August 16, 2011
2:56 AM
Hey everyone! Sorry for the abrupt ending - I was going to post a last blog update sometime en route home, but unfortunately had a somewhat eventful trip back due to what I suspect must have been food poisoning from a restaurant the day I left... I was throwing up for the first 7 hours of my 9 1/2 hour flight from Santiago to Dallas, and didn't feel 100% again until a day or two after I finally got back home. A flight delay on my last flight from Denver to Bozeman was the icing on the cake of my worst trip ever! It could have been much worse, I am aware, but I was still not the happiest of campers. I'll spare any more detail because I've read about bodily functions gone awry in blogs before and was NOT appreciative of the descriptions. Suffice it to say that that is why I did not post initially.
Later, my lack of a final post was due to a large reluctance on my part to go anywhere near my laptop. I kept up with email and (to some extent) Facebook on my phone, but really didn't feel like wasting my all too short SUMMER vacation time online. I finally decided tonight that I needed to get online at least for a while to catch up a little, so writing the overdue blog post now :)
Now for an update on the state of the student strikes in Chile. I just read a really good blog post written yesterday summarizing the whole state of affairs currently. As far as what is going on RIGHT NOW, I'm actually a little out of the loop myself. As far as I can tell from reading online newspapers from Santiago, the strikes and protests continue, much the same as a little over a week ago when I left. I'll have to get some updates from my students and coworkers, but as far as I can tell, there is still no clear end in sight.
But although I will continue to follow Chilean current events and TV, my attention is now being directed towards another, more all-consuming focus: school. I leave for Boston 10 days from today.. SO HARD TO BELIEVE! I have been trying to soak in as much summer as I can - tennis, hiking, reading, climbing, and hanging out with Montana friends - but I'm not sure I'll be quite ready to go back to school when the time comes. But I have felt some small pangs of excitement, so all may not be lost.
I'm also looking forward to having my brother Spencer join me in my city this fall. He is leaving with my dad on Friday to drive all the way to Boston (they're crazy) in time for Tufts orientation. He's starting to freak out a little bit about the whole thing, making me relive my own pre-college experience (so glad I don't have to relive the beginning of Freshman year! so stressful!). I'm excited for him though, although I think my parents will be a little lost without either of their little ducklings at home.
But anyway, I diverge from the topic of this blog, Chile. A sign that I must bid adieu to my summer in Chile, and move on to other things. Thank you all who have followed my time abroad this summer, and I will keep you posted on my adventures to come!
Besitos, Brianna
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Ciaoooo Chile...
August 6, 2011
I leave tomorrow. How the last few weeks flew by! I am excited to get back to Montana though. Can’t wait to see my family, distribute presents, go hiking, enjoy SUMMER FINALLY, and get ready to go back to school.
Very glad I brought the extra empty duffel bag – it’s full, my suitcase is full, my carry-on is full… I definitely made the most of my time here :P Now to hope that everything is under the weight limit. It should be… I find it hard to imagine that I bought more than 50 lbs worth of stuff. But if not, this will be the first flight in a while where I haven’t had to do some rearranging and begging to avoid overweight fees.
My last couple weeks here went really well. My host family and some family friends hosted an “asado” (barbecue) for me a couple days ago, where I also put my pisco sour-making skills to the test. I was a little too dizzy for a work night, and didn’t get to bed until much later than I would have liked, but it was very nice and I highly enjoyed myself.
The next day was my last day at work, and I had been requested to come in earlier than normal to fill out an evaluation. I was reminded about the evaluation so many times though that I had the suspicion that it might not be an evaluation after all… and I was right ☺ Waking up super early after my late night was worth it, as I came in to a farewell party for me. It was so sweet of them, and I didn’t even know what to say. (to make matters worse, I had very little to give my supervisor as a goodbye present, as two of my favorite dulcerías were out of my favorite candies and chocolates, and so I was forced to settle for only one small treat for her). I will miss everyone though – my students and coworkers were all so so nice, and I learned so much from all of them. All of them signed a huge card for me, and some of my students came in to give me presents. One of my students left school early to travel for an hour to the office to give me a box of chocolates, and another gave me a video of him dancing traditional Chilean dances and sent me about 5 messages on Facebook thanking me for teaching him. All very unexpected, and VERY nice! Although I am still very sure that I do not want to be a teacher, the experience ended up being much more rewarding than I imagined, and leaving all my students here is hard.
August 7, 2011
Flight leaves in 10-ish hours! I hate night flights, the day is just so wasted and anticipatory.
Ciaooo Chile.
Brianna
My host family :)
Romi, me, Rocky III, Eli, Elias
I'll miss them!
I leave tomorrow. How the last few weeks flew by! I am excited to get back to Montana though. Can’t wait to see my family, distribute presents, go hiking, enjoy SUMMER FINALLY, and get ready to go back to school.
Very glad I brought the extra empty duffel bag – it’s full, my suitcase is full, my carry-on is full… I definitely made the most of my time here :P Now to hope that everything is under the weight limit. It should be… I find it hard to imagine that I bought more than 50 lbs worth of stuff. But if not, this will be the first flight in a while where I haven’t had to do some rearranging and begging to avoid overweight fees.
My last couple weeks here went really well. My host family and some family friends hosted an “asado” (barbecue) for me a couple days ago, where I also put my pisco sour-making skills to the test. I was a little too dizzy for a work night, and didn’t get to bed until much later than I would have liked, but it was very nice and I highly enjoyed myself.
The next day was my last day at work, and I had been requested to come in earlier than normal to fill out an evaluation. I was reminded about the evaluation so many times though that I had the suspicion that it might not be an evaluation after all… and I was right ☺ Waking up super early after my late night was worth it, as I came in to a farewell party for me. It was so sweet of them, and I didn’t even know what to say. (to make matters worse, I had very little to give my supervisor as a goodbye present, as two of my favorite dulcerías were out of my favorite candies and chocolates, and so I was forced to settle for only one small treat for her). I will miss everyone though – my students and coworkers were all so so nice, and I learned so much from all of them. All of them signed a huge card for me, and some of my students came in to give me presents. One of my students left school early to travel for an hour to the office to give me a box of chocolates, and another gave me a video of him dancing traditional Chilean dances and sent me about 5 messages on Facebook thanking me for teaching him. All very unexpected, and VERY nice! Although I am still very sure that I do not want to be a teacher, the experience ended up being much more rewarding than I imagined, and leaving all my students here is hard.
August 7, 2011
Flight leaves in 10-ish hours! I hate night flights, the day is just so wasted and anticipatory.
Ciaooo Chile.
Brianna
My host family :)
Romi, me, Rocky III, Eli, Elias
I'll miss them!
Saturday, July 23, 2011
A Blog Without Pictures, Because I Am Lazy. Perhaps Will Do A Blog Of All Pictures Sometime This Week.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
11:40 AM
My time in Chile is beginning to wind down, and I’ve come to the inevitable point where it seems as though there is more still left to do than time to do it. I have nixed traveling outside of Santiago from now on, as it is too time consuming and costly to be worth the effort at this point. Later today I am visiting an artisan fair (one I haven’t already been to) with my family, then tomorrow I am probably going on a vineyard tour. I am skeptical as to how interesting this tour will be in the middle of winter, but I have heard it is worth its somewhat costly price, even in the middle of July when everything is dead. (Still feels so weird to refer to things being dead in July – maybe grass from it being too hot, but from cold?? So strange)
I continue to be extremely busy at work. Just quickly scanned my last couple blog entries, and guess I haven’t made it clear how busy I have been lately, so I’ll go into a little more detail. The past two weeks were winter vacations for most schools, so my schedule changed somewhat – instead of going to teach in La Pintana each Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, the time was filled with extra students on vacation. My days have been packed, sometimes with no time even for lunch (okay, self-imposed, sometimes I feel like it’s more worth it to eat while teaching and have a longer lesson than to send them away just so I can sit and eat in peace). Many schools start again this Monday however, so I’ve had to have my first goodbyes with some of the students who will be unable to continue coming in for lessons due to their school schedules. It was surprisingly actually quite sad. One boy asked my supervisor if he could get permission from his school to leave early some days, if he could continue coming in for lessons, and a couple of them have added me on Facebook and chat me when I’m on. It will definitely be sad to leave all of them behind at the end, and I’ll be missing out on some cool things, like a dance recital one of them invited me to ☹
One of my most interesting cases this week was a boy who was forced to come in every day for lessons as part of an agreement after he was expelled from his school. He was only twelve years old, came in every day without a jacket (while everyone else is bundled up to the max), and liked listening to American hip-hop music and drawing graffiti. Unsurprisingly to me, he was actually quite smart, and was able to understand concepts and pronounce phrases better than many of my other students, even though he spent most of his time doodling on his paper. He reminded me of the various people I’ve known in my life with similar stories – smart, hate school, get in trouble, etc. Unfortunately, most of those people haven’t had some miraculous recovery or been able to make the most out of their surroundings. Instead, they become drug dealers or dropouts. Hopefully that won’t happen with him… but I have to admit that I’m not too optimistic. I’m not sure whether I’ll be seeing any more of him during my time here, as it all depends on how quickly he is able to find another school willing to accept him. If I do continue giving him lessons though, I’ll have to start getting creative – although he is always polite to me, and does everything I ask of him, he’s not the kind of person to enjoy the typical lesson. This week we translated a rap song – out of the options he gave me, I picked the least dirty and most intelligible – but I don’t think that will cut it for English lessons every day.
