This is Brittany's Blog

Good Intentions

2013-05-02T09:39:00.001+01:00

I never thought that I would quote Ke$ha in, well, anything, but her words are actually quite appropriate for this moment: "It can bum you out when your intentions aren't, like, translated properly." In her case, Ke$ha is lamenting the fact that she has been portrayed as "pop's party girl" instead of being recognized for her artistic talents. I can't say I would know any of her music were I to hear it, so I have no comment on her musical abilities, but I definitely feel her pain about intentions gone bad.

For example, my intention to blog about all of my travels, and even just day-to-day life in my new home. In my head, it sounds like a great idea, and not even that difficult to carry out! What could be easier than relaying events that happened to you just a few days before (with a few embellishments, perhaps)? I mean, isn't that what office gossip is all about? Should be easy as pie. Unfortunately, I am neither a great fan of pie (except Grandma's) nor office gossip. Oh, but did you hear what Mr. Smith did last weekend?!

Just kidding. I'm almost 99% sure that there isn't even a Mr. Smith at the school. Although I'm really horrible with names, so I could be mistaken about that, too! Anyways, I guess the point of this post is to let you know that I'm still here and I really do intend to write about my travels. But please bear with me if my intentions aren't "like, translated properly."

Gardening with a Historian and an Anthropologist...

2013-03-17T12:37:00.002Z

... makes for very slow work, it turns out!

Even though it was cold and windy out, I managed to convince Scott to help me dig up the garden (with the promise of a homemade dinner afterwards). Theoretically, it should be pretty quick work, especially with two people going at it. All you have to do is cut the sod into strips, roll it up, and cart it away. This went well for the first strip--I was pleased to see that the soil had a good consistency and that there were plenty of worms and grubs to help turn over the soil. This gardening stuff might turn out to be a good idea, after all!

When I started to pull up the next strip, however, I noticed a small white and blue object. Upon further inspection, I realized that it was a piece of painted ceramic! Of course now that I knew there were interesting objects in the ground, this meant that I had to painstakingly comb every strip before taking it away. Scott laughed at my enthusiasm at first, but once I started pulling out more pieces, he started looking too! We ended up finding pieces from at least two or three different objects. I'm a little rusty with my ceramics knowledge (not that I had much to begin with), so I really don't have any idea if they're all that interesting or not. If anyone has any inklings, let me know!

We managed to get about three-quarters of the yard stripped off, except for bits near the fencel ine that were difficult to cut into. I tried to dig into one area only to discover a row of bricks buried just below the surface. The outside edge of the garden it lined with bricks, since the sidewalk is slightly beneath the soil line. I figured that this row was just from an older garden perimeter that was eventually forgotten and let to grow over. They would have to be pulled out before we could start planting, so I grabbed the spade and starting digging. I pulled up about three intact bricks, and went to try to find the next one in line.

This time when I went to pull out the brick with my shovel, I noticed that it wasn't quite as heavy as the other bricks. I figured that perhaps it was broken, or maybe it was just a stone that got placed instead of a brick. When I finally did manage to pull it out, it turned out not to be a brick at all! It was a bottle neck, with the cork still intact (very rotted, but still there). Our garden is right next to the sidewalk that leads to and from the neighboring villages, so I just figured that it was litter that had been thrown over by a passerby some years ago (although it was strange that they would have left the cork in!). I put the fragment to the side and continued digging.

My spade hit upon another hard object, so I reached down to pull it out. It was another fragment of a bottle, but it was a different color than the bottle neck I had just pulled out. I looked more closely at the hole I had dug and realized that there were dozens of fragments of bottles of all sorts of different colors! The archaeologist in me started to get excited, and I expressed this excitement to Scott. Again, he laughed at my enthusiasm, took his obligatory glance at the fragments I'd pulled up, and continued working on his patch of the garden. I was so excited, though, that I continued to make celebratory noises with each new fragment I pulled out.

Finally, Scott couldn't take it anymore and came over to see what all the fuss was about. Of course, he insisted that his excavation skills were far superior to mine, took the hand shovel from me, and proceeded to start digging himself. Turns out he's a natural--he pulled up a large can (maybe a small paint can?), with a small, intact glass bottle inside of it. This discovery convinced him of the archaeological significance of the site, so he put away his large tools and sat down to excavate with me. Our gardening plans all but forgotten, we spent the next half hour or so pulling up more objects from the ground. Once I realized that it was more than just a few pieces of litter, I even started try to map the locations of the objects!

By the time we were forced inside by rain, we'd pulled up an entire bucket full of bottle fragments, four cans, a small intact bottle, a large intact bottle, five bottle necks with corks still inserted, and two more pieces of ceramic. Scott said we should recycle them, but right now they're sitting in the kitchen waiting for me to clean and date them, just in case they are something to get excited about. I found a website that might help--it's for dating American bottles, but maybe I can find some good references there to give me an approximate age of the bottles. It's still really strange that so many of them were unopened, and in the same place. Someone's forgotten secret stash?

The answer to this mystery must remain for the moment, because the sun has returned (for the moment), which means its time to get back to the garden!

Endeavours in Gardening

2013-03-13T19:50:00.000Z

So a few weeks ago, whilst staring out the window at the falling snow (in a place where I was assured that it rarely snowed--no, I am not going to let that go!), I decided that it would be a good idea to start a vegetable garden in the back yard. I do have some experience with gardening, if you count helping my dad with his when I was about 12 years old. Other than that, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.

Luckily, there are perks to living in the old servant's house on an estate--there is a groundskeeper for the whole estate who knows a thing or two about tending to a garden. I actually met the groundskeeper, Bob, during my first week here when a package meant for Hildersham Hall (the estate owners' home) was accidentally delivered to our house. I wasn't quite sure what to do, but I just happened to look out the window and see a man clearing the snow on the driveway. Since I hadn't met our landlord, I assumed that that was who it was. Turns out I was wrong, but luckily Bob is really awesome and agreed to give the package to the landlord when he saw him. We ended up talking for over an hour, even though I was standing outside with only my slippers and sweatshirt. Bob is a really interesting guy, and seems to know a little bit about everything!

A few weeks later when I told him that I wanted to start a garden, Bob helped me scout out the best location in the yard, and even agreed to put down some weedkiller so that I wouldn't have to pull up all the grass. He came over on a warm, sunny day to spray it. He finished within about 15 minutes, but once again he ended up staying and chatting for over an hour. In fact, the only reason he ended up leaving was because I got stung by a bee! It figures that would happen on the first warm day of the year! Very strange circumstance, too--I put my hands inside the pocket of my sweatshirt, and was stung on my palm by the bee that had apparently been napping in there! It's been about a week, and I'm proud to say that my hand is healing quite nicely. It was starting to itch quite a bit, but it turns out that a nice rubbing of mud really helps with that!

