No Entiendo

More pictures, other ramblings

2008-09-03T19:46:00.001-07:00

I love this picture.
Never question my ability to eat a boatload of sushi.
Navy men painting a boat, how silly! Marty sure does love drinkin'.

A church in Cerro Florida below La Sebastiana, the stairway that leads to nothing in La Sebastiana, colorful row houses, and the dangerous antics of street performers at a red light.

Pan Batido, the tie that binds us all is food. Lots of other street art around. If you see the signature kitty, it's Charquipunk. Otherwise, it's one of his many buddies.

On our street art walk, we came across a gallery of puppets. ^ This mural is dedicated to women and features at least three artists.

Wonder what we were looking at. I don't remember.

Adios, Chile!

2008-07-14T07:22:00.000-07:00

I spent the last day and a half getting back to the US from Chile. Fortunately, that means I am much more relaxed. Unfortunately, that means anything I write about Chile will be in past tense, but I will make an attempt to write a little more about some of my experiences there in order for this to be useful to others and to get any errant tidbits out of my head. I will also post more of my best photos over the next few days.

Sadly, the impressive bottle of red wine I bought at the vineyard was broken on the way to the states. This means all my clothes from that bag are a lovely shade of burgundy and smell of wine and earth. I'm pretty crestfallen over it because I thought I had done a really good job of packing. I guess I could have saved the one pair of white socks turned purple, but instead I threw them away in disgust. I should probably just be happy all three bottles didn't break, but I've never been so good at that "glass half full" thing. Did it have to be my favorite?

On the topic of my learning experience in Chile (other than pack your wine better next time), I think I learned quite a lot of Spanish. It was disorienting at first for me to be in the Atlanta airport, and on my flight from Atlanta I accidentally tried to speak Spanish to the flight attendant. She just looked at me funny when I thanked her for my cracker with "gracias" and moved on. Is it possible that I have become less fluent in English? It was a common joke that our syntax was slowly shifting while we were in Chile, but I really do feel a tiny bit dumber. Oh well, I guess I can give up a little fluency in English to have a stronger hold on Spanish if so. My biggest goal in this relatively short study abroad program was not to "master" Spanish, or any crazy idea like that. It was simply to become accustomed to speaking even when it is uncomfortable, and even when I know a sentence isn't perfect and I might get laughed at. I am happy to say I broke that barrier, and therefore I got what I needed out of it. Thankfully my host family spoke next to no English, except for my sister who provided emergency translation when absolutely necessary. I started to feel like a toddler, being only able to express my most basic and immediate needs: "No sugar please, my tea is fine without it. No, really. Really, I don't drink my tea with sugar. Seriously." and "No thanks, I like my food without sugar sprinkled on the top. No, really, it tastes good with no sugar. Very tasty." were about the most expressive sorts of conversations I could muster. Conversations about politics were mostly brief and involved lots of hand gestures and confused moments of silence.

Reñaca, Concon

2008-07-06T17:42:00.000-07:00

That Neruda fish pops up all over the place. I have no explanation.
That is a castle-y house that is either made out of the rock or was made to look like it is.
Flowering aloe plants and a little area off the highway where people climb down to fish.
Host parents enjoying the view. Sílvia y Manolo.

Mushrooms in my toes

2008-06-30T13:13:00.000-07:00

First off, I never get athlete's foot. Maybe once when I was younger before I learned that you have to dry your feet out once in a while. It's a lesson you learn quickly, and being that Utah is a desert, it doesn't happen all the time. However, I have gained a case of it here because A: as you can imagine it's quite humid next to the ocean, and B: it's way too cold to take socks off for even a minute. So, I was hoping it would just go away but it's become irritating and painful enough that I finally had to try to make a move to get it taken care of.
I go to the farmacia and quickly discover that anything even remotely resembling a medicine is behind the counter. This, for some reason, includes chapstick. (That's probably more of a theft deterrant than anything else, but it illustrates my point nicely.) So I ask for 'cream for the toes, for um, pain in the skin'... and the girl looks at me and says "pico?" and I look at her like "what in the world is pico?" and then she tries a new word, "hongos?". I had been wondering if I should throw that word in there since I knew that was the word for mushroom, but I was afraid there was a much more technical term for fungus and I would be laughed at. Hey, sometimes you learn something new the hard way.