Other events worth mentioning: last Tuesday night, most of the group went to a bar for Karaoke night. I haven’t been going out much here (read: not at all), so of course I forgot to bring an ID. I borrowed a license from a girl in my group who had a copy of her passport with her as well, and so was able to get in :P (the guy appeared to be meticulously scrutinizing the documents and comparing pictures, but I have the suspicion that it was just a ruse, as he let in two “Beth Braitermans” from New York City with only one person in between…). Karaoke was fun, but I just don’t understand why things have to start so late here! It was a weeknight, we all had to be places at 8:30 or so in the morning, and yet the Karaoke didn’t even start until past midnight. Although I’ve always considered myself a night owl, I definitely prefer the US schedule for things like that! It was fun though, and even though my friend Matt and I ended up taking over an hour to get home due to lack of buses running and our lack of desire to take a taxi and finally arriving home around 2:30 AM, at which point the doorman be absent for a good ten minutes leading me to wake up my host mom to come let me in, it was worth it.
Today (because it is now almost 8 pm), my host dad took me to Los Dominicos, the aforementioned artisan fair. It was fun, and he bought me jugo de Chirimoya, one of the many Chilean fruits I had never heard of before coming here, which was delicious. I think at this point I can confidently say that I have almost artisan-ed myself out. Good thing that I have most of my gifts already purchased =)
(Although I did promise myself that I would go back to the feria Santa Lucia, where I went yesterday, as we only had time to check out a fraction of the stuff there)
In other news, as part of our internships here we are each asked to organize some sort of activity to show off what we have been up to for the past month and a half. We are required to go to at least one, but I signed up for three that fit my schedule. Unfortunately, the visit to the Ministeria de la Economía was canceled due to the tear gas surrounding the area (it was the day of the educational protests that turned a little violent), but I was able to visit Fundación Casa de la Paz, an environmental nonprofit, and Fundación Nuestros Hijos, an organization to help kids with cancer. Both were extremely fun and interesting, and kids with shaved heads and bloated faces because of chemotherapy are adorable! (That was probably a horrible thing to say. I’m sorry.) This week, I have my activity – I’m planning to take a small group of students to the school I work at in La Pintana to help teach an English class. In case I haven’t mentioned it before, or whoever is reading this has not read my former entries, or is reading them in backwards order as I sometimes find interesting to do in blogs, La Pintana is one of the poorer regions of Santiago. It’s extremely dangerous at night, but I don’t feel unsafe during the day, especially when I’m with teachers or students from the school. It does take a while to get there though, about an hour and a half on public transportation. I’m really excited to show off the area where I work, because the region is so different from most of the areas of Santiago that we are familiar with. I’m hoping that all four of my students actually show up to school that day… so far, it has yet to happen (I think I got three out of four one day).
Things I’m looking forward to this week: 1) office trip to a traveling Egyptian exhibit currently in Santiago. I actually considered going by myself a couple weeks ago, but decided against it. Glad I didn’t go earlier now, especially since I assume they will be paying for us! 2) the activity thing I talked about in the preceding paragraph. 3) going to see a play at the Universidad Católica with Winnie and Rebecca. 4) Friday activities, which include a tour of La Moneda, the Chilean equivalent to the White House.
Besitos,
Brianna
11:40 AM
My time in Chile is beginning to wind down, and I’ve come to the inevitable point where it seems as though there is more still left to do than time to do it. I have nixed traveling outside of Santiago from now on, as it is too time consuming and costly to be worth the effort at this point. Later today I am visiting an artisan fair (one I haven’t already been to) with my family, then tomorrow I am probably going on a vineyard tour. I am skeptical as to how interesting this tour will be in the middle of winter, but I have heard it is worth its somewhat costly price, even in the middle of July when everything is dead. (Still feels so weird to refer to things being dead in July – maybe grass from it being too hot, but from cold?? So strange)
I continue to be extremely busy at work. Just quickly scanned my last couple blog entries, and guess I haven’t made it clear how busy I have been lately, so I’ll go into a little more detail. The past two weeks were winter vacations for most schools, so my schedule changed somewhat – instead of going to teach in La Pintana each Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, the time was filled with extra students on vacation. My days have been packed, sometimes with no time even for lunch (okay, self-imposed, sometimes I feel like it’s more worth it to eat while teaching and have a longer lesson than to send them away just so I can sit and eat in peace). Many schools start again this Monday however, so I’ve had to have my first goodbyes with some of the students who will be unable to continue coming in for lessons due to their school schedules. It was surprisingly actually quite sad. One boy asked my supervisor if he could get permission from his school to leave early some days, if he could continue coming in for lessons, and a couple of them have added me on Facebook and chat me when I’m on. It will definitely be sad to leave all of them behind at the end, and I’ll be missing out on some cool things, like a dance recital one of them invited me to ☹
One of my most interesting cases this week was a boy who was forced to come in every day for lessons as part of an agreement after he was expelled from his school. He was only twelve years old, came in every day without a jacket (while everyone else is bundled up to the max), and liked listening to American hip-hop music and drawing graffiti. Unsurprisingly to me, he was actually quite smart, and was able to understand concepts and pronounce phrases better than many of my other students, even though he spent most of his time doodling on his paper. He reminded me of the various people I’ve known in my life with similar stories – smart, hate school, get in trouble, etc. Unfortunately, most of those people haven’t had some miraculous recovery or been able to make the most out of their surroundings. Instead, they become drug dealers or dropouts. Hopefully that won’t happen with him… but I have to admit that I’m not too optimistic. I’m not sure whether I’ll be seeing any more of him during my time here, as it all depends on how quickly he is able to find another school willing to accept him. If I do continue giving him lessons though, I’ll have to start getting creative – although he is always polite to me, and does everything I ask of him, he’s not the kind of person to enjoy the typical lesson. This week we translated a rap song – out of the options he gave me, I picked the least dirty and most intelligible – but I don’t think that will cut it for English lessons every day.
Other events worth mentioning: last Tuesday night, most of the group went to a bar for Karaoke night. I haven’t been going out much here (read: not at all), so of course I forgot to bring an ID. I borrowed a license from a girl in my group who had a copy of her passport with her as well, and so was able to get in :P (the guy appeared to be meticulously scrutinizing the documents and comparing pictures, but I have the suspicion that it was just a ruse, as he let in two “Beth Braitermans” from New York City with only one person in between…). Karaoke was fun, but I just don’t understand why things have to start so late here! It was a weeknight, we all had to be places at 8:30 or so in the morning, and yet the Karaoke didn’t even start until past midnight. Although I’ve always considered myself a night owl, I definitely prefer the US schedule for things like that! It was fun though, and even though my friend Matt and I ended up taking over an hour to get home due to lack of buses running and our lack of desire to take a taxi and finally arriving home around 2:30 AM, at which point the doorman be absent for a good ten minutes leading me to wake up my host mom to come let me in, it was worth it.
Today (because it is now almost 8 pm), my host dad took me to Los Dominicos, the aforementioned artisan fair. It was fun, and he bought me jugo de Chirimoya, one of the many Chilean fruits I had never heard of before coming here, which was delicious. I think at this point I can confidently say that I have almost artisan-ed myself out. Good thing that I have most of my gifts already purchased =)
(Although I did promise myself that I would go back to the feria Santa Lucia, where I went yesterday, as we only had time to check out a fraction of the stuff there)
In other news, as part of our internships here we are each asked to organize some sort of activity to show off what we have been up to for the past month and a half. We are required to go to at least one, but I signed up for three that fit my schedule. Unfortunately, the visit to the Ministeria de la Economía was canceled due to the tear gas surrounding the area (it was the day of the educational protests that turned a little violent), but I was able to visit Fundación Casa de la Paz, an environmental nonprofit, and Fundación Nuestros Hijos, an organization to help kids with cancer. Both were extremely fun and interesting, and kids with shaved heads and bloated faces because of chemotherapy are adorable! (That was probably a horrible thing to say. I’m sorry.) This week, I have my activity – I’m planning to take a small group of students to the school I work at in La Pintana to help teach an English class. In case I haven’t mentioned it before, or whoever is reading this has not read my former entries, or is reading them in backwards order as I sometimes find interesting to do in blogs, La Pintana is one of the poorer regions of Santiago. It’s extremely dangerous at night, but I don’t feel unsafe during the day, especially when I’m with teachers or students from the school. It does take a while to get there though, about an hour and a half on public transportation. I’m really excited to show off the area where I work, because the region is so different from most of the areas of Santiago that we are familiar with. I’m hoping that all four of my students actually show up to school that day… so far, it has yet to happen (I think I got three out of four one day).