Anyways, after Bob sprayed the yard to kill the grass, he told me that if the weather stayed dry, everything should be gone within a week or so. Of course, it has rained and/or snowed pretty much every day since he said that. So, unfortunately, the grass and weeds are still very alive and I now get the oh-so-fun task of pulling them all out. Luckily, Bob has started a little bit of it for me, because he had to dig up one side to put in the new fence that he graciously offered to install around the perimeter of the vegetable garden to keep out the rabbits. He even put in a nice gate and painted everything, too! Have I said that I think Bob is pretty much the most awesome person ever?

www.leevalley.com

After a week of watching the rain fall and nourish the grass that I was attempting to kill, I finally gave in and decided to pull up the grass myself. This doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but it turns out that a plot of 25 by 15 feet is actually pretty big. Also, I only had a spade to work with. I started to dig up a bit with that, but after an hour of work I'd only managed to sort of move the dirt around in about a 4 by 4 area. Luckily, Bob tends to also have great timing, and he showed up just in time to see me ready to give up in my attempts. He showed me how to use my spade to cut the sod into strips, and even lent me his antique sod lifter to make rolling it up even easier! With this new tool, I was able to remove about a third of the grass in just about an hour! Even still, I definitely got my work out and can assure you that I'll get a good night's sleep tonight!

My progress so far. I'm pretty proud of myself!

Now, I think I'm going to wait until Scott can help this weekend to pull up the rest of it. Turns out that dirt and grass can be quite heavy, so he also gets the honorable task of moving the rolls of sod that I've created. He'll be so excited to hear the news!

Escape to Portugal

2013-02-11T23:59:00.000Z

www.guardian.co.uk

Because we stayed so close to the airport, we "slept in" until 5:00 a.m. We actually managed to get up and going fairly efficiently, considering the hour. We were checked out and ready to go just a little past 6:00. Unfortunately, the snow hadn't let up all night and there was a nice covering of the stuff all the way up to the airport. I really wasn't too excited about sitting on a cold airplane with wet feet, so I went into the bathroom and snagged some of the extra garbage bags from the corner. I tied them around my feet over my sneakers to prevent some of the water from getting in. And to make a fashion statement, obviously. Scott commented that it was an improvement over my normal attire, although the other people we passed by didn't quite seem to have the same opinion.

Regardless of their fashion, the bags served their purpose and my feet were only slightly damp by the time arrived at the terminal. As I peeled the bags off, Scott did some reconnaissance to see where we needed to go to get our tickets. We'd already checked in and were only bringing carry-on baggage, but we would still have to wait in line because we don't have a printer at home to print the tickets. I'm actually almost tempted to buy a printer just to avoid the hassle of waiting in line at airports! It would totally be worth it. Especially because just as we got into the hideously long line, we heard an announcement over the loudspeaker saying that it was the last call for our flight! Granted, it was an international flight so we probably should have arrived more than an hour before boarding, but last call at 6:20?!

www.freedomsphoenix.com

There was no way we were going to get to the front of the line anytime soon, so Scott left the line to go ask for help at the ticket counter. Luckily, the staff are apparently used to lots of traveler arriving late and having similar panic situations. In fact, there was a special check-in line designed especially for those travelers. We rushed to join that line, willing it to move quickly as we heard the repeated "last call" for our flight. As soon as the agent gave us our tickets, we ran to security and were once again faced with a mile-long line. This time, there wasn't any "fast-track" service, so we just had to grit our teeth and hope we made it. As we stood in line we started to organize the things that needed to be taken out or put in bags (electronics and liquids). As we did, Scott reaching into the bottom of his bag and realized that he had forgotten to take out his multi-tool before packing for the trip! For those of you unacquainted, a multi-tool is basically just a bunch of knives and other sharp objects all tacked together. Not such a good thing to try to bring into an airport, especially if you're planning on getting anywhere fast.

I know that some airports have last minute mail services near security, so I was hoping that we might just be able to mail it home. I did a quick scan, but didn't see anything in the vicinity. We showed it to the guard in the corner of the room. He let us keep it for the moment, but warned us that it probably wasn't going to be able to go much further. When we got to the x-ray, Scott showed it to the security agent to see what options he might have. He didn't have any, so was forced to hand it over before going through the machine. But at least we got to leave our shoes on!

news.bbcimg.co.uk

We got through security by about 7:10, which is the time that our tickets said that the gate was closing. Hoping that my watch was a little fast, we ran as fast as we could to our gate. We were welcomed by a massive gathering of about 100 other people who probably had also made a mad dash to the gate after hearing the "last call." Apparently those calls they'd been giving out for the past half hour had merely been a suggestion, because the door to the waiting area for the gate hadn't even been opened yet. So glad we nearly ran down an old crippled lady in our quest to get there on time. It actually turned out pretty well that we were at the back of the line, because the waiting area was no more than a covered area right next to the runway--not the most comfortable place to stand around and wait when it's snowing. Because of our tardiness, we were some of the last people ushered in and only had to endure it for about 15 minutes.

www.etravelblog.com

Not to say that I was too excited about those 15 minutes, either, but I suppose I'm glad it wasn't any longer. When we finally did make it to the airplane (around 8:00, 20 minutes after the scheduled departure time), we looked at our tickets to see that we would be seated towards the back of the plane. And by "towards the back" I mean "the absolute last row right next to the bathrooms." And of course we were in the window and middle seat. I'm usually pretty OK with small places, but the one exception to that is on airplanes, where I always insist on being in the aisle. I usually manage to reserve one but if not, the plane often has extra seats that I can move to once we're in the air. Not today. At least the person sitting next to me was very respectful and even offered to let me use the armrest! Now that is chivalry at 30,000 feet!

Luckily for our seatmate, he got to have the armrest and even a little bit extra butt room, because I leaned over and slept on Scott's shoulder for nearly the whole trip. Except for the last half hour or so, during which time I decided to try a new game on my iPod called "Temple Run." It is the most addictive game ever; you've been warned! It was a little difficult to catch on to the rules (because reading the instructions would have been too easy), and of course just as I figured it out was when the captain made the landing announcement and we had to power down all electronics.

www.guardian.co.uk

The landing was much more efficient than boarding and take-off, and we headed right inside to customs. Usually, being the foreigner means longer lines and more questioning at the border, but this time it was actually an advantage being a non-EU citizen! There was one line for EU and UK passport holders, and one line for "everyone else." Luckily for us, it was only us and one other couple that qualified as "everyone else," so we got right to the front of the line. The lady barely even looked at our passport before stamping it and waving us through. I was so excited to have my first European stamp in this passport! I am a little disappointed that all the European stamps are now basically the same since becoming part of the EU but, oh well. I'll continue collecting anyway.

After getting through the border, we headed straight out to the transportation area. I hadn't really researched the best way to get to our hotel, but I did know that it was supposed to be fairly close to a metro stop. We decided to find a map and try to find our way to the nearest metro, hoping that there wouldn't be too many busy roads to cross to get there. Luckily for us, it turns out they had just built a new metro stop right inside the airport! Plus, the tickets were electronic so we could buy a reusable card that could be used all on modes of transportation during our entire stay. We did have a little trouble buying the ticket from the electronic kiosk, until we discovered that there was a button to translate everything into English. Amazing how much easier that made things!

rouxinoldepomares.blogs.sapo.pt

The airport was at the far north of the city, while our hotel was at the southernmost end. We also had to transfer lines once, so it took us about 45 minutes to get to our stop. Luckily, we got to have our pick of seats since we had gotten on at the first stop of the line. We got off at metro Baixa-Chiado (easy to remember, since the name of our hotel was "Borges Chiado"). After going up what seemed an infinite number of floors--thank goodness for escalators--we finally emerged into a large, bustling square. The directions I had gotten to our hotel weren't very specific, so we walked around to the other side of the exit to see if we could find a map with a more precise location. Unfortunately, the dispaly that we had believed to be a map was empty. So, like the confused tourists that we are, we just looked around like deer in the headlights. This actually turned out to be quite a good strategy, as it turned out that our hotel was just across the square!

