Weekend in Santiago

On Friday and Saturday, Grove City and another exchange program tripped it to Santiago to experience the big-city capital of Chile.  It really is a gorgeous city with deep European roots and backdropped by the Andes.  The snow-capped peaks are almost invisible if you’re too wrapped up in the constant motion of the city immediately surrounding you, but when you finally do look up long enough to make out their hazy blue silhouette it’s absolutely breathtaking.

We traveled around via contracted tour bus all day and students from the UAI Santiago campus made excellent guides and provided some historical as well as cultural context.  Our first stop was the Plaza de Armas, which is encircled by monuments, government buildings, a museum, and a cathedral.  We went through the museum and the cathedral, which were both beautiful.  

For lunch we hit the Mercado Central, which is an open-air fish market with a restaurant in the center.  It was a fascinating and somewhat rank atmosphere, and there were definitely some things still moving... but it was a cool place to experience.  I ordered chicken.  

After lunch we went to the Casa Moneda, which used to be the President's house but now it houses the headquarters for a lot of other government functions.  I honestly don't know the specifics, I wasn't paying that much attention...  

One of the UAI students who helped guide us is a volunteer firefighter, so for dinner we had a cookout at the fire department.  They let us get in the trucks, try on their coats and helmets, and slide down the pole - you'd think that we were a bunch of first graders on a field trip, but it was so much fun!  The department was founded by German immigrants, so everything was in German and there was a lot of Germanic design throughout the building.  One of the volunteers also said that all of their formal commands (usually only used when high-up officers are visiting) are in German.  The food was incredible; choripan (sausage in a bakery-bread bun) and cubes of pork and steak were passed around as soon as it left the grill.

We stayed in a hostel overnight and started the next day bright and early.  Our first stop was at Los Dominicos, an artisan community with plenty of typical shops for souvenir-ing and, for some reason, a lot of pet stores and poultry.  

We wandered around an area called Bella Vista and found a small local place for lunch, then took a funicular up to a low mountain peak that's used as a Catholic religious center.  At the top is an enormous statue of the virgin Mary, and there are several stops along the way up where you can find memorial resting places, cathedrals, shrines, etc.  All with a spectacular view of the city... 

 

The rest of the day was spent wandering around the city, getting ice cream, and finally heading back to the bus station to head back to Viña.

It's nice having Fridays free

Today was a bit more exciting than the rest of the week has been, starting with the fact that I slept in till 11.  I love not having Friday classes :)  This is also the first weekend that we haven't had some pre-scheduled event for exchange students, so the free time we had today was pretty novel.

In the afternoon Vicky and I crashed Marie's house to sort out details concerning a trip we want to make in September.  It ended in us finally buying tickets to Buenos Aires, Argentina and Montevideo, Uruguay.  I'm super excited!  There are other trips we want to make within Chile throughout the semester, but this one was most pressing just since we wanted to get the best price possible on the flight.  

Once that got straightened out, we got to work on planning the rest of our day. Marie has been dying to take a tour around Viña in a victoria, or horse-drawn carriage. They're a pretty common sight hereabouts, and since Marie is just about as obsessed with horses as I am with cats it's been pretty high up on our list of things to do while we're here.  Since we had all this free time to kill and it was actually sunny and nice out for the first time in a couple days, we figured today was as good a day as any.  

 Our guide Ignacio with Juanita

Days

I barely even remember what's happened this past week... Apparently nothing too mind blowing (like sea lions).  Aside from Flo's official birthday party on Saturday, not much has happened outside of everyday life. Which includes (but is not limited to):

• Classes
• Sleeping
• Eating
• Finding new cafes
• Trying to find something to do that doesn't cost money

That last point hasn't really brought about any significant results.  I'm really trying to cut down on small expenditures to save up so I can travel throughout the semester, but it's hard when the only opportunities to socialize typically involve buying coffee or food.  Nonetheless, we've branched out a little bit.  Vicky and I went for a walk along the beach one day, where any number of little stands selling trinkets and snacks line the boardwalk.  We found a cute little cafe overlooking the shore that we hope to hit up someday.  I've also spent a couple evenings at Marie's house.  It's been great to bond with her host family, too - Judith and her two daughters Vaihere and Marreva (sp?) have taken to me and I love practicing Spanish with them.  They spent a number of years in Tahiti and have only been back in Chile for two years, so they have some cool stories and cultural tidbits to share.  