Things I’m looking forward to this week: 1) office trip to a traveling Egyptian exhibit currently in Santiago. I actually considered going by myself a couple weeks ago, but decided against it. Glad I didn’t go earlier now, especially since I assume they will be paying for us! 2) the activity thing I talked about in the preceding paragraph. 3) going to see a play at the Universidad Católica with Winnie and Rebecca. 4) Friday activities, which include a tour of La Moneda, the Chilean equivalent to the White House.
Besitos,
Brianna
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Beautiful Day in Santiago :)
Saturday, July 16, 2011
3:44 PM
Hello all! It is a beautiful day in Santiago today. I went for a run outside this morning for the first time since getting here. Usually the pollution is bad enough that running outside is discouraged, which is annoying when gym memberships are expensive and the gym in your building only has free weights and a bench press. It’s been raining off and on for the last two days though, so today is gorgeous and free of pollution. The difference is palpable when you walk outside – I’m glad I’m only here for two months, because I’m not sure I want to expose my lungs to so much pollution for much longer than that.
Yesterday the group went to Isla Negra, a little town a couple hours outside of Santiago most well known for being home to the most important house of Pablo Neruda. As far as the houses themselves go, I probably like his house in Valparaiso the most, La Sebastiana. But as far as locations, Isla Negra is pretty great. It’s not actually an island, but is next to the ocean with forests behind. Very, very pretty. Pablo Neruda’s house is very strange, and I don’t think I’m really a fan of his “style,” but I highly enjoyed the visit. We also ate at a nice restaurant there, where I tried empanadas de mariscos (seafood) and tollo (a type of fish). I figured I should try the stuff that I can’t eat at my Jewish host family’s house, especially since Chile is known for its fish and seafood, but to be honest, I wasn’t a huge fan. Which is good, because then I know that I’m not missing out by eating kosher most of the time!
Sad to be missing my mom’s cousin Andrew’s wedding today in Michigan… other than that, am enjoying my weekend and looking forward to going to Viña del Mar again tomorrow with my host uncle’s family. Right now, I’m off to visit a dulcería (candy store/bakery) with some friends. Yummmm. More later!
Brianna
3:44 PM
Hello all! It is a beautiful day in Santiago today. I went for a run outside this morning for the first time since getting here. Usually the pollution is bad enough that running outside is discouraged, which is annoying when gym memberships are expensive and the gym in your building only has free weights and a bench press. It’s been raining off and on for the last two days though, so today is gorgeous and free of pollution. The difference is palpable when you walk outside – I’m glad I’m only here for two months, because I’m not sure I want to expose my lungs to so much pollution for much longer than that.
Yesterday the group went to Isla Negra, a little town a couple hours outside of Santiago most well known for being home to the most important house of Pablo Neruda. As far as the houses themselves go, I probably like his house in Valparaiso the most, La Sebastiana. But as far as locations, Isla Negra is pretty great. It’s not actually an island, but is next to the ocean with forests behind. Very, very pretty. Pablo Neruda’s house is very strange, and I don’t think I’m really a fan of his “style,” but I highly enjoyed the visit. We also ate at a nice restaurant there, where I tried empanadas de mariscos (seafood) and tollo (a type of fish). I figured I should try the stuff that I can’t eat at my Jewish host family’s house, especially since Chile is known for its fish and seafood, but to be honest, I wasn’t a huge fan. Which is good, because then I know that I’m not missing out by eating kosher most of the time!
Sad to be missing my mom’s cousin Andrew’s wedding today in Michigan… other than that, am enjoying my weekend and looking forward to going to Viña del Mar again tomorrow with my host uncle’s family. Right now, I’m off to visit a dulcería (candy store/bakery) with some friends. Yummmm. More later!
Brianna
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
♫ We're Halfway There (almost)
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
8:19 PM
Hi! Reasons I have not written an update in a while:
1) I have been spending a lot of my free time talking with my host family (good reason)
2) I was traveling without internet (good reason)
3) Facebook (bad reason)
4) Google+ (bad reason)
5) Couldn’t think of anything to write about (well, that’s an okay reason)
6) Lesson planning (good reason)
7) Babysitting (good reason, although I would rather have been writing a blog than taking care of that monster child, and for no pay too)
I could probably come up with a couple more, but I guess I’ll stop thinking of excuses and just write something.
This past weekend I went to Valparaiso and Viña del Mar, which are both located around an hour and a half outside of Santiago. Valparaiso was very pretty, with houses everywhere on the hills surrounding the city. To get anywhere, you have to take trolleys or walk up stairs or almost-vertical roads (okay, that’s a little bit of an exaggeration, but not much). Definitely got some exercise that weekend! Most of us chose to spend the night in Valparaiso, my first hostel experience in Chile. The 20 of us pretty much filled the hostel, and we were horrible guests. We broke a bed within the first five minutes of being there (although that wasn’t our fault, three girls sitting on one bed should not cause the whole thing to collapse – which the owner seemed to think as well, as he clearly didn’t believe me when I explained how it had happened), and our group was generally extremely loud and belligerent the whole time. I was staying in a room with a few of the only non-program people in the hostel, two guys from England and another from Chile. One of the highlights of the trip was Winnie attempting to communicate with the British guys in a British accent – afterwards, they admitted that they didn’t even know she was speaking English :P
While in Valparaiso, I visited Pablo Neruda’s second house in Chile, which I enjoyed more than his house in Santiago. There were audio tours, which Winnie, Rebecca (another girl in the program), and I chose to do in Spanish. That shouldn’t have been a problem whatsoever, except for the fact that they tried to make the audio parts more interesting by adding background noise, music, etc. (I always hated that in AP Spanish in high school) and the people around us were not always quiet enough to allow easy listening in any language. The tour was fun though, and definitely worth the time and sweat it took to get there on foot.
The only other event worth mentioning from the weekend comes from our adventures to Viña del Mar. One of the guys who lives with my host family during the week to work is from Viña and had told me a lot about it. I was expecting a cute little seaside village. It turns out Viña is more of a sprawling tourist resort town. Nice, but definitely not what I was expecting. We heard there were some interesting castles to tour though, so Winnie, Rebecca, and I decided to head for one that we saw on top of a nearby hill. We hiked all the way up (another chore) and found the castle. There weren’t any signs or anything, but the front gate was open, so we headed in. We wandered around the grounds for a little while, taking pictures of the view and the castle, but felt a little uncomfortable about the fact that we hadn’t seen anyone and could possibly be trespassing, until we heard a little voice yell “Hola!” from the top of the tower. We looked up, and there was a little girl in pink, being held up by her dad waving at us. The perfect little princess, calling out from her tower ☺ We yelled up asking if the castle was open to the public and how to get inside, and the man responded by making a hand gesture of a spiral, which we assumed meant we could come on up. We headed around to the side and went in, only to get accosted by a couple of women, asking us who we were and what we were doing. Turns out, we had wandered into a pretty exclusive military hotel, and were definitely not allowed in. The women (employees of the hotel) seemed fairly amused by the encounter, and one of them told us that “You have done a bad thing!!” but with a smile on her face. We got led back out, and I didn’t risk asking to use the bathroom (which I was about to do before we were found), but they were nice enough to comply with my request to please not send us to jail.
Later, I found out that President Piñera’s house is also on that particular hill, presumably close to where we were. I guess it’s good we didn’t wander into his house by mistake? Although that would have made for an even better story.
The week since then has been generally uneventful. I keep gaining more and more students, although the point will quickly be reached where taking on more beginners won’t make much sense. I think my teaching skills are improving, and at the very least, my knowledge of the workings of the English language is improving. This Saturday I reach my half-way mark, and I will be leaving for home a month from tomorrow. I can’t say I’m not excited to travel back to the land of summer and sleeping in, but unfortunately I also don’t think I’ll be able to meet all my Spanish-speaking goals by the time I leave. As I am not sure what my plans are for next summer, I have started to begin contemplating how comfortable I am with leaving here with my Spanish still imperfect. If being bilingual is really an important goal for me (which it has been, up to this point), I will have to make a concerted effort to return to a Spanish-speaking country again in the future, preferably for a longer period of time. I’ve heard that six months is a good number. At this point, I am honestly unsure if I want to make that commitment though – my Spanish is good enough to understand everything I hear (unless there is lots of slang involved or multiple people talking at once) and also say anything that I would want to say, and that’s definitely an achievement in itself. All that I have left to do is increase my ease in speaking and decrease pauses while I search for words or weird tenses – but that will take a while to fix. I’m guessing the issue will take care of itself as I go through the process of determining my thesis topic and later, career, but I figure I should try to figure out my priorities now to have a better idea later on.