It was just a few minutes until noon, so we figured that it would be the perfect time to check in and start exploring. Of course, the first thing on our mind was lunch. Being the "economical" travelers that we are, we hadn't eaten breakfast because it wasn't free at the hotel, and there also weren't any snack provided on the airplane. There was quite a crowd in the lobby, so we ended up waiting about 15 minutes before we managed to grab anyone's attention. When we finally did, we were told that check-in time actually wasn't until 1:00 p.m., so we would have to do something else until that time. They did let us leave our bags in a locked closet so that we didn't have to much to carry, at least.

dreamstime.com

We decided to use the time to go out in search of something to quench our appetites. There were a few cafes right next to the hotel, but we wanted to be a bit more adventurous so we headed up the big hill to our right and down a small cobblestone street on our first Portuguese adventure. There were quite a few tourists at the plaza from where we'd come, but as we moved further down the narrow street, we noticed a change in the ambiance. There were decidedly fewer foreigner accents, and many more "regular" people just going about their daily activities. We walked past a small restaurant with all sorts of fresh fish on display in the window. Scott was a little unsure at first, but we took a quick glance at the menu and, with our elementary grasp of Portuguese combined with some educated guessing, we surmised that there were at least a few non-fish options and that the prices were fairly reasonable.

We ventured inside and used hand gestures to indicate that we wanted a table for two. That was our first indication that this was going to be a good meal--no one spoke English! We muddled through the menu for a few minutes before the waiter realized our difficulties and brought us an international menu. He tried to speak to us in German, but when that didn't work out, he reverted back to handle signals. Apparently, we don't look very American, because this was only the first of many instances in which someone would first attempt to speak to us in German. Maybe I should have chosen a different language in high school!

gonegluten-free.com

Although some of the translations on the English menu were a bit strange, we cross-referenced between the Portuguese and Spanish translations to get the best idea of what it was we were ordering. Scott ending up getting a meat platter with pork and liver, while I got a traditional Portuguese dish made with corvina. I wasn't really sure what that was, but I knew I wanted something Portuguese and the waiter assured me that that was a good choice. Good thing I was really hungry, because corvina is apparently a giant fish (the best translation in English is "seabass," although I don't think it's exactly the same). The dish I got was a stew of sorts made of potatoes and vegetables in a tomato sauce, with a huge slab of this giant fish plunked right on top. It was served in something similar to a casserole dish, with a bowl on the side to dish the portions into. I was told that it was a single-serving portion, but I'm pretty sure that this "single" they're talking about is a 300-pound Portuguese fisherman. Normally, Scott helps me finish any extra portions of food that I can't get to, but he is really anti-fish. He did brave one (very tiny) bite, declared it "very fishy," and refused to look at it anymore. I'm proud to say that I ate the whole thing but two potatoes all by myself! I'd forgotten my camera at the hotel, but this picture from another website gives you an idea of what the dish was. Just multiply that by about 6 servings. Yum!

rutlandsofoakham.co.uk

After lunch, we waddled back to our hotel to check in. The receptionists were much more attentive this time, and we were sent up to our room in no time. We were on the third floor, and after walking down what seemed like endless corridors, we found our room towards the back of the hotel. Apparently, the hotel was made by combining four or five different buildings all into one giant one, so some of the halls were somewhat labyrinthine. We did eventually find our room, though, and were pleasantly surprised to see a large window that could let in the warm sunshine. Upon opening it, we realized that we had a wonderful view of... the wall of the other side of the building. This ended up working to our advantage, though, because the outside rooms all faced right onto the busy street and were quite noisy at all hours of the night. While we didn't get our beautiful view, we did get quite a bit of sunshine and definitely appreciated the peace and quiet at night. We unpacked our stuff and relaxed for a few minutes before heading out into the "warm" weather (50° F!) to explore our surroundings.

Half Term Travels

2013-02-10T22:24:00.000Z

mtnweekly.com

So after about three days in "sunny" England, I decided that was just about enough of that and it was time to start looking for a more temperate climate. Luckily, Scott's school was letting out for half term during the second week of February, so I didn't have to wait long. The only problem was that there are so many awesome places to visit so nearby, we didn't know how to narrow it down! Scott graciously let me have the honors of finding the ideal location, so the first thing I did was sign up for as many discount travel sites as possible. This only served to magnify the conundrum, as I was now receiving almost hourly updates on the new *amazing* deals to some exotic location, but only if I bought the tickets right now! So, I did the most logical thing in this situation: I randomly clicked on a link to see where it would take me.

This particular link took me a to a deal with for a week in Portugal. I didn't know much of Portugal and never really had too much of an interest to learn more, but the price was good (and the weather was forecast to be pretty nice), so I asked Scott what he thought about going. To my surprise, he was very enthusiastic; apparently, he had always wanted to go to there! So, I booked the deal and got to daydreaming about the nice, warm weather.

www.dipity.com

Because we got the tickets for such a good price, they departure flight was from a different airport than the return flight. The return flight came in to Gatwick, one of the two major London airports, so I wasn't too worried about finding transportation from there. The outgoing flight, however, left from "Luton Airport," which neither Scott nor I had ever heard of. Luckily, we found a company that runs shuttles from Cambridge to all the London area airports. At £15 per person for the ride, I thought the fare was a bit steep, but Scott told me that the U.K. is known for having expensive transportation because it is not run or subsidized by the government as it is most countries. This has been somewhat of an adjustment from me, coming from Chile where I could travel halfway across the country for $30, moving to the U.K. where that money might get me as far as London (if I can find a discount fare).

Our flight to Lisbon was schedule to leave Luton at 7:40 on Monday morning., so to avoid the hassle of getting lost and possibly missing the infrequent early morning buses from our house, we booked a room at the airport hotel. The website said it was only a ten minute walk away from the terminals, so we could get some extra sleep and just head over by foot in the morning. Theoretically, this was a good plan. We relaxed and got some household chores done on Sunday, and went into Cambridge around 5:00 to catch the shuttle. We found the bus stop easily enough, but had some trouble finding the right bus to get on. We tried to ask one of the bus drivers, but she looked confused and told us "that bus doesn't usually leave from here," and suggested we go to the main terminal. We were fairly certain that our tickets were for the stop that we were at, so we went to look at the route map just to make sure. Sure enough, Luton was on the list. We figured that maybe the driver was new to this route or something, so we went to ask another driver.

