First day of school as a Gringa!

Yesterday night I met six American students and 2 Chilean students at the mall right down the block from my house. The inside of the mall is really similar to most American malls, but there is also an artisan craft tent outside where they sell all sorts of beautiful handmade goods and food. We wandered for a few hours, got some helado (it tastes like a mix between ice cream and gelato) and some chocolate covered strawberries, and then found our way back to our homes.
After I returned from the mall I ate a late dinner with my family, and then watched some Spanish TV with my host sister before going to bed. They are really into game shows here in Chile, and tonight we watched one where two high school teams compete in physical competitions against each other to win bragging rights and money for their schools.
In the morning, I woke up early for my first day of classes! I am starting to realize what my family meant when they said it was cold here! This morning I could see my breath when I woke up. In Chile, there is no such thing as central heating for the homes, so it can get pretty cold overnight. My younger host sister Camila was sick today (strep I think) so she didn’t go to school, so it was just my host mom and I that were awake. She packed me lunch and helped me make breakfast, and then I was on my way to school by myself! Luckily I was able to remember how to get to the bus station (its down one block and across the street from my house) and I waited there until the next green and white bus pulled up. My friend Lauren got on a few stops later, so it was nice to have someone that could speak English to ride with. However, we stick out like a sore thumb from the rest of the Chilean community, so wherever we go, we constantly get strange looks because we are “gringas” (white girls).
When we arrived at La Casa Central at La Catolica, I went to the international studies office to talk to Macarena, who is in charge of my pasantia (internship). She introduced me to another student, Natalia, who showed me and my friend Martin (another American student whose internship is in the same building as mine) how to get to our internships. Our pasantias are actually in Vina del Mar, not Valparaiso, so we took a red and gray bus headed towards Alvarez back into Vina, and then transferred to a blue and white bus which took us up the hill to the top of a mountain, where the TV and radio stations were located. We got a tour of the stations from one of the workers, and he told us to come back next Monday to start work. I learned that Chile is in the process of switching from analog to digital, so they have some of both kinds of equipment.
There are 7 national news stations in Chile, 4 large stations and 3 smaller ones. The station in Valparaiso is the 2^nd of the 3 smaller national stations in the country. The offices and studios at the TV station are attached to each other through outdoor hallways and stone steps and the inside of the buildings are all wood, so it has a very different feel to it than American TV stations. It was extremely foggy this morning, so at the top of the cerro (hill) we could barely see the roof of the station, let alone the signal towers above us. When our tour was over we returned to school using the same two Micros and then Martin and I met up with several other students for lunch. After we ate, we toured the area around the city before our first class at 2pm. 18 of the 28 students on the program are in my 2pm class, and the professor seems very nice. He is actually bilingual, but he teaches in Spanish and will only switch to English if we are really confused.
After class, the entire group met up at the cafeteria in La Casa Central for a conversation session with some Chilean students. Most of the Chilean students that came were English majors, and since it was the first session (we meet with them every Tuesday) the program directors made us do some icebreakers to get to know each other.  We ended up having a dance party DJ’d by one of the directors of the program, and we taught each other the lyrics to popular American and Chilean music. The Chilean students were quiet but extremely nice, and they offered to take us out with them this weekend, which I think will be really fun! The other American students and I have begun speaking a strange combination of Spanglish with each other, mixing sentences with Spanish and English words. When our program director heard us all talking to each other today, she couldn’t stop laughing. This afternoon I helped my younger host sister with her Spanish homework (she is learning how to read!).
Later tonight, I think some of the other students and I will go to the movie theater to see the movie “Que Paso Ayer? Parte Dos” (in English, this means The Hangover Part 2!!) We are all interested to see if the movie will be as funny in a foreign language. Tomorrow, if the weather is nice, we are all hoping to go to the beach after our morning classes are over!

Viva La Chile!

Julia Marie

Aerial view of the UCVTV station

Second Stop: Valparaiso!!

After our adventures in Santiago Saturday afternoon, the group and I went to a discotheque in the Los Leones neighborhood. It was very different than the United States! We had a lot of fun, but since nightlife in Chile starts and ends later than in the United States, we were all out pretty late which made our ride to Valparaiso the next morning a very sleepy one! However, the drive between the two cities was relatively short (about an hour and a half) and extremely beautiful. There are mountains everywhere, and the contrast in the colors is amazing. Much of the ground is dry and brown, although there are plenty of bushes and trees. When we drove into Valparaiso, we all immediately noticed the colors! Valparaiso, which is the 3^rd biggest city in Chile, is also known for being the 3^rd most colorful city in the world. There is graffiti, murals, and little splashes of color everywhere you look. Valparaiso is built into the side of the mountains, and when looking down a street or up at the horizon there are beautiful brightly colored houses going up as far as you can see.
We drove to La Casa Central in Valparaiso, which is the main building of La Pontifica Universidad de Catolica en Valparaiso (PUCV or simply just La Catolica). This is the university we will be studying at while we are here for the next six weeks. In the outdoor lobby of La Catolica (most of the buildings here have courtyards in the middle that are outside) we all met our families. My host family is so nice! My mom stays at home, my father is a retired from the navy and works now as a security guard, and they have three daughters. The oldest, Carola, is in her thirties, teaches secondary school, and lives 20 minutes away from Valparaiso with her husband. The middle sister, Sary, is 27 years old and lives at home. She works as a preschool teacher in the afternoons. The youngest, Camila, is 8 years old and is in the third grade. She is so talkative! She always wants to play with me, and tried to convince her mother to let her take me and give me a tour of the city yesterday by herself.