This week I've also been able to connect more with some Chileans.  On Sunday we went to the church that held that college-age service on Fridays, Iglesia Unión Cristiana, and I met a couple people there who are involved in the exchange student outreach.  Wednesday was a feriado, or holiday, so I left REALLY early in the morning to help a friend pick up her boyfriend who would be arriving in Santiago at 8 a.m.  On the bus ride back, I sat next to (1) a girl who had recently moved back to Chile from Mexico and (2) an older woman who spent the entire hour and a half ride telling me her life story.  This woman, Zoiea (I think that's her name; her handwriting is pretty hard to read), has had it super rough and was going back to a tough situation in Viña.  She said that she had been mulling over all of her troubles before I sat next to her, but felt way more at peace after talking to me and (as a devout Catholic) she was positive that God sent me her way to ease her mind.  I was so blessed to be used that way.  We exchanged numbers, so we'll see if anything comes of it.  Also, today I was able to talk a little with a couple Chileans from one of my classes.  I sat next to one of them on the bus, and the conversation immediately took a philosophical turn when I told him that I'm studying theology in the States.  It was a good discussion, I think.  Then tonight I got a ride back from class with Marie and one of her Chilean buddies.  She was pretty cool to talk to, and she told us to send her any essays that we have to write in Spanish to revise.  

It's been good to practice my Spanish more, too.  Judith told me almost immediately after we met that I talk "like a Latina."  Alice said that I've started speaking more fluidly since I got here, though I still have an accent.  Hoping to kick that by the end of everything...

Visa. Just kidding; boats.

So today we were supposed to go to Valparaíso to get our student visas, but due to circumstances unforeseen by the international directors, we were unable to get in to get them. To compensate, Álvaro (director of the International Office) offered to take us out on a boat around Valpo before taking the GCC students out for lunch. It was a decent tradeoff, I'd say.

 And there were sea lions everywhere.

After returning to an empty depto and crashing for a couple hours, I went with a few people to a kind of youth/young adult service for a local church.  It was really great on a number of levels, plus it was refreshing after a couple weeks of missing church due to pre-planned trips.  There is a decent foreign exchange presence, and the guy in charge of that group immediately sought us out and facebook-friended us to convey news and information on events and meetings for exchange students.  I'm excited to get plugged in that way; the group seems really solid and I was impressed with how quickly and easily we were able to connect - even with Chileans (whoa buddy).  

Valparaíso y un Cumpleaños

This past Saturday was Flo's 5th birthday ("Una mano completa!" - A full hand!) and her party was supposed to take place that afternoon, but due to rain the previous day the party was postponed.  I still went over to her house with Alice and Antonio though, along with several other grandparents and relatives.  By the time we got there, a new tea set had already broken out and Flo was offering tea, coffee, and milk to adults whose faces had been adorned with stickers.  The evening was spent watching and commenting on the Olympics over drinks and snacks; we were watching weight lifting, which lead to some interesting conversation haha.  "Look at that chino, he's so tiny!  He's not gonna --UYY pero qué fuerte!"  (Sidenote: Chino or Chinese can be used to describe anyone remotely Asian-looking.)  It was a fun night, even without a formal party - which is now scheduled to take place this coming weekend.

We were scheduled to make a trip to the neighboring city of Valparaíso on Friday, but again we were rained out so we postponed it to Sunday.  As a port city, Valpo is gorgeous and has a rich European history that spans back to colonial times.  Consequently, there's a lot of European influence in the art and architecture.  Houses are built into the hills and on top of each other, where they somehow manage to cling tight even during earthquakes.  

Ascensores - lifts - are a common mode of transport and have been around for years as a means of getting around the hills.  

One of Valpo's defining features is the color.  Every house and building is painted in bright colors and the street art is incredible.  This is so ironic because Chile is more widely known as an introverted, mellow country.  I don't want to say that it's cold or bland, but it's certainly not as vibrant as, say, Mexico.  Everybody on the street wears dark clothes that don't draw attention, and houses are pretty average colored.  That's why "Chile de colores" is so unique, to the point that our guides refer to it as the Paris of Chile.  

Also, I found this cat.

The Nobel Prize-winning author and poet Pablo Neruda made one of his three homes in Valparaíso - which we visited.  It's such an incredible place that it only makes sense for someone of his occupation to settle there.  There were a ton of great tiny restaurants and cheap shopping, too.  Since it was Sunday most everything was closed, but the nice thing is that it's so close and easy to get to that we'll most likely hit it up pretty frequently.