Isla Negra, Casablanca

2008-06-28T19:48:00.000-07:00

We went on an excursion today to Emiliana, a 100% organic vineyard. It was a lot of fun; beautiful scenery, delicious wine, good company. The vineyard keeps lots of chickens around to eat insects, and they plant flowers to distract the rest. There isn't much of a problem with fungus on the crops here in Chile, so there's little chance of a blight. Perfect for organic, but they said since nobody in Chile much cares about organic they export 95% or so of what they make. The soil has to be cleaned for 5 - 7 years before qualifying as organic. It really made me realize that if grapes take so much soil into themselves, and then the product comes out as a concentration of that soil that you can actually taste, if you use pesticides and chemicals on the grapes you are guaranteed to be drinking concentrated chemicals. That sort of creeped me out, so I especially had to get at least one or two bottles.

There is a blend of 6 different reds among their selections: it's called Coyam, a Mapuche word for "group of oaks". It contains Syrah, Carmenére, Cabernet Sauvignon, Mourvedre, and Malbec. I had to grab that. It's unique but so smooth! I also got a white (I love a good white, but usually they're too sweet or bitter for me) but it is a Chardonnay/Marsanne/Viognier, which was really tasty and not bitter, but not too sweet. Sorry I'm not up on all the wino terminology to be more specific!
There was also one wine we didn't have the opportunity to sample that sounded amazing. They call it "biodynamic" process, and they basically use hydroponics and advanced growing theory to make these organic superplants, and I really stopped listening there because my mind was boggled. It would be lovely to drink I'm sure, but it was quite out of my budget.

Isla Negra was gorgeous. Neruda's house is right above the beach, and the way the waves crash against the black rock is perfect. Perfect! His bedroom has such a lovely view, it must have been so romantic. It's easy to imagine that he did a lot of his work looking out over the sea, since so much of his imagery really fits this place. It was a really odd little museum, and I have to wonder- if the Pinochet regime raided and destroyed at least some portion of the house, how in the world they salvaged things. I stood right where he stood in his living room, according to a photo. For some reason that made me feel like pretty cool beans indeed.
I soon realized that drinking at least 4 glasses of wine before lunch is a bad idea, and am now recovering from a headache. As a result, I am not going out tonight and instead am sitting around drinking liquids to stave off any further damage. Will post pics later!

Street art

2008-06-25T20:43:00.000-07:00

This WEST is pretty unbelievable. Love those birds.

Such odd imagery. I really like that one.

2008-06-25T20:09:00.000-07:00

Funny little red dude.

Oh hey! Look! It's a bouy, with marine mammals on it!

Oh hay guise.

A very odd day.

2008-06-25T18:14:00.000-07:00

Went out last night with my assigned "intercambio" partner, who actually spent a semester in Utah so he really doesn't need any help from me (whereas I think he got the poor end of the deal since my Spanish probably hurts him terribly). We brought along some classmates and a couple of his friends and had a good time. For some reason the bar was actually packed full of dancing kids at 7pm, which goes against everything I knew about nightlife in Chile. So far every bar I have been to doesn't perk up until 1 or 2- so what's the deal? I asked intercambio Ernesto and he said "these people have probably been here since 3pm! I came here once at 11am and left at 4pm drunk!". I had a test today, really shouldn't have gone out at all, 7pm or not.

So, yeah. You learn something new every day. I also learned today how easy it is to get robbed. Janelle and Tim and I walked over to the Jumbo supermarket from the school to get some random stuff, and we grabbed Sarah on the way out because Janelle and Sarah had plans to go to a teahouse I had found. The plan was, I would show them what bus to take to go to the teahouse. So we get on the bus and Janelle and I pay and sit down. The bus driver is inching along with traffic so Sarah is having trouble standing straight and has her wallet out to pay the driver. A boy steps on to the bus and for a moment looks like he's going to pay and board with us. Then he reaches out smoothly, with a determined and detached look on his face, and snatches Sarah's wallet from her hands. She tugs at it but her grip was just not prepared for a struggle and he takes off with it. I watch the whole thing go down in slow motion, and she takes about 5 seconds to register what just happened and runs off the bus after the guy. We of course hop off the bus and watch her weave in and out of bus traffic after the thief, in a skirt with tights and little ballerina flats. She almost had him, but I guess he disappeared. It was so sad. She had to cancel her debit card, and she had all that adrenaline in her. It was an interesting day indeed.