My family speaks no English, so I am learning a lot of Spanish very quickly.  I think I have learned more in the last day than I have learned in all 10 years I have been studying Spanish! I think I understand about 80% of what they say, but I am still adjusting to their Chilean accents so hopefully in a week or so I will understand more. Speaking is the hardest for me because I get flustered easily, but I think I am improving. I have caught a cold from my younger host sister, and I have had a bad headache since I got to Valparaiso (possibly from the altitude or possibly from all the Spanish?) but I am hoping that will go away soon.
Yesterday afternoon, after we ate almuerzo (lunch – the biggest meal of the day) my Chilean mom (Sarah), Camila, Sary and I went to the mall (which is right across from our apartment!) and then went for a walk along the beach. Although the water is freezing, the view is unbelievable! It was dusk, so the whole city was lit up and there were also lights from the big commercial boats docked out at sea. There are tons of playgrounds here almost one every 100 meters, so Camila made sure we got to play on each one J After our walk we returned home and ate Once, the name for the evening meal (the third of four each day). After dinner Carola and her husband left, and I unpacked my bags and we all went to sleep.
This morning, I woke up at 8:15, got ready for school, and ate desayuno (breakfast – bread and tea) with Sary while Sarah took Camila to school. At 9:15, Sary walked me to the Micro stop (bus stop) and we took the green and white Micro into Valparaiso. The Micros run very frequently and are relatively inexpensive, but you have to watch out for pickpockets.  When we got to La Catolica Sary dropped me off and I met up with the other students from Villanova and we had our orientation. We listened to a presentation from the directors of the international studies program, then got a tour of the campus (it is incredibly confusing!!), saw where our classes would be, went to a luncheon, and then had a meeting for all of the students with pasantias (internships). My internship is going to be at UCV TV, La Catolica’s television station. I start my internship in the morning tomorrow, and have my first class (Globalization, Culture and Society in Chile) tomorrow afternoon! Sary picked me up after the orientation, and showed me where to go to take the bus back home. When we returned to the apartment, Camila and I played with her dolls, and then after lunch, I took a nap to try and get rid of my headache. Now I think I will go to the mall with some of the other students from Villanova!

Viva la Chile!

Julia Marie

The view of the countryside on the way to Valparaiso

The Valparaiso bay at sunset

The view of Vina del Mar from the beach

View of Valparaiso from the beach

La Camila!

The colors of Valparaiso

The beautiful colorful hills

Los colores de los cerros de Valpo

One of the courtyards inside La Casa Central

Inside PUCV!

Outside of La Casa Central at La Catolica

The city in the hills

Patagonia Sin Represas!!

Ay dios mio!

Today has been filled with excitement. Last night, me and a few other students went to the Bella Vista neighborhood a few blocks from our hotel and explored the area. It is in the old part of town, and there were many young people wandering around. We went into a few nice pubs and watched some soccer, and then sat outside at a table and drank some Escoda (Chilean beer). We also found a really cool square that is in the center of a city block, on the outside are regular shops but on the inside of the block there are a variety of bars and clubs. It was awesome! After our adventure, we all walked back and fell asleep, as most of us had not slept well in days!

This morning we all met at 9am, got breakfast, and checked out of our hotel. We then got on a tour bus and got a 3 hour tour of the city from a Santiago native! He drove us down O’Higgins (the main road in Santiago – named after an Irishman, actually) and we saw many things including the Cordillera region of the Andes Mountains, El Club Hipico (Horseracing club) and also many government buildings. We stopped the bus every once and a while to get off and walk around. There were many beautiful buildings along the way, like the San Francisco Cathedral, an old pharmacy, and the Santiago public library. The library was one of the several buildings damaged during the earthquake in 2008, and when we drove past it, there were scaffolds up and they were working on repairing the building. However, our tour guide told us that most of the buildings in Chile are built to be flexible in order to withstand earthquakes. On our tour we also saw the Rio Mapocho which runs through the city of Santiago and is currently empty, because it is the dry season here. Also running through the city is the Pan-American Highway. In Chile, the Pan-American Highway is over 2000 miles long! Chilenos call it the backbone of the country, because it runs from the northern-most tip of the country all the way to La Patagonia.