For the second year in a row, I spent the fourth of July out of the country. Last year, it was full of enthusiastic singing of patriotic songs while touring Spain in a bus. This year, I didn’t even see an American person all day. My colleagues apologized to me for making me work on such a special day, and joked that they were breaking the law by making me come in, but I didn’t mind – I just missed the food and fireworks. My favorite moment of the day came on the subway on the way to work. I was reading the free daily newspaper, La Hora, which had an article about American citizens in Chile and their traditions for the fourth of July. A line of the article reads: “El restaurante The California Cantina fue el escogido por la embajada de ese país para realizar la Flag Raisin, una ceremonia donde se iza la bandera de ese país…” (bolds added) Reading about our flag “raisin” ceremony made me laugh.
This Friday our activities for the day consist of painting a special education school. I’m super excited, because painting is something I have ALWAYS wanted to do. I will update you on how I end up liking it! Then I am going to synagogue with my host family, a first for me as well. My host dad told me today that he would really like me to convert to Judaism. I told him that he can try to convert me all he wants… but that I am extremely doubtful that he will succeed. But at any rate, I am looking forward to seeing what synagogue is like.
Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying their summers. I know it’s a little too hot in some places, but appreciate the warmth, and send some to me if you can!
Brianna
a look up one of Valparaiso's slanted streets
Rebecca and me at the beach in Viña del Mar. I also have bangs, a spontaneous decision born from a combination of getting out of work early, needing a haircut (slash really needing to wash my hair, but not feeling like taking a shower), and wanting to take advantage of being in a foreign country to do something different
our "castle"
as promised, a picture of a school "en toma" - President Piñera made some concessions to the movement yesterday, but it doesn't look like it will be enough to stop the protests
a view of the office where I work :)
8:19 PM
Hi! Reasons I have not written an update in a while:
1) I have been spending a lot of my free time talking with my host family (good reason)
2) I was traveling without internet (good reason)
3) Facebook (bad reason)
4) Google+ (bad reason)
5) Couldn’t think of anything to write about (well, that’s an okay reason)
6) Lesson planning (good reason)
7) Babysitting (good reason, although I would rather have been writing a blog than taking care of that monster child, and for no pay too)
I could probably come up with a couple more, but I guess I’ll stop thinking of excuses and just write something.
This past weekend I went to Valparaiso and Viña del Mar, which are both located around an hour and a half outside of Santiago. Valparaiso was very pretty, with houses everywhere on the hills surrounding the city. To get anywhere, you have to take trolleys or walk up stairs or almost-vertical roads (okay, that’s a little bit of an exaggeration, but not much). Definitely got some exercise that weekend! Most of us chose to spend the night in Valparaiso, my first hostel experience in Chile. The 20 of us pretty much filled the hostel, and we were horrible guests. We broke a bed within the first five minutes of being there (although that wasn’t our fault, three girls sitting on one bed should not cause the whole thing to collapse – which the owner seemed to think as well, as he clearly didn’t believe me when I explained how it had happened), and our group was generally extremely loud and belligerent the whole time. I was staying in a room with a few of the only non-program people in the hostel, two guys from England and another from Chile. One of the highlights of the trip was Winnie attempting to communicate with the British guys in a British accent – afterwards, they admitted that they didn’t even know she was speaking English :P
While in Valparaiso, I visited Pablo Neruda’s second house in Chile, which I enjoyed more than his house in Santiago. There were audio tours, which Winnie, Rebecca (another girl in the program), and I chose to do in Spanish. That shouldn’t have been a problem whatsoever, except for the fact that they tried to make the audio parts more interesting by adding background noise, music, etc. (I always hated that in AP Spanish in high school) and the people around us were not always quiet enough to allow easy listening in any language. The tour was fun though, and definitely worth the time and sweat it took to get there on foot.
The only other event worth mentioning from the weekend comes from our adventures to Viña del Mar. One of the guys who lives with my host family during the week to work is from Viña and had told me a lot about it. I was expecting a cute little seaside village. It turns out Viña is more of a sprawling tourist resort town. Nice, but definitely not what I was expecting. We heard there were some interesting castles to tour though, so Winnie, Rebecca, and I decided to head for one that we saw on top of a nearby hill. We hiked all the way up (another chore) and found the castle. There weren’t any signs or anything, but the front gate was open, so we headed in. We wandered around the grounds for a little while, taking pictures of the view and the castle, but felt a little uncomfortable about the fact that we hadn’t seen anyone and could possibly be trespassing, until we heard a little voice yell “Hola!” from the top of the tower. We looked up, and there was a little girl in pink, being held up by her dad waving at us. The perfect little princess, calling out from her tower ☺ We yelled up asking if the castle was open to the public and how to get inside, and the man responded by making a hand gesture of a spiral, which we assumed meant we could come on up. We headed around to the side and went in, only to get accosted by a couple of women, asking us who we were and what we were doing. Turns out, we had wandered into a pretty exclusive military hotel, and were definitely not allowed in. The women (employees of the hotel) seemed fairly amused by the encounter, and one of them told us that “You have done a bad thing!!” but with a smile on her face. We got led back out, and I didn’t risk asking to use the bathroom (which I was about to do before we were found), but they were nice enough to comply with my request to please not send us to jail.
Later, I found out that President Piñera’s house is also on that particular hill, presumably close to where we were. I guess it’s good we didn’t wander into his house by mistake? Although that would have made for an even better story.
The week since then has been generally uneventful. I keep gaining more and more students, although the point will quickly be reached where taking on more beginners won’t make much sense. I think my teaching skills are improving, and at the very least, my knowledge of the workings of the English language is improving. This Saturday I reach my half-way mark, and I will be leaving for home a month from tomorrow. I can’t say I’m not excited to travel back to the land of summer and sleeping in, but unfortunately I also don’t think I’ll be able to meet all my Spanish-speaking goals by the time I leave. As I am not sure what my plans are for next summer, I have started to begin contemplating how comfortable I am with leaving here with my Spanish still imperfect. If being bilingual is really an important goal for me (which it has been, up to this point), I will have to make a concerted effort to return to a Spanish-speaking country again in the future, preferably for a longer period of time. I’ve heard that six months is a good number. At this point, I am honestly unsure if I want to make that commitment though – my Spanish is good enough to understand everything I hear (unless there is lots of slang involved or multiple people talking at once) and also say anything that I would want to say, and that’s definitely an achievement in itself. All that I have left to do is increase my ease in speaking and decrease pauses while I search for words or weird tenses – but that will take a while to fix. I’m guessing the issue will take care of itself as I go through the process of determining my thesis topic and later, career, but I figure I should try to figure out my priorities now to have a better idea later on.
For the second year in a row, I spent the fourth of July out of the country. Last year, it was full of enthusiastic singing of patriotic songs while touring Spain in a bus. This year, I didn’t even see an American person all day. My colleagues apologized to me for making me work on such a special day, and joked that they were breaking the law by making me come in, but I didn’t mind – I just missed the food and fireworks. My favorite moment of the day came on the subway on the way to work. I was reading the free daily newspaper, La Hora, which had an article about American citizens in Chile and their traditions for the fourth of July. A line of the article reads: “El restaurante The California Cantina fue el escogido por la embajada de ese país para realizar la Flag Raisin, una ceremonia donde se iza la bandera de ese país…” (bolds added) Reading about our flag “raisin” ceremony made me laugh.
This Friday our activities for the day consist of painting a special education school. I’m super excited, because painting is something I have ALWAYS wanted to do. I will update you on how I end up liking it! Then I am going to synagogue with my host family, a first for me as well. My host dad told me today that he would really like me to convert to Judaism. I told him that he can try to convert me all he wants… but that I am extremely doubtful that he will succeed. But at any rate, I am looking forward to seeing what synagogue is like.
Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying their summers. I know it’s a little too hot in some places, but appreciate the warmth, and send some to me if you can!