He too gave us an odd look and told us that we should probably go to the other terminal. Confused, we pulled out the electronic text message we had received as out ticket and showed it to him. After wading through the garbled mess that occurs when you use a standard phone to receive smartphone messages, he finally found the actual message, and a light bulb went on in his head. "Oh," he said, "you're going to Luton!" Scott and I looked at each other, befuddled--isn't that what we'd been saying all along?! We expressed this to the driver, who told us that we had been asking for London! Apparently, Luton should be pronounced with a long "u" sound, whereas we had been using a short "u" sound. This, combined with our highly exotic American accents, produced some confusion.

smh.com.au

With the help of the second driver, we eventually figured things out. He helped us decipher the text message tickets and told us that we had actually purchased a later trip, scheduled to leave at 8:30 p.m. It was only just 6:00 at the time, and we really weren't looking forward to waiting outside in the cold for another two and a half hours. Luckily, the driver was very accommodating, and agreed to let us on to his earlier shuttle. We were especially grateful for his generosity when we looked out the window ten minutes later and saw that it had begun to snow significantly! By the time we got near the airport about an hour later, there was a good couple inches of snow on the ground. Turns out, a ten minute walk seems significantly longer when you're wearing "breathable" sneakers. It also didn't help that we started out on the other side of the road and walked halfway to the hotel before we realized we wouldn't be able to cross the street and had to backtrack back to the airport again.

But we finally made it to the hotel and got checked it. We were very grateful for the fact that each room had its own heater, and took full advantage. We settled into the room, got out of our wet clothes, and just huddled up next to the heater for a while. Eventually, hunger won out so we went to the lobby restaurant to grab a quick dinner. Scott had an authentic English pie and I had some (probably also English) fish. We also shared some cider (yes, we're lightweights and can only handle one pint between the two of us). We then headed up to our room to get some rest and hope that the snow would let up before our flight the next morning.

"Welcome to Sunny England!"

2013-01-31T18:22:00.001Z

... that's the first thing that Scott said to me when he came to pick me up at the airport. Which, incidentally, happened almost two hours later than it was supposed to. Because the entire country was in the middle of a freak snowstorm that delayed/stopped most modes of transportation for more than a week. They'd actually only re-opened the airport a few hours before I arrived! Somehow, I wasn't quite convinced of this whole "Sunny England" thing. And I must say, it hasn't done much of a job convincing me in the past two weeks either. It was sunny yesterday, and I was actually a little confused when I first woke up before I realized what it was! But at least the mountains of snow have melted...!

When I first arrived, the first thing I noticed was all the snow! There was more of the stuff here than I had left at home in Wisconsin! And I distinctly remember being told (multiple times!), "oh, don't worry; it hardly ever snows in Cambridge!" I was also told that it rarely gets below freezing, too. So imagine my shock when we got nearly a foot of snow on my first day in the country, and spent the rest of the week at about freezing temperatures. Some welcome that was! But it is really going to make me appreciate the spring when it comes. Again. I feel like I've been experiencing more than my fair share of winters lately...

So far, I've mostly been stranded at or near our house. First of all, I didn't realize how difficult it would be to buy water-proof boots in a country that is famous for its precipitation! This made it difficult to go anywhere during the first week because I only have my "breathe-easy" sneakers, which aren't really the best for walking in snow. I did come up with the ingenious plan to wrap a plastic bag around my feet before inserting them into the shoes. This actually worked quite well in fending off the cold and wet. Plus, maybe I've started a new fashion trend! Especially the day when I wore different-colored bags with the handles poking out of my pants.

We tried to go into Cambridge the first Sunday I was here (I arrived on Saturday the 19th), but that was the day of the big snowstorm and all the buses were cancelled. Unfortunately, we didn't bother to look that up before going out to the bus stop, and ended up sitting out in the cold for nearly 45 minutes before deducing the truth. Scott was insistent on showing me something, though, so we walked the 15 minutes to the nearest town, Abington, so that we could pick up some supplies from the little convenience shop there. It's actually two towns, Great Abington and Little Abington that is collectively known as "The Abingtons." Together, they have a population of almost 1,400. Apparently the division dates back 4,000 years, and who are we to change it now? I haven't seen much of the town, but from what I have seen, it looks very charming. Quaint even.

My favorite part of these little towns in England is that there are hardly any house numbers. Nope, we're too good for that--each house has its own name! Most of them are named for the original owner or initial purpose of the building. For example, the houses nearby to us have names like "The Windmill," and "The Old Bakery." Our house was actually originally built as groundskeepers' quarters for a large country estate, known as "Hildersham Hall." The estate is still there, although the associated land has diminished over the years. There's still enough to have a good-sized herd of sheep, though! They do make good neighbors. Our house is situated at the southern-most end of the grounds, and is therefore called "South Lodge." There is now a small town on the other side of the grounds named, would you guess, "Hildersham."

Last weekend it actually warmed up and the snow all melted, so we managed to do a little bit more exploring. We walked through Hildersham (which has a population of around 200 and consists primarily of a church and a pub), and continued on the country road until we reached the next village, Linton. This is the "big" town in the area, with a population of nearly 4,500. They even have a full-scale grocery store! Well, it's actually a co-operative, which turns out to be much better because the prices are good and the food is fresh (and often organic). On our visit, we picked up some ingredients to make pizza (we didn't realize at the time that we didn't have a rack in the oven yet, but we got creative and it all worked out in the end).

We even got to spend the day in Cambridge (finally) on Saturday! It was the warmest day since I arrived, although the sun still didn't really want to show his face. Scott wanted to show me as many of the sites as possible, so he took a very convoluted route through the city. As a result, I am thoroughly confused as to where anything is. Except the candy store. I can absolutely tell you where the candy store is. It's right next to the round church, obviously! I've taken some photos of the places, but I'm not very pleased with them. We're planning to go back again this weekend, so I'll see if I can get some better shots.

While the weather was warmer than it had been, it was still pretty cold. I was bundled up in an undershirt, long-sleeve t-shirt, sweatshirt, and coat. It worked well enough until the wind started to come or until we got into the shade. We first stopped at a market that is held daily in the center of town (is it called a square, or do I just want English cities to be like Spanish ones?). The market is huge and there are vendors of all sorts--crafts, clothing, food; there was even a bicycle repair shop set up in one of the tents! Scott's favorite stands were the cheese shop and the sauce shop. There were samples of all sorts of different sauces. We held back and only bought two kinds--a spicy red tomato pesto, and a more mild traditional pesto. That was less than a week ago, and they're already pretty much gone.

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The most exciting part of the day for me, however, was going to the bike shop! We can't really afford a car right now, so the next best thing is a bike. Actually, a bike might be better than a car, especially in Cambridge! There are so many bikes in the city that they are literally chained right on top of each other. With so many options, I was amazed to find the perfect bike in the first place we looked. It's used, but in excellent condition. It even comes with a basket, back carrier, and a lock! The only thing is that I won't be able to get it until this Saturday. We're still working on finding a safe route to bike from our house to Cambridge (it's about 17 miles), but it will be great to have a fast way to get around between the little towns around here. I'm so excited!

Anyways, I just heard Scott come through the gate on his bike, so I guess I'd better go make final dinner preparations. We're having curry!!!

Here We Go Again...