Our first stop on the tour was El Club Hipico in downtown Santiago. The horseracing track stretches for miles, and the guide said they hold races there twice a week, each race drawing between 20,000 and 30,000 people. We met a few of the jockeys and horses that were walking around the grounds, and they told us a little about what it was like to be a jockey and to take care of a racehorse. Then we went to the government square in the middle of the city, which houses the presidential offices, the Supreme Court, and the Chilean senate. Unlike the United States, Chilean presidents can't serve 2 consecutive terms, and also do not live in special housing like our president. In the middle of the square there are 15 Chilean flags, one for each of the 15 regions in Chile.
Next we walked to La Plaza de Armas, the same place we had gone yesterday to shop. We saw a statue of Pedro Valdivia, the founder of Chile, and then went inside the Catedral Metropolitana. It was extremely ornate! Outside the cathedral, there was a man doing tricks with his soccer ball, and he entertained us for ten minutes! He could juggle fruit while juggling a soccer ball, and could balance the ball on any part of his body. His grand finale was a series of flips, all while continuing to juggle. After La Plaza de Armas, we drove through a different part of the city and saw the United States Embassy. Then we continued on to a local store, where they sold artisan goods. Inside the store, we were treated to a wine tasting, and our tour guide taught us how to do a proper Chilean toast. You say: Arriba (up), Abajo (down), Al Centro (to the middle), Adentro (gulp it down). The artisan shop sold lots of jewelry and crafts that contained Lapis Lazuli, a special kind of blue stone that can only be found in Chile and Afghanistan. For religious purposes, the stone cannot be sold in Afghanistan, so Chileans rule the market when it comes to selling goods made with Lapis stones.
After our tour, we moved to our new hotel in the Plaza de Leones region of the city. This part of the city is older, and the buildings are very quaint and some of the streets are made of cobblestone. There are many small business crammed close together in the alleys, but they make some of the best food around! After we ate empanadas de napolitiano (empanadas with ham and cheese) me and a few other students decided to take the metro to Santa Lucia, where there was a shopping market. When we got off the subway, we were a bit confused because the streets were empty and there was no car traffic (the streets had been closed off by the police) so we decided to climb the building for the arts that is right next to the famous Gabriela Mistral mural. It was a beautiful old building dedicated to the arts, with outdoor stone steps leading you from level to level. We climbed almost to the top, but then we started hearing drums and shouts from down on the street, so we stopped to ask a Chileno what was going on. He told us there was going to be a protest on the street that afternoon, so we climbed up to the next level to have a look. At the top, we saw many policemen, who were keeping an eye on the quickly growing crowds below. The Gabriela Mistral mural is located on the main road in Santiago (OHiggins), and from the top of the building we could see hundreds of people marching down the road with signs. We asked a policeman what was the cause of the protest, but he just told us that the people were crazy.
We climbed down to the bottom and began taking pictures from a balcony that overlooked the road, and we learned that the people there were environmentalists who were opposing the construction of hydroelectric power plants in the Patagonia region of Chile. The Patagonia region is mostly forest, and the government wants to build power plants there because cities like Santiago whose population grows every year need more sources of energy. It was extremely exciting to watch, but we made sure to keep our distance. At the end of the protest, there was a marching band, and my friends and I danced in the streets with the rest of the group. After the protest, we went to the Mercado Artisenio (craft market) around the corner, where individuals were selling many cool things, most of which were made out of copper and lapis, the two most common Chilean natural resources.  After the market closed, we returned to the hotel and had dinner with our group at a local Chilean restaurant, where we all tried Pisco Sours – a famous South American drink that is made differently in each country) for the first time.  Tonight we are going to explore the Los Leones area some more, before we head to Valparaiso tomorrow!
It will be sad to leave Santiago, but all of us cannot wait to meet our host families! I have learned so many new words in the last two days and speaking Spanish is getting easier, but I am a bit nervous to speak Spanish with my host family! We are all starting to understand the money system (although it still feels weird to pay for things using thousand dollar bills). Every Santiago native is very interested in asking us about the United States, so it has been fun to interact with the people here because they are so interested in us. It is almost time to go out, but hopefully I will have more to say tomorrow after I meet my host family!

Viva la Chile!

Julia Marie

La Plaza de Armas, in the center of Santiago

The barns at El Club Hipico, the famous horse-racing track

El Club Hipico racetrack

La Catedral Metropolitana

Chilean guards and their horses!

Anti-Hydroelectric Power Plant Protest in Santiago 

View of the protest from atop the arts building

Patagonia sin represas!

Hanging out in front of the arts building in old Santiago

First Stop: Santiago!!