Brianna
a look up one of Valparaiso's slanted streets
our "castle"
as promised, a picture of a school "en toma" - President Piñera made some concessions to the movement yesterday, but it doesn't look like it will be enough to stop the protests
a view of the office where I work :)
Monday, June 27, 2011
Weekend adventures
June 27, 2011
3:41 PM
Fun weekend. Friday was spent exploring Santiago and going to various outdoor and indoor markets. Finally found some postcards that I like, so people might actually be hearing from me somewhat soon. Saturday, Winnie and I went to Cajón de Maipo along with Shay, another guy from our program. Cajón de Maipo is about an hour away from Santiago and very pretty, super close to the mountains. I really wanted to go on a hike, but when we asked at the tourist center, we were told that the only hike nearby would cost us $15,000 pesos (about $30). Needless to say, we weren’t too excited about that, so we instead decided to follow the road up the nearby mountains to the ski resort 16 km away. We walked part of the way, but got a lot of rides from people as well – my first time hitchhiking! We bushwhacked off the road for a while as well, although it ended up being a bit more of an adventure than we were looking for, what with cliffs, fences, and lots of prickly bushes and loose rock. Shay and I were fine, but Winnie (who is scared of heights), was not a huge fan of some parts. We got out of it all right however, and it was definitely an experience! We caught a ride back down the mountain and got a ride back to Santiago from Shay’s host mom, who happened to be there for a party. Shay was particularly happy not to have to take the bus back, as he was not a fan of the speed and bumpiness of the ride over. (I, however, liked the bus – it was like an amusement park ride :P)
Sunday, Winnie and I went to Pomaire, a pueblo about 45 minutes away that is pretty much dedicated to creating pottery. It was interesting, but I enjoyed Cajón de Maipo more. Plus there were tons of tourists in Pomaire – although very few Americans, which was good. The day ended up being a little longer than expected after we realized that a lot of the buses going back to Santiago were already full, but we got back eventually. And spent the extra time flirting with several Pomaire guys, so it wasn’t too bad :P
Today was a día feriado, state holiday, so no work. Back to the normal routine tomorrow though. I’m not really looking forward to it – the office is so so cold, and I don’t actually enjoy teaching English that much. It also makes me sad learning about the state of education here, as it’s pretty horrible. Right now a lot of the schools are “en toma,” meaning that students have taken over the school buildings and aren’t allowing anyone in. You can tell when a school is en toma because chairs are stuck into the fences surrounding the schools. There are student guards who determine who can pass, and there are students in the building at all times (many sleep and eat there). Some schools have been en toma for a couple weeks now, and I’m not sure when it’s going to let up. The tomas were initiated in order to protest for better quality education, and some people in my program see the tomas as being a good example of citizens protesting for their rights, but I think the whole idea of a toma is very contradictory. Quality of education may be bad, but it can’t be worse than nothing at all. Those defending the tomas claim that the only way to initiate governmental action here is to do something drastic, but taking over school buildings and destroying school property can’t be the best way. Not to mention that some of the problem lies within the students themselves – at one of the schools I go to to teach, many of the students spend most of their time sitting around outside instead of in class, and students regularly miss their lessons at the office I work at. And Chile isn’t yet a completely developed country, so I have my doubts about whether the tomas will be able to instigate any change even if the government recognizes the problems in quality of education (which they do). I wasn’t set on writing my thesis on education in Latin America/Chile before I came here, but now I think I’m even less likely to. But we shall see! And for those interested, I’ll try to put up a picture of one of the schools currently en toma soon; I haven’t had the chance to take one yet. But if you search “en toma” on google images, some images of schools in Santiago come up.
Okay, well I’m exhausted now, so I’m going to take a nap before going to a plaza with my host family to walk around and get a coffee later tonight. Hope everyone is doing well! I’ve recently had my first tinges of homesickness this week, and I miss the ease of being home (used loosely). But I knew that would happen, and I think it’s good for me in various ways. One of which is that visiting other places has been super useful to me in terms of helping me figure out exactly how I want to live. Not in terms of what I want to study or do for a career so much, but in terms of what kind of living situation I want: house, food, eating and sleeping schedule, social life, etc. Hasn’t changed my opinion about where I want to live though: Montana still on my mind ☺
Cajón de Maipo in the background
Shay, me, and Winnie
3:41 PM
Fun weekend. Friday was spent exploring Santiago and going to various outdoor and indoor markets. Finally found some postcards that I like, so people might actually be hearing from me somewhat soon. Saturday, Winnie and I went to Cajón de Maipo along with Shay, another guy from our program. Cajón de Maipo is about an hour away from Santiago and very pretty, super close to the mountains. I really wanted to go on a hike, but when we asked at the tourist center, we were told that the only hike nearby would cost us $15,000 pesos (about $30). Needless to say, we weren’t too excited about that, so we instead decided to follow the road up the nearby mountains to the ski resort 16 km away. We walked part of the way, but got a lot of rides from people as well – my first time hitchhiking! We bushwhacked off the road for a while as well, although it ended up being a bit more of an adventure than we were looking for, what with cliffs, fences, and lots of prickly bushes and loose rock. Shay and I were fine, but Winnie (who is scared of heights), was not a huge fan of some parts. We got out of it all right however, and it was definitely an experience! We caught a ride back down the mountain and got a ride back to Santiago from Shay’s host mom, who happened to be there for a party. Shay was particularly happy not to have to take the bus back, as he was not a fan of the speed and bumpiness of the ride over. (I, however, liked the bus – it was like an amusement park ride :P)
Sunday, Winnie and I went to Pomaire, a pueblo about 45 minutes away that is pretty much dedicated to creating pottery. It was interesting, but I enjoyed Cajón de Maipo more. Plus there were tons of tourists in Pomaire – although very few Americans, which was good. The day ended up being a little longer than expected after we realized that a lot of the buses going back to Santiago were already full, but we got back eventually. And spent the extra time flirting with several Pomaire guys, so it wasn’t too bad :P
Today was a día feriado, state holiday, so no work. Back to the normal routine tomorrow though. I’m not really looking forward to it – the office is so so cold, and I don’t actually enjoy teaching English that much. It also makes me sad learning about the state of education here, as it’s pretty horrible. Right now a lot of the schools are “en toma,” meaning that students have taken over the school buildings and aren’t allowing anyone in. You can tell when a school is en toma because chairs are stuck into the fences surrounding the schools. There are student guards who determine who can pass, and there are students in the building at all times (many sleep and eat there). Some schools have been en toma for a couple weeks now, and I’m not sure when it’s going to let up. The tomas were initiated in order to protest for better quality education, and some people in my program see the tomas as being a good example of citizens protesting for their rights, but I think the whole idea of a toma is very contradictory. Quality of education may be bad, but it can’t be worse than nothing at all. Those defending the tomas claim that the only way to initiate governmental action here is to do something drastic, but taking over school buildings and destroying school property can’t be the best way. Not to mention that some of the problem lies within the students themselves – at one of the schools I go to to teach, many of the students spend most of their time sitting around outside instead of in class, and students regularly miss their lessons at the office I work at. And Chile isn’t yet a completely developed country, so I have my doubts about whether the tomas will be able to instigate any change even if the government recognizes the problems in quality of education (which they do). I wasn’t set on writing my thesis on education in Latin America/Chile before I came here, but now I think I’m even less likely to. But we shall see! And for those interested, I’ll try to put up a picture of one of the schools currently en toma soon; I haven’t had the chance to take one yet. But if you search “en toma” on google images, some images of schools in Santiago come up.
Okay, well I’m exhausted now, so I’m going to take a nap before going to a plaza with my host family to walk around and get a coffee later tonight. Hope everyone is doing well! I’ve recently had my first tinges of homesickness this week, and I miss the ease of being home (used loosely). But I knew that would happen, and I think it’s good for me in various ways. One of which is that visiting other places has been super useful to me in terms of helping me figure out exactly how I want to live. Not in terms of what I want to study or do for a career so much, but in terms of what kind of living situation I want: house, food, eating and sleeping schedule, social life, etc. Hasn’t changed my opinion about where I want to live though: Montana still on my mind ☺
Cajón de Maipo in the background
Shay, me, and Winnie
Monday, June 20, 2011
Internship: Day One
June 20, 2011 (Monday)
7:40 PM
First day of my internship, and I’m exhausted. Not a good sign, as my day went like this:
9 AM: wake up
10:30 AM: leave house
11:30 AM: get to where I’m supposed to meet one of my supervisors, 45 minutes early. Go shopping while I wait. Buy boots.
12:20 PM: meet my supervisor, and walk to the Fundación office
1 PM: yummy lunch for everyone in the office, thanks to it being a special birthday celebration day
~2 PM: eat cake
~3 PM: play a group game
5:30 PM: head home
Doesn’t sound that tiring… but it was! And starting tomorrow, I actually have to work… and get there in the morning… I don’t think I’m cut out for the real world :P
Also, not liking the whole being-winter thing. Hardly anywhere has indoor heating so it kinda sucks. My house actually DOES have indoor heating and I supposedly have the warmest room in the house, but I'm currently lying on my bed with leggings AND pants on, a blanket over me, and wearing a jacket and a sweatshirt.