2013-01-18T22:00:00.000Z

I’ve gotten behind on my blog updates, but what else is new? Hopefully I can fill you in on our trip to Pucon soon, although you might not get every juicy detail like you’re used to (due to the fact that it’s been a while since the trip, and also the fact that my notebook with all the notes to help me remember said details is currently smooshed between some couch cushions at my parents’ house in Wisconsin). Hey, at least I got the Facebook photos uploaded!

Well, right now I am once again sitting in an airport waiting for my next adventure. I must say, though, that this is by far the most elegant terminal I’ve ever been to. I arrived to Minneapolis from La Crosse at around 4:30, and my flight to London doesn’t leave until almost 10:00, so I’ve got a bit of time to kill. Luckily for me, I get to wait in the newly-remodeled “G” terminal! A small section of the waiting area is “normal,” in that it has a few rows of traditional row seats lined up against the wall. The rest of the waiting area is taken up by small 1-2 person booths and larger bar-style tables, each with a comfortable white leather chair and an individual iPad for each seat! There is also a snack bar in the corner, but you don’t even have to get up from your seat—just select a picture of your favorite food from the menu on your iPad, and it will be delivered fresh to your table within 15 minutes! I was almost tempted to try it out, but the luxury is definitely one that you must pay for. A small, plain coffee here at the gate goes for nearly $4. Walk a few feet to the entrance of the terminal and get a “fancy” coffee for just over $2! Of course you know which option I chose!

It’s currently 6:15 pm, and I’m already pretty hyped up on caffeine. I had two cups of it this morning before leaving, too! Now, with the addition of my “fancy” coffee, I’m hoping that the combination of insane amounts of caffeine and sugar will lead to a great crash in about 4 hours or so (just the time I’ll be settling in for my transatlantic flight). Of course, this plan could totally backfire and I’ll just be wired the entire 9 hours, too. Luckily, I’m pretty sure there are power outlets on the plane, so that just means I get to spend more time with you lovely people!

There’s actually not free wi-fi in this section of the airport (they want you to use the iPads and be tempted by all the pictures of delicious food that they have strategically placed in the background of all your favorite websites). I finally figured out how to change the date/time on my blog posts, though, so you won’t even know that I wasn’t publishing on the spot! Well, I guess except for the fact that I just told you.

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Since Mauricio showed it to me a couple months ago, I have been completely addicted to Foursquare! Unfortunately, I’m a little bit behind the times and only had a second generation iPod—it was so old, in fact, that I couldn’t even update the programs anymore! I did manage to download the app, but it was pretty glitchy. Luckily for me, I managed to convince Mom to trade me for her (slightly newer but still not cutting edge) generation four iPod. She mostly uses hers to play “Angry Birds,” and was super excited to see that I had unlocked about 9 different themes for the game. I’d say we both came out ahead in the switch. Actually, I probably came out a bit better, because there is nothing quite as entertaining as watching Mom play “Angry Birds.” She really lets it live up to its name!

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Anyways, back to Foursquare. Now that I’ve gotten a new iPod that is more reliable, I’ve been checking in constantly! It has taken me a while to learn how to see information on a place without checking in—there was one interesting blunder during that learning process in which I checked in at a strip club! And of course all of the check-ins are published publicly to Facebook. I wonder what my students thought of that one… It’s all part of the intrigue, I suppose! I’m so addicted to Foursquare that I’ve already checked in to 6 different places here in the airport. I would check in to more, except that because I have a lowly iPod (and not an iPhone that can connect to the internet anywhere), I can only check-in at places that have or are near to free wi-fi connections. I know, that is so 2007! (Can you tell that I’ve had a bit more coffee than usual today?).

I’m actually not really sure why I’m writing a blog post right now. Mostly to tell you how cool this terminal is. Also because I’ve had more caffeine in the past 8 hours than I normally do in an entire week. I would say both are equally valid reasons. But alas, I must now leave you for the time being. The little ladies’ room is calling my name.

Meeting the (Host) Family

2012-12-12T01:56:00.000Z

After quite an eventful Monday night, Laura and I finally managed to fall asleep just as the hot summer sun started to peak through my very thin curtains. And even though I didn't have to go to work, the rest of the city did, so traffic started to pick up and get noisy around 7:00 a.m. I managed to stay in bed until about 9:00 before it just all became too much for me and I had to get up. I went to the kitchen to make coffee. Laura was still sleeping soundly when I passed, so I just grabbed my computer and got back in bed with my coffee and surfed the web for a while. I still had a few things to do for the end of the semester, so I spent a few hours doing that before Laura got up around 11:00. She probably could have slept longer, except that the phone rang. It was my apartment manager, telling me that he was in the building and would be by with the sheets in 20 minutes or so.

Laura's pain had gone down significantly, but she was still really tired out from fighting it all night (and the nights before). We'd been invited out to dinner by my previous host family, but we hadn't given a definite answer yet, just to make sure Laura would be up to it. It was a really nice day out (as far as Santiago goes, at least). We decided to take advantage of the clear skies and slightly cooler weather to explore a little bit near my apartment. By the time we got ready and had breakfast, it was more than an hour after the manager had promised to come by with the sheets. I figured he might have gotten caught up with another tenant, so I gave him a call to remind him. He told me he wouldn't be able to drop it off for another hour or so. Laura and I didn't really want to wait that long, so he agreed to leave the sheets with the concierge so that we could pick them up on our way back.

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With high hopes of returning to a bed with sheets, we headed out into town. We didn't want to venture too far away, just in case Laura's symptoms started to return. Laura really enjoys architecture, so I tried to think of some places in Santiago that might have some interesting buildings to check out. I really couldn't think of any, so we just headed towards Santa Lucia Market to scope out some souvenirs/ Christmas gifts. Our first stop was at London Cafe for some fresh-blended juice. According to Laura, good juice is hard to come by in Argentina. Maybe we should have traded places--I could go to Argentina for the coffee and she could come to Chile for the juice! Though I'm not usually much of a juice fan, there is a lot to be said for fresh-made! I got strawberry/melon and Laura got mango/strawberry. They were perfectly sweet, even without any added sugar!

We took a short walk through the stalls at the market, but decided not to buy anything since it was only the first day. Besides, we were going south the next day, and were looking forward to checking out the hand-made gifts that are famous in that region! Across the street from the market, Laura pointed out a very beautiful building that I pass by quite often but usually overlook. She asked what it was, and I told her that it was the National Library. Even after 9 months living so close to it, I'd never gone inside. We decided to check it out, and entered through the grand front entrance.

There was a tour group meeting just inside, and we stopped to listen for a while. They were talking about politics and were apparently waiting for quite a few other people before getting on their way. We continued past them into a room hidden behind the stairs. It held an exhibit about Chilean folklore musician Victor Jara. It was interesting, although a little difficult to follow because the creators assumed that the viewer already knew the history of Jara, and therefore did not give much background information. We were a little lost, but did enjoy looking at objects from the early 20th century. The room wound around, even going outside of the main building for a bit. From there, we were led into the "computer room."

The computer room was quite unique. All around the outside walls were photos and objects about famous people in Chile's history. In the center of the room was an elevated platform upon which there were three rows of computers. To reach the platform, users had to climb a ramp that spiraled around it. The ramp was surrounded by a translucent wall covered in poetry and music by prominent Chilean artists. It was really neat to look at, although I'm not sure how I would feel having to work up on a platform with tourists coming in and staring at me all day. I guess I do have similar experience, though--the lab I worked at in Florida was part of the museum exhibit, so we often felt like zoo animals! Especially when large school groups went by. I think I can safely say that I don't really miss that aspect of the job.