Today has been a crazy day! I left yesterday afternoon from the Philadelphia airport, and after arriving in the Miami airport (and being greeted by the flight attendants doing a wonderful rendition of “Welcome to Miami” in the terminal) I met up with the 27 other students that I will be spending the next 6 weeks with.
Our flight to Santiago went off without a hitch, and we arrived at 8am. I slept most of the way, but woke up just in time to catch the sunrise over the Andes Mountains from my window seat! It was beautiful. As we flew by the coast, we were able to see the tips of the mountains peaking through the clouds. It was absolutely unbelievable. When we got to the airport, we had to pay $140 American dollars to customs, and that took an eternity because we didn’t realize until we got up to the counter that the customs officials would only accept bills that were not ripped, not dirty, not folded, etc. So after they examined our money, we all made it through baggage claim, and got on a coach bus to head to our hotel. However, some of us learned the hard way that we need to be careful with our money, because an airport official came on to our bus and convinced some of my group members that they needed to pay him, and then left with our money. After that fiasco, we drove to the hotel. On the way, we saw the beautiful mountains of the Cordillera mountain range in the distance, and saw many dirt soccer fields, strange playground parks, and lots and lots of stray dogs.

Tonight we are staying in a hotel called San Sebastian, which is located in the neighborhood of Santiago called “A La Media” (in the middle). It is so called because the park that the road sits on divides the city between the old part and the new part. We ate breakfast at the hotel, took a walk around the park nearby (our tour guide was an adorable German-shepherd mix dog that led us through the whole park and back) and then took the metro to “La Plaza de Armas,” a local shopping district, where we got lunch and bought cell phones for the trip. For most of us, buying lunch was our first experience using Chilean money, and it was quite difficult! Chilean pesos are counted in thousands and ten thousands, so the extra zeros, the exchange rate, and the currency comparison make using Chilean money pretty confusing. But never the less, I managed to successfully order and pay for my Empenada de Queso and hopefully we will all get the hang of it soon! 

In the afternoon, we walked from our hotel to a neighborhood about 15 minutes away where we saw one of the three historic houses that Pablo Neruda, the famous Chilean poet, lived in. The Santiago house was the home he lived in with his third wife, and also the last house he lived in before his death in 1973. He is so famous in Chile, that he is referred to by Chilean people simply as "The Poet." This says a lot, coming from a country of many talented poets! His house was so beautiful, tucked away in a back alley that had cobblestone steps, a waterfall, and lots of murals. His house was right in the city, but when on the grounds of his house, it felt like you could have been in the middle of the forest. His house was terraced, and many parts of the house were not connected to each other, so we had to walk up outdoor staircases to get from one room to the other. The house was very old, and had been added on to many times, so it had very low ceilings and even a hidden secret passageway behind a wardrobe in the dining room. Aside from his famous poetry and his status as a Nobel Prize winner, Neruda is known for his habit of being a collector, so his house was filled with all sorts of interesting (and sometimes creepy) artifacts ranging from dolls to giant shoes. 
After our beautiful tour, we went to dinner at Restaurante Venezia, which was right across the street from a zoo! Villanova treated us to our first Chilean dinner, where we were served bottle after bottle of delicious Chilean wine. Tonight we may go and explore Santiago some more, it is such a beautiful city and we have so little time here! The streets are always bustling with people, and the buildings are very old and ornate (but not so tall) and for the most part the people here have been very patient with us as we have struggled to speak Spanish.  They can spot from a mile away that we are Americans (considering most of the people on our trip have blonde hair) and many of the Chileans have walked up to us and started speaking English to us since they know we are foreigners. However, we've surprised a few of them with our Spanish skills. 
Tomorrow we are taking a tour of the city in the morning, and will probably go to the Santiago market in the afternoon to do some shopping. It is absolutely beautiful, and I have taken way too many pictures today to post (my count so far is almost at four hundred) but I have included a few pictures below of our adventures thus far. Once I get to Valparaiso where the internet connection will be better, I will continue to post.

Viva la Chile!!

Julia Marie

 The Santiago countryside, with the Cordillera mountain range fading into the distance

 A view of the capital city, Santiago, which lies in a valley surrounded by mountains

Street art leading up to Pablo Neruda's home in Santiago

In the courtyard of Pablo Neruda's home

Kelly, Martin, Christine, Porter, Noelle, and I out on our first night in Santiago

Dirt soccer fields everywhere - this one's for you Dad!!

Let the adventure begin...

Stop number one is Chile! I am leaving the United States on Thursday, and will be arriving in Santiago on Friday morning. I'll be staying with the Varas-Cadenas family in Valparaiso for 6 weeks, and traveling throughout Chile and Argentina on the weekends. Later in July, I am headed for Europe, to visit Turkey, Spain, and Italy with my family. Let the adventure begin!

More soon...

Julia Marie