Update

2008-06-24T14:14:00.000-07:00

Alright, I have a minute to actually write about what's going on, and not just post picture after picture. That's so much easier than thinking of something interesting to say!

Host mom is quirkily adorable. She insists on remaking my bed even if I already did, to military tightness- the second I leave the room, probably. Every night, she'll grab the big fluffy cat (a bizarro version of Josh's cat at home), slinging it over one shoulder, and wander off cooing singsong nonsense at it. When it's cold, she tugs her shawl around her and sings "Frío, frío, frío, fríoo!" or while offering a tea or coffee to you (which is always a little coffee or a little tea, apparently) she will sing "Tecito! Cafecito, cafeceeeeeetooooow". I thought this was unique to her, but after mentioning it to my classmates I found that it's just what older ladies around here seem to do! Another conversation we had to compare notes on was "so, do your jeans magically get ironed?" which someone else asked me. Thankfully, no, my host fam isn't quite that zealous. I have a feeling I would just wear them all the time to avoid that situation.
Papá is a retired veterinarian and he sure has a lot of faith in my language ability. Kind of him, but probably premature. He will talk at length to me while I try not to lose track of what eye contact is; about Chile, about medicine, whatever the subject is. Host mom will stop him mid-rant and say some version of "why are you bothering, she totally can't understand you" and he will say "yes, yes she does!" and smile, and continue. For the record, I catch about 40% if I'm lucky. One day when Mamá was asking me a tough question, Papá put his hand on my shoulder and said "Mira. Mas.... o menos. Mas o menos." He meant that if I am ever unsure of how to respond to a question, I need only to say "more or less." In Chilean, of course, what he really said was "Mah or menoh.", since they don't care much for pronouncing their S's around here. As you can imagine, you have to listen very closely for plurals and other important uses of the letter S.
Apparently the computer lab is closing now, so that's good. I'll have to write more later.

More pictures

2008-06-21T14:42:00.000-07:00

David and Maquelle walking the line, enjoying the sunshine.
Being attacked by a fake shark.
Peeps be ridin' horses all over the place around here.
That's Homero, con Spider Pig y cerveza.
Gringos a-gringoing at the gringo bar. Cafe Journal.
View of Castillo Wulff from a week or so ago.
Maquelle in the sunlight. Cute!

Classes are good, family is good, grammar is hard. Took the bus home last night at 3:30 am and it was packed full of party kids headed home. Definitely different than home, where buses don't even run close to that late. Not a lot to report today, so for now hopefully you are entertained by more photos.

Father's Day

2008-06-15T16:13:00.001-07:00

I celebrated Father's Day today by hanging out with a surrogate father. Kind of odd, but hey. When in Rome, you go to the playa and wander around buying artisanal crafts. Lovely day, very warm and pleasant. You could tell the water was frigid, but man was it tempting to test it.

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

Valpo, the lovely

2008-06-15T16:07:00.000-07:00

Pretty nice photos, if I do say so myself. It helps to have a gorgeous subject.
.

Pablo Neruda is my homeboy.

2008-06-15T15:51:00.000-07:00

I actually think I would have a shirt made that says that. Or perhaps "Pablo Neruda is my patron saint". The patron saint of what, I don't know. Philandery? This is La Sebastiana, Neruda's party house. Pretty magnificent view, huh? I love the porthole window.

Pictures #2

2008-06-10T18:34:00.000-07:00

Mi mamá.
Castillo Wulff from the bus.
The McDonald's.

Picture post #1

2008-06-10T17:40:00.000-07:00

The hotel in Atlanta. It stank like cheap perfume near the entrance, and by the third day we never, ever wanted to smell it again.

Christi and Maquelle and I with Michel and Carol's kids: the one in the background is Brando and in the foreground is Marlon. We're taking turns passing out on each other on the way to Tiltil, where we met a teary-eyed grandmother who was so, so happy to see us even though we actually really didn't know her grandson that well at all. Everyone we met has been so happy to go out of their way for us- it´s really a culture shock.