As of yet, we hadn't actually found any books, which we found slightly odd given that we were inside a library. The library is three stories tall, so we figured that the books must be hiding up near the top. We exited the computer room through a cafe (which had a large book on display behind a case, but still nothing for reading). There were elegant staircases to either side, but one was blocked off. That left us only one choice, so we climbed up to the second floor. There was a great view off a balcony to the cafe below and some more computers, but no books. On the other side of the hallway was a large study room filled with beautiful wooden tables and benches. There were actually quite a few people inside working, although most were using computers or other electronics. Only one had a real book!

Becoming even more concerned by the lack of books in the library, we continued our quest up to the third floor. It wasn't blocked off, but there also weren't any lights in the narrow corridor we came upon at the top of the stairs. Most of the rooms were locked off, but we did find an interesting ancient relic--an IBM 9370 Mainframe computer! Of course we had to take a photo--when else might we have a chance to be around such a historic artifact! We actually didn't know what it was when we were there, but luckily Mauricio works for IBM and had some insider information to help us identify it. We were pretty excited about our discovery, but beginning to wonder if there were actually any books in this so-called "library!" Just as we were about to give up, we walked past a class-enclosed room that was about the size of my bedroom. It was filled with very old books, and there was a sign on the door stating that an appointment needed to be made to see any of them. Of course, office hours were very short and during most inconvenient times. But at least the books existed!

Satisfied that we had completed our quest, we left the library in search of other adventures. We found it on Santa Lucia Hill. The hill is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the city, and has quite a history of its own. It was known to the native Mapuche people as "Huelen," a mapudungun word meaning "pain, melancholy, or sadness." I couldn't find any explanation of why it was given such a somber name. The hill was conquered by Spanish conquistador Pedro de Valdivia on December 13, 1541, and christened with its current name, Santa Lucia. It was used for many years as a lookout and point of reconnaissance. Later, in 1816, two forts were built on the north and south sides of the hill to be used by the Spanish in defense against the Mapuche. The other side of the hill was used as a "cemetery for dissidents" for non-Catholics.

By the late 19th century, most of the indigenous population had been pushed out of the city, and such strong defenses were no longer needed. In 1872, Chilean politican Benjamin Vicuña Mackenna proposed a city-wide improvement program, part of which included an extensive remodeling of Santa Lucia Hill. He built a chapel at the top of the hill, along with a road leading to it. The rest of the hill was fitted with decorative gardens, fountains, and outlooks. He also created an advanced irrigation system that is still in use today, as well as the famous yellow facade that is the modern day icon of the hill. Traditionally, a cannon is shot every day to mark midday. The practice was paused for a while after the cannon was damaged in the 2010 earthquake, but has recently been reinstated (although it's still only up to once a week or so).

Laura and I climbed the winding stairs most of the way to the top of the hill. We found a lookout and tried to see if we could spot my apartment. Unfortunately, my sense of direction isn't the best and Laura wasn't really in the mindset to be paying attention to where things were when I brought her to my house the night before. We looked in the general direction and saw some tall buildings that may or may not have been my apartment. All the hiking made us thirsty, so we stopped at a stand to grab a traditional Chilean drink--mote con huesillo. It's peach juice with dried peaches and barley. I love it, and find it the perfect refreshing drink/ snack on a hot day! I may even go so far as to say that it's my favorite Chilean food. Laura wasn't quite as enthusiastic as me, though. She bravely took a taste, but I was left with the majority after she decided that it most closely resembled "soggy brains."

Beneath the hill there is a small indigenous artisan market, so we stopped in for a quick peek. Laura was momentarily excited to see a range of imported foodstuffs, but it turned out to be mostly quinoa products. I guess we would have to continue our search for sweet corn flour elsewhere. We did end up talking to a Aymara man from the north of Chile. He was selling handmade ocarinas that he designed himself using traditional indigenous symbols. He gave us a short lesson, and in no time Laura was an expert! She even drew a small crowd as she performed Bach on a green and yellow ocarina. I was more interested in the cultural and historical aspects of the instrument, and the man gave me several flyers explaining them. I even bought one (with Packers colors) to give to Gaven for Christmas!

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We actually ended up doing a lot more than we had initially intended to, and were starting to get tired out. Laura was still feeling pretty good, so I called Mauricio to let him know that we could make it to dinner later that evening. We headed back towards the apartment to rest up a little before dinner. We hadn't eaten much since breakfast and still had a ways to go for dinner, so we stopped at a neighborhood shop for some empanadas to tide us over. We went for the traditional "pino" (meat and onions) flavored, but with a twist, "aji" (chili pepper). They were the perfect snack, and even Laura conceded that the one food that Chile does better than Argentina is the empanada. At least that gives us something to brag about! When we arrived back at the apartment, we pleasantly surprised with a new set of sheets waiting for us at the concierge desk! We made up the bed and both settled down for a quick nap before going out again with my old host family.

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Around 8:00, Mauricio called to let us know they were on their way to pick us up. Laura and I quickly made ourselves presentable and threw on some sweaters to guard against the cool spring evening air. We got downstairs just in time to see Mauricio pull up in his new SUV, the rest of the family in tow. We did some quick introductions as we piled into the car, and everyone commented on how great (albeit Argentinian) Laura's accent was. We drove towards the "nice" side of town while deciding where to go eat. We ended up going for "Tip y Tap," a home-style restaurant that I was first introduced to by my host family when my "real" family came to visit me in 2007. Dad will never forget that experience--first, he tried to give me a piggy-back ride which ended with us both down on our butts in the middle of the parking lot and second, we all got to try raw beef (crudito) "cooked" in lemon juice.

We went to a different location than that made famous by the appearance of the Hoefert clan. That one was stand-alone, but this time we went to one inside of an upscale mall on the northside of the city. It was nice to be able to drive through the nice neighborhoods and see all the sights as we did. Mauricio has spent quite a bit of time in Buenos Aires for his job, so he and Laura compared notes about life there. She had a little bit of trouble understanding him at first, but once he toned down the Chilean slang she caught on pretty fast. Having had only a few days experience in (a very touristy area of) Argentina, I was completely lost in their conversation.

Instead, I talked with Chabe about some of my wedding plans. I invited their family to come to the wedding, and I really hope they can make it! It's been so nice to have someone helping me out and showing me around during my time in Chile; I hope I can repay some of that to them if they can make the trip. I also learned that their oldest daughter, who is 15, is about to go on a three-month exchange program to Germany in January. The two girls study at a German school in Santiago, so are quite proficient in German. They've also been studying English, and I hear from others that they are very good, although I still haven't managed to convince them to speak to me in English. I'm hoping to be able to go visit her for a weekend while she's in Germany, so maybe I can convince her then. Don't hold your breath, though!