Not much else exciting has happened since I last wrote. Shabbat dinners with my host family (learning about Jewish culture while in Chile was not something I was expecting!), exploring Santiago with my friend Winnie, taking advantage of free Sundays at various museums, and tasting various different desserts and candies is pretty much it. Next weekend a lot of the students from the program are going to Atacama or Valparaiso, but Winnie and I are opting for some much less expensive day trips – Pomaire, Cajon de Maipó, and possibly Viña del Mar. Decided I didn’t really need to spend $300+ when I’m already somewhere cool!
Brianna
PS Including a couple more photos – it rained all day Saturday, so the smog was temporarily cleared away and could actually see the mountains. If Santiago can get their pollution problem taken care of, the city will really be spectacular.
my friend Winnie in La Plaza de Armas
a glimpse of some of the mountains around Santiago -- normally these are completely covered by smog :(
7:40 PM
First day of my internship, and I’m exhausted. Not a good sign, as my day went like this:
9 AM: wake up
10:30 AM: leave house
11:30 AM: get to where I’m supposed to meet one of my supervisors, 45 minutes early. Go shopping while I wait. Buy boots.
12:20 PM: meet my supervisor, and walk to the Fundación office
1 PM: yummy lunch for everyone in the office, thanks to it being a special birthday celebration day
~2 PM: eat cake
~3 PM: play a group game
5:30 PM: head home
Doesn’t sound that tiring… but it was! And starting tomorrow, I actually have to work… and get there in the morning… I don’t think I’m cut out for the real world :P
Also, not liking the whole being-winter thing. Hardly anywhere has indoor heating so it kinda sucks. My house actually DOES have indoor heating and I supposedly have the warmest room in the house, but I'm currently lying on my bed with leggings AND pants on, a blanket over me, and wearing a jacket and a sweatshirt.
Not much else exciting has happened since I last wrote. Shabbat dinners with my host family (learning about Jewish culture while in Chile was not something I was expecting!), exploring Santiago with my friend Winnie, taking advantage of free Sundays at various museums, and tasting various different desserts and candies is pretty much it. Next weekend a lot of the students from the program are going to Atacama or Valparaiso, but Winnie and I are opting for some much less expensive day trips – Pomaire, Cajon de Maipó, and possibly Viña del Mar. Decided I didn’t really need to spend $300+ when I’m already somewhere cool!
Brianna
PS Including a couple more photos – it rained all day Saturday, so the smog was temporarily cleared away and could actually see the mountains. If Santiago can get their pollution problem taken care of, the city will really be spectacular.
my friend Winnie in La Plaza de Armas
a glimpse of some of the mountains around Santiago -- normally these are completely covered by smog :(
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
5th day in Chile, already feels like much longer :)
June 15, 2011
5:47 PM
Mid-week update on mi vida: I met with the directors of my program last night, Claudia and Andrea, and they’re great – both are young and very nice. We ended up talking about things like which countries have the most attractive guys (they think Italy and Argentina), and they offered to take me out with their friends on the weekends if I want. I also learned more about my job: I will be helping to teach English to kids from ages 8 to 18, all of whom live in poverty and have had trouble in school. I’ll also get the chance to tour the other programs of the foundation and possibly help out with those as well (technical classes, classes for adults who never finished high school, and I forget the other). It looks like my schedule will be a little less rigorous than some of the others (some internships go from 8:30 am to 6 pm at night), but they still haven’t decided exactly how long I will be working each day. I’m excited to start, and I hope I like it!
Other than that, this week has been full of visiting sites around Santiago: El Palacio de la Moneda (main government building), La Chascona (one of the houses of Chilean poet and diplomat Pablo Neruda), and the Museum of Human Rights, among others.
That’s all for now, but I finally put up some pictures as well!
Brianna
Me in front of El Palacio de la Moneda
A view of Santiago - note all the smog
Some of the mountains!
5:47 PM
Mid-week update on mi vida: I met with the directors of my program last night, Claudia and Andrea, and they’re great – both are young and very nice. We ended up talking about things like which countries have the most attractive guys (they think Italy and Argentina), and they offered to take me out with their friends on the weekends if I want. I also learned more about my job: I will be helping to teach English to kids from ages 8 to 18, all of whom live in poverty and have had trouble in school. I’ll also get the chance to tour the other programs of the foundation and possibly help out with those as well (technical classes, classes for adults who never finished high school, and I forget the other). It looks like my schedule will be a little less rigorous than some of the others (some internships go from 8:30 am to 6 pm at night), but they still haven’t decided exactly how long I will be working each day. I’m excited to start, and I hope I like it!
Other than that, this week has been full of visiting sites around Santiago: El Palacio de la Moneda (main government building), La Chascona (one of the houses of Chilean poet and diplomat Pablo Neruda), and the Museum of Human Rights, among others.
That’s all for now, but I finally put up some pictures as well!
Brianna
Me in front of El Palacio de la Moneda
A view of Santiago - note all the smog
Some of the mountains!
Sunday, June 12, 2011
First Impressions
June 12, 2011
12:24 PM
Second day in Santiago… right now I’m sitting waiting for my host mom and sister to get ready to go on a grocery shopping trip, so I’ll try to make a little headway on another entry.
My flights and everything went well, although it was a long 24 hours of traveling! One of my friends from the program ended up being on my flight from Dallas to Santiago. It didn’t mean much because we were far apart on the plane and separated shortly after getting our bags in Santiago, but it was nice to have one familiar face in a strange airport.
We arrived in Santiago on time, the flight was even a bit early, but we had to sit on the runway for an hour due to over-crowding because of a volcanic eruption in Chile earlier that week. The Santiago airport was fine, but a lot of the planes from Buenos Aires had to land in Santiago instead, so things were a little crazy. We eventually got off the plane, however, and things went smoothly after that. Well, with a couple minor exceptions:
• They wouldn’t take my $100 bill for the reciprocity fee because it was “too dirty” (it was not too dirty!)
• A dog attacked me because I was carrying fruit, which I had forgotten to declare, because I didn’t think a little baggy of grapes, apples, and dried bananas was a big deal. I offered to just throw them away, but instead had to fill out a new declaration form, get a big pink sticker, and draw the attention of several other dogs before the food was eventually taken away from me anyway. Oops.
Other than that, everything was very easy, and I even got asked for directions by another American guy. He told me I looked like a “seasoned traveler,” so he figured he’d ask. Of course, I had no idea where we were supposed to be going, but I was flattered that it at least appeared like I did ☺
I was met at the airport by my host mom, Elizabeth, and her brother Carlos. I felt really bad for keeping them waiting almost two hours, but they were very nice about it and extremely welcoming. Carlos commented on how heavy my suitcase was, but I had to correct him – 50.4 pounds is one of the lightest bags I have ever packed! You cannot call that heavy.
I got running commentary on buildings, sites, religion, and politics as we drove through Santiago, although most of it took place in English. Elizabeth and Carlos both speak English pretty well, as they lived in Los Angeles for a while when they were younger. [As a side note: Elizabeth’s partner Elias also speaks decent English, and having so many English speakers around has been kind of frustrating for me. My host sister Romi (short for Romina) doesn’t speak English hardly at all, and every time I ask her what a word means (or even if I don’t), she will ask Elizabeth to translate to English, when really all I want is an explanation in Spanish. Elizabeth especially is also very eager to speak in English, and I hate to disappoint her by only speaking in Spanish. But Carlos and Elias make a point of speaking almost exclusively in Spanish, and they both keep telling Elizabeth that she needs to let me have my immersion experience. She said she will stop speaking in English entirely after this week, but it’s clear that she really likes practicing her English skills so I think I’ll suggest having one conversation entirely in English per day, or something like that. Right now, I’m mainly replying in Spanish to her comments in English, so I don’t think either of us is getting too much out of it.] I saw some of the cool sites of Santiago, and learned interesting facts about my host family, such as that they are all Jewish. My host mom’s parents are from Hungary and Israel, and she was born in Bolivia and lived in Uruguay before coming to Chile (At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what she said, I’m getting it all confused in my head now. At least part of that statement is correct though.) Them being Jewish is great, because it means that I won’t be having fish and seafood every day like I was worried about.
After we got to the apartment, which is very nice (I’ll try to post some pictures later, I haven’t taken any yet), Elizabeth left to go to Synagogue and I took a quick shower and unpacked. I also met Elias, her live-in boyfriend, when he got up. Elias is 72 or 73 years old and hilarious. Some of the stuff he does really reminds me of what my grandpa on my mom’s side used to do – he told the doorman I was his new sweetheart, and told me to tell everyone at lunch that he was my boyfriend (which I completely forgot about when prompted, disappointing him immensely). I really like Elias, and he is easy to have conversations with.