Us being dorks with the kids... there is video, but not a picture, of me and the little one Brando playing a ridiculous game of hide and seek, where he's standing behind me while on the couch and peering in front of my face and then hiding again, and he's so happy he's hyperventilating. Just totally entertained. Really cute little spaz. Reminds me of a certain kid I used to know, roundabout 20 years ago...

This is the Universidad Pontificia Catolica de Valparaíso. That is me looking absolutely whacked by sleep deprivation and a tidbit of vertigo (still having a little bit of an issue with it actually, but I'm sure it won't last), and my host dad, mom and their family friend. ¡Que lindo!

My cute little room.
Maquelle desperately trying to dance with Chilean traditional dancers. She did a better job than most, I'm afraid.

LOL HOTLANTA

2008-06-08T11:08:00.000-07:00

I started out on Tuesday the 3rd with a flight early in the morning. I couldn´t sleep all night, although I tried. When it comes to planning, I´m just ADD enough that I stay up all night thinking of everything I might need, wondering if I´ve packed everything I´m going to need... at 2 a.m. I realized there was something- I had forgotten my hotel discount card. If I didn´t get on my first standby flight, I was going to need that. Of course, once I realized I would have to wake up around 5 in order to go back to Taylorsville to get it before getting to the airport, I couldn´t sleep the rest of the night.
While getting on the plane, since it was a very small plane they were taking people´s carry-on luggage and tagging it to put in the belly of the plane rather than taking up the limited overhead space. I let them take my main suitcase since I knew I´d just be getting on a bigger plane in Denver anyway. When I got to Denver, however, they said over the loudspeaker on the plane that if we had a connecting flight through to Atlanta they would be checking our bags. I thought nothing of it until I later realized that without an actual "checked baggage" tag, I could not possibly expect to see my bag in Atlanta. I realized that in Atlanta, unfortunately. The baggage claim office guy looked at me like I must be missing a part of my brain not to have thought of that. Little did I know when I started out on this ridiculous voyage... one hour of sleep before a long day of flying pretty much is a full frontal lobotomy. The clerk asked me if I had my name on it and I vaguely remembered the baggage check guy pulling an old tag with my name on it off to "avoid confusion". When I realized the suitcase was just new enough I might not have put another nametage on it, I got a look like 'this lady should not be traveling'- which was probably true, but when I realized that even after all my planning and losing sleep, my bag might be lost for good, I started crying. Not uncontrollably, but here I am looking like hell anyway and there are no tissues so I´m just crying and wiping snot on my arms and everyone else in the baggage office is toning down their voices because they´re just glad they´re not in whatever mess I´m in.
Glorious. I later found someone who was more helpful and they had Denver agree to get my luggage on the first flight to Santiago so it would meet me there when I arrived.
So, finally we miss the first flight that night- not because there were no empty seats but because all three of us are so tired that we totally miss the fact that after coming back from the duty free shop we have sat down at the wrong gate. Two gates down, they´re calling our names repeatedly and trying to delay the plane since they know we were ·just here a minute ago·.
After getting some serious stinkeye from the ladies at the gate when we finally realize what we´ve done and run just in time to watch the plane drive off, we burst into laughter. It was a bad idea to even attempt to travel on Tuesday.
Wednesday the flight was canceled, meaning it wasn´t worth trying on Thursday. So, yeah. We basically spent a lot of time in the Atlanta Rennaissance catching up on our suntans and wandering in the balmy ass heat. I don´t recommend any of that, it´s really very unpleasant. Especially when you only have the heels your wore on the plane, the flipflops and tank top in your piece of less important luggage, and the clothes you are wearing- including a pair of WOOL SLACKS. IN ATLANTA. BECAUSE YOU HAVE MISPLACED YOUR LUGGAGE.
Christi was nice enough to lend me a pair of sort of sweatpants that tie off at the knee, so here´s me in my one shirt and pair of panties I have to keep washing in the sink with the little packet of detergent Delta gave me and a pair of khaki green sweats everywhere I go. Because it´s so humid in Atlanta, the shirt and panties take forever to dry and I end up having to use a hair dryer on them. Could have used an iron, didn´t think of it, shut up.
Thursday is my birthday, I turn 24 sitting in an airport hotel bar drinking a Tanqueray and tonic and speculating on whether it´s worth it to try to get on a plane when the previous night was canceled. Decided it wasn´t worth it (turns out that is the right choice, for once) and went down to the 5 points area on the MARTA so I could get something else to wear, you know, because I´d rather not wear the same thing I have for three days on my birthday. Call me picky.
5 points is mostly shutting down by 7 or so, there´s not much decent shopping to be found and everything is either an overpriced knockoff of something that might be cute or an overpriced ugly thing. Don´t buy anything, stay in the same outfit. Christi gets sick and barfs in the MARTA garbage. End up in the airport hotel again, drinking a glass of pinot grigio and eating a $12 crabcake by myself, served by a very pregnant woman who is protruding past her little serving vest named Quincetta.
We got on the plane Friday, showed up here yesterday morning. Couldn´t sleep much, shouldn´t have tried. My neck is still all sorts of googly and it keeps threatening to give me a migraine, although somehow I´ve staved that off. Christi´s friend´s sister picked us up and Carol turned out to be the kindest, nicest woman ever and she and her husband fed us and let us play with their adorable spazzy toddlers, named Marlon and Brando.
Not kidding about that. Not kidding at all.
Met my host family today, they are really nice. The 22 year old daughter works in a nearby karaoke bar and recently was offered a car as a gift from one of her patrons, who was enamored of her eyes. He didn´t know they were grey contact lenses.
The best part of today, so far? Bananas with palm honey and little fried potato balls, and the almost fully reclining seats on the bus from Santiago to Valparaiso. I´m getting a phone tomorrow. That is all the update I can muster right now and you should feel very special that I´m not sleeping right now.