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When we finally figured out how to actually get to the restaurant (the layout of the mall isn't the most straight-forward), we went up to the second floor to get a better view. We sat for a few minutes but no servers came to our table. We called one over, who told us that they had to serve the other big table upstairs before they could help us (which even included giving us menus, apparently). We waited a couple more minutes, but eventually just decided to forgo the view and go downstairs to see if we could get some service. It was much faster down there! I was still pretty full from my empanada, but I wanted to take advantage of all the good Chilean food I could before I left. I ordered a salad with fresh tuna and avocados--what could be more Chilean than that? Laura ordered salmon with sauteed mushrooms, and Mauricio once again ordered the famed raw beef. Chabe and the girls shared some sandwiches and french fries.

We chatted and caught up while we enjoyed our food. We talked about future plans. I gave some advice for being an exchange student, while Mauricio and Chabe gave me some advice about how to be a married woman. And of course, we all had to make a little fun of each other! It was really nice to get together again, even though all of us were a little tired and had to get to school/ work the next day. We stayed out until around 10:00, and then headed back towards home. We took the scenic route so that Laura could see a little more of the city (and so more marital advice could be dispensed). By the time we arrived back at my apartment, we were more than ready to say good-bye and settle into bed.

Laura Comes to Chile

2012-12-10T20:26:00.000Z

It had been nearly a year since I last saw my best friend, Laura. We first met when we were assigned to be roommates freshman year of college, and have been good friends every since! We ended up living together for five years, until life took us in different directions. She's lived in Texas her whole life, but recently decided that it was time for a change. She took the plunge and moved to Argentina to teach English. Though it's still one country over, it's a lot closer than the U.S.! We both finished up our teaching duties in early December, so she decided to come over to Chile to visit me for a couple weeks before I headed back to the States for the holidays.

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She was scheduled to arrive Monday evening around 8:00. I was a little nervous because I hadn't given her my address, so I was really counting on being able to find her at the bus terminal. I went to the main bus station, but couldn't find any terminal for her bus line. I asked a guard about it, and he pointed me to a smaller bus station across the street. By the time I found my way through the crowd and made my way to the correct terminal, the bus was scheduled to arrive any minute. I waited about 15 minutes, but still no Laura. I started to get a little nervous, because buses in Chile are actually fairly good about keeping to schedules, so I went to the ticket counter to make sure I was in the right place. I was assured that I was, but the people there had no information about any buses arriving from Mendoza that day. I went back out to the terminal to wait a little longer.

By 8:30, I was really starting to get nervous, but there was really nothing I could do since I didn't have Laura's phone number (and her phone ended up not even working in Chile, anyway), so I just paced up and down, probably entertaining quite a few people in the process. I was just about to give up and see if perhaps I needed to go to yet another bus station when I heard my name called from the driveway where the buses came into the terminal--it was Laura, walking in with all her gear, no bus in sight. She was moving a bit slower than normal, but I figured that she was just tired from the trip (over a day from Buenos Aires to Santiago). I ran over to greet her, and she gave me a hug and said, "Hi, I really missed you--now can we go to the hospital?"

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It turned out that she had been having pain in her abdomen and lower back for a few days, but didn't think much of it and hoped that it would go away in time for her visit to Chile. Unfortunately, not only did her symptoms not improve, they got much worse and were aggravated by the long bus rides through the mountains. To top things off, her bus from Mendoza to Santiago had a bad habit of breaking down every hour or so. Every time it broke down, all the passengers would be told to get off the bus and get their luggage to wait for another bus to come and rescue them. Just as everyone got off and ready to board another bus, the mechanic would tell them that their current bus was good to go and they could all get back on and continue their journey. This occurred several times over the 7-hour trip. The last time it happened just a few blocks away from the bus station, so all the passengers were told to get off and just walk the rest of the way. I was actually really surprised that they were only half an hour late after all that!

Anyway, all the stopping and starting and getting on and off really didn't help with Laura's condition, so she was pretty fed up by the time she arrived in Santiago. It was too late to get in to a "regular" clinic, and I had been fortunate enough to never have had to visit a doctor in Chile, so I didn't know where there would be one that would be open so late. Luckily, Laura had made friends with her seatmate on the bus, so we asked him if he knew of any place. His relatives were life-long residents of Santiago, so they recommended that we go the the clinic associated with the Universidad Católica. They gave us directions to the 24/7 Urgent Care, and I realized that it was only a few blocks from my apartment! In fact, I pass by it regularly and never really registered what it was! I was relieved to find out that it was in a familiar place.

Unfortunately, the clinic is about half an hour away from the bus station by metro. Laura and I tried to catch up a little on the way over, but it wasn't the easiest for her to stay focused through the pain. She said that it was getting progressively worse, and that she was really worried because she had been looking at WebMD when her symptoms first presented and had read about people going into renal failure with similar symptoms. So, first lesson: never look up your symptoms online! I can't tell you how many times the internet has told me with "complete accuracy" that I am pregnant. If everything on the internet were true, I should probably have about 47 children by now. At least.

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Anyways, we finally made it to the urgent care center around 9:30 p.m. The waiting room was pretty full of people with all sorts of ailments. I wasn't quite sure how urgent care works in Chile (and now that I mention it, I'm not really sure how it works in the U.S., either), so I went to the information desk to ask what we should do. They told us that we needed to register with a Chilean ID number before we could be put in the queue for triage. Since Laura didn't have one, they let her register with mine. They told us that the wait for triage shouldn't be too long, but that it would probably take about three hours after that before we could get in for treatment. They were right; Laura was called to the triage room about 15 minutes later. They had a little trouble with her middle name, which they pronounced "Gay", followed by a long paused, then: "-Lay." We weren't sure at first if they were actually calling her, but the man from the information counter assured us that it was our turn.

We were taken to a small room just behind the waiting room, where a nurse asked some questions to determine how to initially diagnose Laura. She tried to speak in English, but Laura insisted on Spanish so that she could practice. It ended up being a mixture of Spanglish and excellent miming, but we managed to get the point across. The nurse told us that it sounded like an urinary tract infection, but it was possible that it might be a kidney stone or something like that as well. She put Laura's information in the system, fitted her with a hospital bracelet, and sent us back out to the waiting room to wait for the doctor.

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By now it was past 10:00, and we were both pretty hungry. Laura hadn't really eaten a "real" meal since she left Buenos Aires more than 24 hours before. I offered to go out in search of food while she stayed in the waiting room, just in case things moved faster than expected. Even though Santiago is the biggest city in Chile, it does slow down quite a bit at night so there weren't a whole bunch of options available at that time. Luckily, Laura requested something with fish (apparently seafood prices are through the roof in Buenos Aires--surprising, given that it's right on the coast), and the first place I came to was a sushi restaurant. I never know what to order at sushi restaurants, so I just asked for the 2-person special. I only had large bills and the cashier didn't have enough change, so while they prepared my order I went to the convenience store across the street to get some. I tried to look for pineapple juice, because Laura had read that that might help with a UTI. The store didn't have any, so I settled for orange.