Later that day, we went to Carlos’ house for lunch with all the extended family. It was hard to keep them all straight, but they were all very nice! I was inundated with questions the entire time, and had a great time with all of them. One of the boys, Benjamin, especially liked tricking me with Spanish wordplay jokes, which is extremely easy to do. Example: Oro no es, plata no es, cuando abras las cortinas, miras que es.” (“It’s not gold, it’s not silver, when you open the curtains you see what it is.”) I said the window, but the correct answer was banana – platano – because the sentence says “plata no es,” or put together “platano es” (it’s a banana). I in turn, translated some of my favorite English jokes, like “Why did the monkey fall out of the tree? – Because he was dead.” The same boy also regaled me with lines from Fiddler on the Roof, which his school is performing in English. He’s the butcher and doesn’t really know English, so listening to him pronounce his lines as he has written them phonetically is quite funny. I actually might record a couple of the scenes for him so he can hear the English pronunciation, because right now he is sometimes hardly intelligible.
I also have had to retell a misunderstanding from the car ride through Santiago about a million times, because Elizabeth and Carlos think it’s hilarious. As I said, the conversation included a lot of English, so when they asked me if I had a notebook, I assumed they meant an English notebook, with paper and everything (cuaderno). I told them no, but I could always buy one if I needed to. They looked surprised, and told me that a notebook was too expensive for me to just go buy one, at which point I was very confused. Turns out that here they call laptops notebooks… whoops.
After lunch, we came back and I took a much-needed nap. Around nine, I went to a birthday party with my host sister. She is in her thirties, but still lives at home (and doesn’t really act her age, I don’t think). The party was fun – I was somewhat of a spectacle, and I got to try a lot of Chilean drinks – pisco sour, pisco cola (pisco with Coke), a white sangria like thing, and this sweet mango drink. It was interesting hanging out with a bunch of people ten years older than me… it made me realize how little people change/mature as they get older. One of the girls there was telling me how she liked this guy across the room, but wouldn’t go talk to him, etc. All in all, the party was fun and I’m glad I went.
This morning, I got up at 10:30 and was one of the first ones up. So far I’ve eaten breakfast, exercised, and done this. We were supposedly leaving for the grocery store at 12:15, but it’s now 1:30, so I’m not exactly sure what’s going on… We’re going to lunch at Elias’ brother’s house, so I’m guessing we might just go straight there at this point. Then I have my first meeting with my program at 6 PM.
That’s about it as far as my host family and experiences so far I think. The not drinking tap water thing is really getting to me though, as I knew it would. I got as much water on the plane as I could, and I have been rationing myself since. My host mom is going to buy me water, but I think I’ll get myself a ton of water sometime so I don’t have to feel bad about being a little water-drinking machine. I have also already messed up a couple times… I don’t think tea equals water being boiled for a minute straight, but I’ve had that, and I completely forgot to brush my teeth with bottled water like they told me to. Also pretty sure some of the drinks last night had at least some tap water in them. But so far I haven’t felt bad at all, so maybe my theory about my invincibility to bad water and typhoid is correct!
Alright, well still not looking like we’re leaving anytime soon, but I’m out of stuff to say. Later!
Note: I had to wait to post this until after I got back tonight, as we ended up leaving shortly after and the blog poster thing wasn't immediately working for me. We had empanadas for lunch, which were delicious, and I met lots more people! Including a sister of the daughter in law of Elias who lived in Vermont for a couple months, so could speak good English. Such a difference from León, where hardly anyone spoke English and those who did didn't really like to! After that, we went shopping for food (I had to taste all the cheese and meats to make sure I liked them and was so full after the empanadas!), then went on a driving tour of the richest parts of Santiago (beautiful), then went to the meeting with my program. The meeting was actually the most boring part of the day, but luckily it didn't last too long. We're about to have dinner now (it's 8:30) and then I think I'll go right to bed, because I have to be up early tomorrow morning for the first day of activities. Hopefully I'll be able to sleep through all the racket of honking horns to celebrate Católico winning the soccer game today...
Buenas noches a todos,
Brianna
12:24 PM
Second day in Santiago… right now I’m sitting waiting for my host mom and sister to get ready to go on a grocery shopping trip, so I’ll try to make a little headway on another entry.
My flights and everything went well, although it was a long 24 hours of traveling! One of my friends from the program ended up being on my flight from Dallas to Santiago. It didn’t mean much because we were far apart on the plane and separated shortly after getting our bags in Santiago, but it was nice to have one familiar face in a strange airport.
We arrived in Santiago on time, the flight was even a bit early, but we had to sit on the runway for an hour due to over-crowding because of a volcanic eruption in Chile earlier that week. The Santiago airport was fine, but a lot of the planes from Buenos Aires had to land in Santiago instead, so things were a little crazy. We eventually got off the plane, however, and things went smoothly after that. Well, with a couple minor exceptions:
• They wouldn’t take my $100 bill for the reciprocity fee because it was “too dirty” (it was not too dirty!)
• A dog attacked me because I was carrying fruit, which I had forgotten to declare, because I didn’t think a little baggy of grapes, apples, and dried bananas was a big deal. I offered to just throw them away, but instead had to fill out a new declaration form, get a big pink sticker, and draw the attention of several other dogs before the food was eventually taken away from me anyway. Oops.
Other than that, everything was very easy, and I even got asked for directions by another American guy. He told me I looked like a “seasoned traveler,” so he figured he’d ask. Of course, I had no idea where we were supposed to be going, but I was flattered that it at least appeared like I did ☺
I was met at the airport by my host mom, Elizabeth, and her brother Carlos. I felt really bad for keeping them waiting almost two hours, but they were very nice about it and extremely welcoming. Carlos commented on how heavy my suitcase was, but I had to correct him – 50.4 pounds is one of the lightest bags I have ever packed! You cannot call that heavy.
I got running commentary on buildings, sites, religion, and politics as we drove through Santiago, although most of it took place in English. Elizabeth and Carlos both speak English pretty well, as they lived in Los Angeles for a while when they were younger. [As a side note: Elizabeth’s partner Elias also speaks decent English, and having so many English speakers around has been kind of frustrating for me. My host sister Romi (short for Romina) doesn’t speak English hardly at all, and every time I ask her what a word means (or even if I don’t), she will ask Elizabeth to translate to English, when really all I want is an explanation in Spanish. Elizabeth especially is also very eager to speak in English, and I hate to disappoint her by only speaking in Spanish. But Carlos and Elias make a point of speaking almost exclusively in Spanish, and they both keep telling Elizabeth that she needs to let me have my immersion experience. She said she will stop speaking in English entirely after this week, but it’s clear that she really likes practicing her English skills so I think I’ll suggest having one conversation entirely in English per day, or something like that. Right now, I’m mainly replying in Spanish to her comments in English, so I don’t think either of us is getting too much out of it.] I saw some of the cool sites of Santiago, and learned interesting facts about my host family, such as that they are all Jewish. My host mom’s parents are from Hungary and Israel, and she was born in Bolivia and lived in Uruguay before coming to Chile (At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what she said, I’m getting it all confused in my head now. At least part of that statement is correct though.) Them being Jewish is great, because it means that I won’t be having fish and seafood every day like I was worried about.
After we got to the apartment, which is very nice (I’ll try to post some pictures later, I haven’t taken any yet), Elizabeth left to go to Synagogue and I took a quick shower and unpacked. I also met Elias, her live-in boyfriend, when he got up. Elias is 72 or 73 years old and hilarious. Some of the stuff he does really reminds me of what my grandpa on my mom’s side used to do – he told the doorman I was his new sweetheart, and told me to tell everyone at lunch that he was my boyfriend (which I completely forgot about when prompted, disappointing him immensely). I really like Elias, and he is easy to have conversations with.
Later that day, we went to Carlos’ house for lunch with all the extended family. It was hard to keep them all straight, but they were all very nice! I was inundated with questions the entire time, and had a great time with all of them. One of the boys, Benjamin, especially liked tricking me with Spanish wordplay jokes, which is extremely easy to do. Example: Oro no es, plata no es, cuando abras las cortinas, miras que es.” (“It’s not gold, it’s not silver, when you open the curtains you see what it is.”) I said the window, but the correct answer was banana – platano – because the sentence says “plata no es,” or put together “platano es” (it’s a banana). I in turn, translated some of my favorite English jokes, like “Why did the monkey fall out of the tree? – Because he was dead.” The same boy also regaled me with lines from Fiddler on the Roof, which his school is performing in English. He’s the butcher and doesn’t really know English, so listening to him pronounce his lines as he has written them phonetically is quite funny. I actually might record a couple of the scenes for him so he can hear the English pronunciation, because right now he is sometimes hardly intelligible.
I also have had to retell a misunderstanding from the car ride through Santiago about a million times, because Elizabeth and Carlos think it’s hilarious. As I said, the conversation included a lot of English, so when they asked me if I had a notebook, I assumed they meant an English notebook, with paper and everything (cuaderno). I told them no, but I could always buy one if I needed to. They looked surprised, and told me that a notebook was too expensive for me to just go buy one, at which point I was very confused. Turns out that here they call laptops notebooks… whoops.
