ends at 1 pm on Thursday and by all accounts, that's when the celebratory drinking commences. La Universidad de Chile - one of the other main universities in Santiago - doesn't have class all week. The week leading up to Fiestas Patrias (the name of the whole shabang) has been described to me as "the biggest party of the year." The one thing I don't really understand though is that a lot of people leave Santiago for it. Originally I was thinking it would be sweet to be in Santiago to see all of the celebration, but now it sounds like a lot of my friends are leaving town. Surely there will be a lot going on here, but I don't know what I'm going to do yet.

The celebration at the school was a lot of fun. It was cool to see all of the students come to school on a Saturday to celebrate, and most of them were there all day long helping with their own class' stand. Our stand, Miss Gladys' class, sold empanadas, chips, and candy. I loooooove deep fried cheese empanaditas (Chilean spanish is all about adding "ita" onto the ends of nouns for small things). Other classes sold fresh-squeezed juice, chorripan (chorrizo and pan, aka a Chilean bratwurst), sopapillas, etc. And the cooking students made all kinds of deserts that were sooo yummy. I took a picture of their booth, it was right next to ours. I bought the spiral one. I didn't catch the name, but it tasted fantástico. Those boys are going to make really good husbands. I also took a lot of pictures of the elementary schoolers doing the national dance, the Cueca. It's really pretty when it's done right. The man is supposed to be in pursuit of the woman, which makes it extra cute when there are 10-year olds doing it. Here's a pic of me with the teacher I work with and another volunteer. Miss Gladys is wearing a typical Cueca outfit:


The celebration started on campus last week. There was a fonda, which is kind of like a block party but they're held all over Santiago and anyone can attend, at school on Thursday. It was a lot of fun - they sold typical Chilean asado (BBQ) food and drinks. And when it got dark there was a good band and dancing. I ran into some girls from my soccer class and it was a lot of fun to hang out with them off the field.

The other significant day that passed this week was September 11th, which was a sad day in Chile long before it meant anything in the USA. It was the day Pinochet's government violently took power of the country, and there are still protests and demonstrations to mark the event. We were warned as extranjeros to stay away from big plazas and government buildings. Apparently two people died in incidents related to the date. There are still a lot of people in Chile who think Pinochet was a godsend, and they fly the Chilean flag on the 11th.

On a more light-hearted note (well, maybe not), Chile had another disappointing outing in fútbol this week in their world-cup qualifying match against Brazil. It was a weird one - Brazil was not playing with their first line and therefore were not as dominant as usual, which left Chile with un montón of chances to score, but they couldn't seem to capitalize. Laaaaame. They lost 4-2. But I did get to eat my FIRST chorripan out of the deal because Mathias' host brother had some friends over for an asado. You win some you lose some.

Lily's Cumpleaños!

¡Cumpleaños feliz,
Te deseamos a ti,
Cumpleaños Lily,
Que los cumplas feliz!

The birthday song is different here!

It was Lily's birthday today and she had a party in the evening with a bunch of friends and relatives. She got home around 6:30 and we started preparing food and drinks. At most Chilean parties I've been to, they just have a bunch of finger food. My (and my mom B. Jo's) favorite! Tonight we had a veggie platter, nuts, cheese and crackers, meat balls/hot dog bites, empanaditas, little hard-boiled eggs, and this dish that I don't remember the name of that is a bed of thinly sliced zucchini with lemon juice and capers on top that is meant to be eaten on crackers. And everything had it's own home-made dipping sauce prepared by Joanna (our nana). She's a rockstar. She came to help with the party and stayed all night - with a nasty little cold.

I was a little nervous about helping with the party because I didn't want to get in anyone's way, but really Lily just needed help setting up and then we (the young adults) were guests just like everybody else. All of her friends who I have met are super nice, and her niece and nephew feel like my cousins. We even had a kid table like the Jeanetta cousins always do at family get-togethers. Lily was in a great mood and I think she had a really good time. Did I luck out or what?

Valpo - check!

It is a rainy Monday morning in Santiago, perfect bloggin' weather. Really perfect homework weather but who wants to do that? Just an update - that cool fishy meal Molly and I ate at Mercado Central last weekend gave us both a nasty little stomach flu that had us out of commission for a good 24 hours. Good thing I don't have class on Mondays because I couldn't get out of bed, much less ride the metro for 40 minutes. Bleeeeegh. But hey - everybody has to get sick once while abroad, right?? Lily and Magdita took good care of me.

After I got over that, the week was fun. We went out to eat for Molly's last couple of nights at restaurants she wanted to go to before she left. Santiago has some really great food to offer. I also found a cafe last week that sells bagels and muffins, two things that I had been missing.

On Saturday morning our program coordinator took us to Valparaíso for a day trip! Mathias, Lucy, and I took advantage of the free ride there and free lunch on Saturday and spent the night. Valpo gets mixed reviews from Santiaguinos - some say it's beautiful and you HAVE to go there and some use adjectives more like "dirty" and "dangerous". After spending two days there, I think it is incredibly charming and unlike any city I've ever seen. It is a port town almost due west of Santiago, made up of 45 cerros (giant hills) complete with 15 ascensores (lifts) to get people up them. But that description doesn't even begin to give a good idea of what this place is like. It is FULL of winding streets, in fact I think the only remotely straight ones are ones within a few blocks of the port. There are narrow streets and staircases everywhere you go, and really cool street murals everywhere you look. It is the queen of cities that are best seen on foot. PICTURES:






We stayed in a hostel not far from the port called Hostal Millennium. We shared a room with a German woman and an Italian woman. We ate breakfast with the German and a couple from the Netherlands that was staying in another room. Hostels are so cool for that reason, plus it was a steal. On Saturday night, Chile had a world cup qualifying match against Venezuela so we got to go to a bar full of Chileans and watch it. So much fun! Unfortunately, Chile tied when they should have won, but it was a good game and a sweet atmosphere nonetheless. We (Chile) play Brasil this week... yikes! Whatever, they can be beat. Anyway, I found a boyfriend on Chile's national team: Matías Fernández. He's super excited about living in Minnesota.

Valparaíso has a city right next door called Viña del Mar. We drove through the downtown area on the bus on Saturday. It's much more modern and apparently cleaner. It's main attraction is its extensive beach. We're already talking about spending a few days there right when finals are over. Since the bus ride there comes out to about $6, day trips aren't really a problem!