Free to Roam

Hola y feliz dia de las madres! Miss you, Mom! We had our first free day yesterday, Saturday. Even though it was “free” we were still very busy! We were able to sleep in a bit more; it was a great chance to recharge finally. When we got up, it was time to go explore Vina del Mar. Since before we had even left, it was planned that we would take a tour of the “pastelerias”, bakeries of the city. So we were off to begin the tour! We tried the first one and I split a delicious cream filled pastry. I couldn’t tell you what it was or what it was called (other than tasty). After that, we were off to the next bakery in line. This one was particularly special. The owner treated us very nicely! And as it turned out, she was a host for foreign exchange students! We enjoyed a pastry of Dulce de Leche, the richest, purest, most delightful concoction I have ever enjoyed, like caramel filled with happiness. Buenisimo! After than delicacy though, my sweet cravings were more than fulfilled, so it was time for a bit of a change of pace. We went back to the first bakery, where I got a warm and crispy baguette for 350 Chilean pesos, or about 75 cents. I came back to the hotel before going out with a group to find some lunch, the biggest meal for Chilean culture. We found a place down along the main street running along the coast called Entre Mesa. Entre Mesa translates to “between the table”, which was exactly the meal. We order a Disco which fed four of us. It was filled with savory meats and flavorful vegetables. Such a dish of Chilean culture sat before us, but not for long. We met the Chileans for yet another fun night in Vina del Mar. Everyone is so inviting and friendly in their culture and we all enjoy hanging out with them. We have another free day today, Sunday it will be packed we even more excitement. Hasta luego!

Incredible!

I don't know how to even start explaining today! Just, wow. As I mentioned, today was our trip to the vineyard Vina Indomita about an hour away from the hotel. My brain was running out of fuel after a week of never sleeping, but with the little that I had left was all focused on my anticipation of today! I slept for about 30 minutes on the bus and woke up before pulling into the vineyard. Perfect timing too so I could build all my excitement back up! We pull in, I chug a Red Bull to recharge and snap my first of MANY pictures I took today. The view is indescribable by even the most skilled with imagery, but I will do my best to paint a picture for you. Atop a lonely, grapey hill surrounded immediately by the flattest plains coated dirty green by white grape plants after the harvest sits a modern stark white house covered with enormous windows hanging over the side the steep side of the hill. The sun is rising above the dramatic mountains in the back side of the building. Opportunities for perfect pictures are everywhere! I fell so far behind in the first 10 feet of the trail because I couldn't help to view the whole scene through the view finder of my camera. I catch up and we are greeted and the tour begins. We enter the beautiful house and head through to where the grapes are crushed and fermented. Towering steel drums stand above everything, side to side, like to Moai's of Easter Island. The process of wine-making was explained to us in general. What I wouldn't give to be part of their engineering team. We proceed down into the basement where casks of the best wine are stored. At this point, I am dying to try the wine. That moment arrived soon enough! We headed back onto the porch overlooking the grape plants. Samples were sitting out, just begging to be savored and appreciated. We tried three delicacies that Vina Indomita has to offer. Que magnifico! What a fantastic morning! The group said "ciao" to the artwork of a winery and we were off to the house of Pablo Neruda, a Nobel-winning poet and overall hero to Chilean people. We arrived and had lunch at the restaurant adjacent to the house. The tables had a perfect view of powerful Pacific waves crashing on the porous black rocks beneath. The delicious seafood meal made the experience all the better! We headed into the poet's home after lunch, which remained nearly in the exact condition it was left in. Figure heads from the bows of ships that traveled to all part of the world filled the late genius' home. The only thing that seemed more important to Neruda was the ocean, as everything was centered around having a view of the Pacific from any position. We spent a nice amount of time along the beautiful coastline before heading back to the bus. Not without stopping at the stands of handmade memories on the way though. We finished the day with yet another dance lesson, this time of a large variety of favorite Latin American dances. Tomorrow is our first free day to ourselves, chances are we will find some adventures to help make the trip complete! I will report on them as soon as I can! Gracias y buenas noches!

More Dancing and a Trip to LAN

Yet another day of enjoying the foreign country while getting absolutely no sleep. We woke up this morning and had an early day of dancing. But the thing about studying abroad is nothing goes exactly as planned. We intended to go back to the university this morning to learn the cueca, a very important dance for the Chilean culture. In Chile, the cueca is a dance where the man tries to win a woman. We learned a very simple version of the dance, but there was a lot to remember. Kelsey and I did a great job putting it all together though! We had a break for a bit before lunch at the university. It was a great to have a break to get some more energy for the rest of the day. Later, we had our first company visit to the airline company, LAN, that services the all of Latin America. The company was a bit outside of Santiago. Senor Luis taught us a lot about the airline industry and how the company works. We were also able to tour a Boeing 787 Dreamliner without passengers. But the best part was that my group was able to sit in the pilot seat! After that we went out with Chilean students to hang out in Valparaiso, a shockingly different night life than I have ever experienced, even for living in Oakland. Tomorrow is going to be an exciting Friday in Chile when we tour the winery Vina Indomita and the artful house of Pablo Neruda on Isla Negra. Gracias!