After lunch, we came back and I took a much-needed nap. Around nine, I went to a birthday party with my host sister. She is in her thirties, but still lives at home (and doesn’t really act her age, I don’t think). The party was fun – I was somewhat of a spectacle, and I got to try a lot of Chilean drinks – pisco sour, pisco cola (pisco with Coke), a white sangria like thing, and this sweet mango drink. It was interesting hanging out with a bunch of people ten years older than me… it made me realize how little people change/mature as they get older. One of the girls there was telling me how she liked this guy across the room, but wouldn’t go talk to him, etc. All in all, the party was fun and I’m glad I went.
This morning, I got up at 10:30 and was one of the first ones up. So far I’ve eaten breakfast, exercised, and done this. We were supposedly leaving for the grocery store at 12:15, but it’s now 1:30, so I’m not exactly sure what’s going on… We’re going to lunch at Elias’ brother’s house, so I’m guessing we might just go straight there at this point. Then I have my first meeting with my program at 6 PM.
That’s about it as far as my host family and experiences so far I think. The not drinking tap water thing is really getting to me though, as I knew it would. I got as much water on the plane as I could, and I have been rationing myself since. My host mom is going to buy me water, but I think I’ll get myself a ton of water sometime so I don’t have to feel bad about being a little water-drinking machine. I have also already messed up a couple times… I don’t think tea equals water being boiled for a minute straight, but I’ve had that, and I completely forgot to brush my teeth with bottled water like they told me to. Also pretty sure some of the drinks last night had at least some tap water in them. But so far I haven’t felt bad at all, so maybe my theory about my invincibility to bad water and typhoid is correct!
Alright, well still not looking like we’re leaving anytime soon, but I’m out of stuff to say. Later!
Note: I had to wait to post this until after I got back tonight, as we ended up leaving shortly after and the blog poster thing wasn't immediately working for me. We had empanadas for lunch, which were delicious, and I met lots more people! Including a sister of the daughter in law of Elias who lived in Vermont for a couple months, so could speak good English. Such a difference from León, where hardly anyone spoke English and those who did didn't really like to! After that, we went shopping for food (I had to taste all the cheese and meats to make sure I liked them and was so full after the empanadas!), then went on a driving tour of the richest parts of Santiago (beautiful), then went to the meeting with my program. The meeting was actually the most boring part of the day, but luckily it didn't last too long. We're about to have dinner now (it's 8:30) and then I think I'll go right to bed, because I have to be up early tomorrow morning for the first day of activities. Hopefully I'll be able to sleep through all the racket of honking horns to celebrate Católico winning the soccer game today...
Buenas noches a todos,
Brianna
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Arrived in Santiago :)
June 11, 2011
11:11 AM
Santiago, Chile
I’m here! Super tired though, so I’m off to a nap. Below is my first entry, written in the Dallas airport. Everything has been good so far! I really like my host mom and the house and everything, and free wifi is definitely nice as well :)
More details later!
June 10, 2011
7:14 PM CST
Dallas International Airport
Hello!! Welcome back to my blog, 2011 edition!
My computer says 6:14 PM, my watch says 8:14 PM, and my phone says 7:14 PM. I have a personal paradigm of only changing times when the mental calculations become too difficult, or when the amount of time I will be in the time zone makes constant mental calculation a little ridiculous (I think I draw the line somewhere in the two week range, but that could just be personal preference). Hence my phone is often the only accurate piece of electronic equipment I own.
I’m currently sitting in Dallas International Airport. I was re-reading my blog from last summer last night and based on the descriptions and memories I have of JFK, I am thankful I am going through Dallas this time! Easy access to outlets (although I feel bad, I’m kind of hogging two outlets right now), cool, no overpowering smells, and relatively uncrowded; much better than New York! Also, it’s my first time in Texas, so that’s exciting... So many of my friends live in Texas, I guess I should probably come back sometime and actually venture outside the airport.
Last night, I obtained a bunch of movies from my brother (illegally, of course). My flight from Denver to Dallas I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In the process, I completely forgot who and where I was, and the landing of the plane was, needless to say, a very jarring experience. This has happened before, most recently with Dr. Parnassus’ Imaginarium last week (or whatever it’s called, the last Heath Ledger movie). In that case, the small window to the outside in the basement where I was watching it was the only thing that kept me tethered to reality. Since I have such a problem with forgetting about reality while watching movies – especially strange ones –I decided it would probably be better to write my first blog entry while waiting for the international flight that would be really bad to miss rather than watching another movie :P
But Eternal Sunshine was great. I have discovered that I really love movies realistically portrayed and full of dysfunctional characters and families. Little Miss Sunshine, which I watched a couple weeks ago, fits the bill as well. They also both feature comedic actors in serious roles… hmm.
But anyway, I’m supposed to be writing about my travel experiences, not about my cinematic tastes.
I set up this blog at the Denver airport earlier today. It was an extremely unproductive use of my time, as the free wifi really should have been used to finish the HMC [Harvard Model Congress, an organization that runs a conference for high school students each January in Boston] brief I wanted to finish before I left (for those of you who read my blog last summer, that situation might sound slightly familiar, although this year I also have an Hacia brief to complete as well (going for the double parentheses to explain Hacia – it’s a government simulation as well, but during Spring Break and in Latin America)), or ignored entirely as the connection speed was terrible. But a free wifi signal, no matter how weak, is always tempting to me. I’m almost glad there isn’t a free wifi signal here, although I did spend a good 10 minutes searching for one. In the hour and a half at Denver, I managed to get probably 15 minutes worth of blog set-up complete. After some contemplation, I decided to create a second blog for this summer, rather than just continuing my previous blog from Spain. I wanted to change the format and name, but didn’t want to get rid of my stuff from before. Only unfortunate thing is that creating a new blog means I currently have no followers for my adventures this summer. Two things alleviate my sadness over my lack of fans (actually three): 1) I only had 8 followers last summer, so I’m not missing out on much. 2) This blog is clearly so scintillating and exciting that I am sure to gain new followers like wildfire! And 3) I forget. I think it had something to do with the fact that I haven’t told anyone about the new blog yet, so my lack of followers does not equal lack of love.
Anyway, back to setting up the blog. I have tentatively entitled it “Summer in Santiago.” This is probably not ideal. For one, it sets up quite a precedent in blog titles – apparently titles need to have some sort of literary construct in order to be viable. So far I have pseudo-rhyming and whatever the thing is where the first letter is repeated. I’ll have to have some sort of metaphor or something next, and this could quickly escalate into difficult territory.
Also, it is not summer in Santiago; it is winter. The title, therefore, is a bit deceptive. It is summer for me though, so I dismiss this as a real problem. I do need to think of a title that is unrelated to my location though, so in the future I can continue with the same blog even as I physically change my locale, but that is perhaps too big of a project for me right now (although if I were my cousin Sasha, coming up with a name would be easy: Travel Blog --> Unravel Blog or Gravel Blog. Maybe even Gavel Blog or Javel(in) Blog).
Well. I still have 45 minutes until boarding, but I’m just about sick of writing anything more. I should maybe say something about what I’m doing this summer before I go though, right? So, in a nutshell: I am doing a Summer Internship Program (SIP) through the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard (DRCLAS, pronounced Dr. Clas). They have programs in Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Chile. I chose Chile because the dates allowed me to be home for my brother’s graduation (but not his June 18th birthday) and because my grandparents lived in Santiago, Chile for a year in 1967, when my mom was two years old. I look forward to comparing notes with my grandma as I live in Santiago 44 years later – although I imagine it will be quite different with a couple kind of a little important changes of government in the time in between the two of us, not to mention the normal changes associated with large passages of time. The other reason for my decision to go to Chile rather than Bolivia or Uruguay is that the program is larger in Chile. We have programmatic support, and many more students participate in the Chilean program than either Uruguay or Bolivia. While it will be good for me to be more independent on my trips abroad eventually, I look forward to already having some friends and co-students down there. Plus, we will all be living and working separately, so this program is at least a baby-step up in independence from SIHS last summer, where we were all in class with each other all day.
I won’t, however, be traveling on my own after the official program ends as I did last year. While I appreciated and enjoyed my solo travels throughout Spain and France last summer, it was tough on my wallet and also hard to go straight back to school after being gone from home for most of the summer. So I will be returning on August 8th at the end of the SIP program, to be home in Montana for a couple weeks before returning to Boston. I am definitely looking forward to my time at home, and am planning on doing as much hiking and backpacking as I can before returning to the east coast. I had less than a week home before Chile, and that was not enough “Montana time” for me!!
That was a big nutshell.
(Perhaps it was a walnut?)
Until later… which could quite possibly be during my flight, if I get too bored.
Besos,
Brianna
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