2008-05-23T11:50:00.000-07:00

Credit goes to Matt at corrugatedcity.blogspot for the photo of Valpo graffiti used at the top of the page.

So...

2008-05-22T10:31:00.000-07:00

I have 12 days left until I leave. Two more days of work.
Still have not received a response from the host family, I hope that doesn't mean they're going to be the sort of family I never even talk to. Maybe the email just got lost in the interwebs?
It turns out one of the girls I'm traveling with has a family friend outside of Santiago, and it's looking like they might be willing to take all three of us in, as opposed to just her. I'm so excited to save money and not be in a hostel with thieves and loud European weirdos... although I'd like to stay in a hostel for some portion of the trip, it's much cooler to have "friends".

More preparation...

2008-05-12T14:32:00.000-07:00

12 days of work left before my leave of absence begins. 22 days until I leave!

I met with the two other girls I'm flying with, and they are both pleasant and smart and seem like they'll be lots of fun and good to travel with. I even tactfully made sure they weren't going to bring any short skirts or any outfits that would get us in trouble. I said "Ok girls, so, what kind of outfits are we planning? Anything special for clubbing?" and their response was "No, just jeans." I was so relieved they laughed at me for asking so sneakily. I just worry about getting more catcalls and attention than necessary. Three hot gringas on the streets of Santiago could get into a lot of trouble if they didn't mind their p's and q's! :) It has been impressed upon me by many people that I have no concept of how many hoots and hollers the average woman gets there.

I emailed my host family (thanks to the lovely Josh for a bangup translation job!) and am awaiting their response. I hope to know enough about them to think of a really thoughtful gift.

I'll probably live to regret this URL...

2008-05-07T16:29:00.000-07:00

but I had to. It was not decided by me, but my my friends in #lolutah chat. Other suggestions included machonacho (taken), chupacabra (taken), chupacablog (taken!), and blogna (sadly taken, but good one Lara!). Hopefully there are at least some funny things that happen to me in Chile. With me there, knowing my abysmal comprehension of the Spanish language, Chileans will at least be laughing at me! If the trip is full of tragedy and heartache, the "lol" part will certainly end up mocking me. So let's hope that's not the case, shall we?

The facts: I'm traveling to Chile in June to study in Valparaíso for five weeks. There will be 3 days in the beginning and several days in the end of the program to hang around Santiago, and I also might go to Sao Paolo to visit a friend of the family after the program is over. Much has not been decided yet, and a lot depends on money and how long I really want to be there. I just found out about my host family, and they live in nearby Viña del Mar.
I'll be temporarily leaving behind my lovely parents and sister, as well as a wonderful fiance, lots of awesome friends, and an office full of fun coworkers. Hopefully I'll come back with new friends, not just the ones I'm traveling with.