Dia de Lecturas! (Day of Lectures)

Its day 4 of our excursion and there’s always more to report! Today was a bit more of an easy day, much less physically exhausting so that recovering from the all the walking yesterday! We went back to the university in Valparaiso for a full day of lecture. Senor Jose Luis delivered an intriguing lecture today about all the aspects of Chilean culture we should know while studying here. The topics ranged from the effects the extreme geography has on the culture to the types of art and dance in Chile. It was all very interesting to compare the culture of the United States to the culture of Chile. And being completely honest, its make me love the people of Chile even more! Some of the folk dances were so interesting to watch, they looked incredibly fun. Today was incredibly informative on how to examine other cultures and catch the differences. Aside from the lectures, the university has such a beautiful campus! I die a bit inside of jealousy every time I round through a courtyard and catch an eyeful of the azure mirror called the Pacific Ocean just beyond the boundary. But one thing never changes campus to campus and that’s cafeteria food… bleh! :P Its fine though, the beauty of the campus just makes everything okay. Tonight we are meeting the Chilean students tonight to have some more fun! Thankfully we are able to sleep in a bit later we should have plenty of time for fun! Wish me “Buenos suerte”! Gracias!

Getting to Know Santiago

Waking up today absolutely sucked! But once I got moving everything was a bit better. On the agenda for today was the capital city of Santiago. We started out at the stock exchange building in the city. It was so much different than I would expect. It was quiet and almost empty. It was evident that almost all the trading is now done electronically. We then walked around the city for a while and went into the cathedral in the city. The one thing that seems to remain constant in this entirely new world is the Catholic church. We went across the courtyard into the history museum! This was such a rich environment for learning the Spanish language with many complex sentences and a Chilean student there to help translate. I was even able to make faces at children at the museum on a field trip! Once we had finished up at with this sightseeing, we decided we needed to eat. The main meal of the day is lunch in Chile, and ours was very delicious! We went to a fish market and had some of the freshest Chilean sea bass possible. I had mine with a seafood sauce over it, which was so delicious that I could have eaten it by itself as a chowder! After lunch, had the opportunity to go INTO the presidential palace of Chile! It was incredible, we were able to get so close to where the president lives and does his work. Then took our time and headed up to get a view of the city from above. There were some great picture spots from above the city. Unfortunately, my camera was dead, sad face. Its fine because the rest of the group got some amazing pictures. We then had a nice 2 hour trip back into Vina del Mar, before we were off for the evening. Tonight was a bit of a slower night. Now that everyone is getting to know each other more, just a touch of exhausted, starving hostility was detectable. We are starting to become a real family! Refueling from dinner cheered everyone right back up. Its unbelievable how the trip has just started and everything we have already experienced. And more to come with each day. Hasta luego!

Catching Up After the Second Day

Just now, have I gotten the chance to catch up and update this blog! It has been crazy busy in a great way. Soo to start... The first night was a blast, we already experienced a bit of the Chile nightlife. It was a fantastic way to start getting to know each other. It was on this experience that I somehow established myself as the photographer of the trip. Morning came quick the next day though. Waking up and having breakfast in the hotel was pretty normal. After breakfast, we met with a few students from the university in Valparaiso. It was incredible how well they spoke English! They took us to the university and gave us a tour. Many things about the campus were similar, but the striking difference was having a  sea directly next to the campus. A cool salty breeze blowing over the football fields, a view of the sparkling waves of the Pacific through French windows, perfect weather everyday. Perfecto! We had our first lecture in foreign country too! The professor taught us so much about Latin American and Chilean economy. We then had a lunch at the university before heading out to see the city. Valparaiso is a city with so much personality. Each house had a life of its own, so different than the all the suburbs of the United States. The people of the streets interacted with us so much. Although its was evident that there was a slight difference in the quality of life of the public in this part of city. You could tell the expressive nature of the people just by the graffiti/street art and almost feel what they were feeling. We went up the Chilean incline to watch the sun set over the ocean. And the moment we were all waiting for, the empanadas. Delicioso! Tan delicioso!! What could be better than fried dough filled with meat and cheese?! I will be returning for many, many more! We followed dinner with some learning some salsa dancing. In the most humble way possible, I pretty much rocked the salsa.  We then were invited to enjoy the evening with the students from the university. What an evening. Everyone seemed to glorious time. I continued to be the photographer, and everyone was dying at the pictures of the night. And this is where I will leave it for now. Gracias!

Spectacular First Impression, Chile.

Finally, the day has come! I have landed in Chile at the Airport in Sanitago, and have spent my first day in a foreign country (excluding a small trip to Niagara). So far, so good. First, I should mention the flights. I slept through both. Like a rock. But there was still an experience worth noting... my first view of the country. Life through my eyes is a bit... blurry. I wear contacts/prescription glasses and without them everything is a complete haze. When I was woken during the flight to Santiago, the first thing that caught my eye was a blob of an extremely bright rectangle of contrasting blue, orange and pink. I was terribly confused. Putting on my glasses, I then realized what caught my attention. It was the sun rising over the horizons of South America. Gorgeous! In the next ten minutes, all I could do was absorb the scenery. On both sides of me, mountain peaks of coppery, gritty, earth. We descended into a valley between these topographic marvels, where a fog  was laying over everything, forcing me to patiently wait to experience the country from the ground. We landed and that is when I realized that I was in somebody else's homeland. Humbling. Everything went well in the airport:  nobody lost luggage, no problems with customs. The bus ride into Vina del Mar showed even more that the country had to offer over its various and changing terrains. We reached our hotel, settled in and were off again. To lunch! I was starving, nothing since an airplane breakfast at who knows when and it was now around 2 PM local time. Our first experience of food in Chile was at the Tiki Taco Bar. One delicious shrimp taco later, the jet lag hit me and I just about passed out on my plate. Thankfully, after a long wait, we were walking and that revived me to see the country again. I saw my first view of the Pacific Ocean, walked past a few stray dogs, entertained ourselves with the street performers... more good experiences. Now, were already making plans for our first night, but for that, I will leave you til tomorrow! Yes, Mom, I landed safely and am fine. Jess, hope everything is going well in Germany, dying to hear about everything!! Gracias!