The sushi place was surprisingly really quick, and had my order ready to go by the time I returned with the correct change. The 2-person meal looked more like a 4- or 5-person meal, but I was glad for the extra food because I was starving! We'd planned to go out to a big dinner with Raul as soon as Laura arrived, so I hadn't eaten much earlier in the day in preparation for that. When I got back to the clinic with the food, we decided to sit outside and eat, just in case there might be some undesirable pathogens hanging around the waiting room. There were some undesirable flaites hanging around outside, but they just gave us weird looks as we sat on the steps and enjoyed our take-out sushi and orange juice straight from the container. We made it about halfway through before we were starting to get full. We packed it up and headed back inside.

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We'd lost our original seats, so we had to shuffle to the back of the room to find two open next to each other. As we sat down, I checked my watch: 11:10 p.m. According to the information we'd been given upon checking in, we still had over two hours to wait until getting called to see a doctor. We settled in and tried to watch the tv across the room while we waited our turn. We weren't really paying attention to the names being called, but only a few minutes later the man from the information station came over to us and told us that they had been calling us and we should hurry to the back before they gave our spot to someone else. We were astonished that we were going in so quickly; as you've probably noticed from my other posts, most aspects of life in Chile are decidedly slower than what we're used to in the U.S.

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We headed towards the back of the building again, where we were met by a nurse who escorted us to a small room with 5 beds separated by curtains. We were shown to the bed in the corner. It was a little awkward, because the only way to access it was by walking through the curtained-off areas of two other patients. But at least we got some good privacy! The nurse had Laura get comfortable on the bed, and asked her to rate her pain on a scale from 1-10. Laura estimated she was around 8, so the nurse offered to give her some intravenous pain medication. Laura agreed before the offer was even fully out of the nurses mouth! The nurse laughed and went off to find someone to run the line.

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We had to wait a bit for someone to come, so we took the opportunity to catch up a little and try to get Laura's mind off the pain. Of course, we had to gossip! Laura told me all about her life in Argentina, and told me that (apart from being in excruciating pain at the moment), her life was pretty awesome. She even had a new sexy boyfriend from Colombia! She told me that he's a pretty good cook, and that she had become addicted to a Colombian delicacy called "arepas." I don't think that I've ever had one, but after Laura's raving description of them, I definitely want to try! Apparently, they are kind of like pancakes, except that they are made out of a special sweet corn flour, harina de choclo dulce. She told me that food in general is in short supply in Argentina, but that finding the flour for arepas was pretty much impossible. She hoped to find some in Chile, but I didn't remember seeing any at any of the places that I normally shopped. I promised to take her to some of the big import stores to check, anyways.

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Just about the time Laura had convinced me that arepas are the food of the gods and nothing else is worth eating, another nurse came in to run the IV line for the pain medication. We heard her coming from a mile away, because she was pushing a huge cart with all her supplies, and had to navigate it through the narrow corridors and between all the beds to reach us in the back of the room. She finally made it and settled down next to Laura on her left side to insert the needle. By now, Laura's pain had worsened significantly and she was shaking. I was a little worried, but she told me that it seemed to be her body's way of dealing with pain because it happens quite regularly when she gets hurt. Of course, it didn't make things any easier for the nurse, although I must say that Laura made a heroic effort to keep still while she was working to find a vein. Laura's veins apparently weren't really up to being found that night, because the nurse tried four different spots on her left arm and didn't manage to get the needle in any of them. Frustrated, she left without saying much.

A few minutes later, we heard more clanging as a different nurse pushed her cart through the obstacle course to arrive in our corner. She tried the left arm one more time but still didn't manage to find a vein. She maneuvered herself and her cart over to the right side to try again. Another three tries, and still nothing. She got pretty aggressive, too, moving the needle back and forth vigorously inside of Laura's arm. Laura was talking to me and not watching, but I couldn't help but stare at the nurse's wild efforts to insert the needle. I'm not generally a queasy person, but her technique almost made me sick! A few more stabs and she gave up on the right arm, too. She left, and it looked like Laura wasn't going to get any pain medication after all. But the nurse came back a few minutes later with a smaller needle and gave it one more try. Finally, she managed to find the vein and get the IV going, but by this time Laura looked like a drug user, with track marks and bruises all up and down both of her arms!

It was worth it, though, because the medicine started to work almost immediately and Laura could relax a little more while we waited for the doctor. When he came in, he started to explain things to her and asked if she would prefer that he speak English. She said no, and he seemed pretty relieved about that. He said that he had studied in the U.S. for a year, but that he didn't get much practice in Chile, so our Spanish was probably better than his English. He made the effort to speak slowly and clearly, but Laura was still having some trouble understanding him, and he must have noticed this because he asked again if she would like to speak English. She responded, "no, but could you speak in Argentinian? I don't really understand the Chilean accent." He laughed, but actually made a (very good) effort to speak in an Argentinian accent. He must have done a good job, because Laura understood much better after that!

unamusementpark.com

He explained that the tests they had run revealed that she had a urinary tract infection (a relief to us, after having convinced ourselves that it was a kidney infection). However, the tests would not be able to tell what kind of infection it was for another 48 hours. This was a bit of a problem because we were scheduled to leave for the south of Chile the next day! We asked the doctor about that, and he said we should be clear to go if she felt better by that time. He told us he would prescribe her with an antibiotic, but that we had to be sure to check the online system while we were in the south to make sure that she didn't have a drug-resistant infection. If she did, we would have to find a doctor there who could prescribe stronger antibiotics. After the doctor explained all this in Spanish, he told us that he was legally obligated to explain it to us in our native language, so he reiterated it all in English. He got stuck on a few of the medical terms, but somehow I managed to help him with all of them. I have no idea how I got such a great medical terminology vocabulary, but I suspect that some of it may be due to being the daughter of a doctor. Thanks, Dad!

The doctor wrote a prescription for an antibiotic and two medications to help with the pain, and released us to the billing department. Once again, I had to sign all the papers since I was the one with a national ID. It turned out to be quite the expensive night--about $300USD for the consultation and lab tests. And we still hadn't even picked up the prescriptions! It was now about 2:00 a.m., and there wasn't a pharmacy associated with the clinic, so we though we might have to wait until morning to pick up the prescriptions. Laura was not too happy about that, because the pain medication had begun to wear off and she was starting to get uncomfortable again. Luckily, we found out that there was a 24/7 pharmacy just a few blocks away.

http://www.reclamos.cl

Unfortunately, it was in the other direction from my house, in an area that is not known to be the best, especially at night. We hurried past a group of unsavory-looking youth and made it to our destination without much incident. We did get yelled at by a cab driver waiting across the street, warning us not to walk in that area because it was dangerous at night. We didn't have much of a choice, so we just moved as quickly as we could and tried to look alert (probably a bit easier for me than Laura, who hadn't slept in two days and was starting to feel the pain full-force again). We hoped that her debit card wouldn't get rejected at the pharmacy for so many expensive purchases in a foreign country over such a short time, but it turned out that all three medications cost less than $12USD. One good thing about going to a pharmacy at 2:30 a.m. is that there really isn't much of a line, so we were in and out in only a few minutes. We hurried back home, eager to finally get in bed.

We had to take a quick stop in the lobby to say hello to the concierges, but managed to get up to the room and ready for bed by around 3:00 a.m. I'd been contacting my landlord about borrowing sheets for the pull-out bed for about three days, but still hadn't been able to track any down, so we just laid some extra blankets on top for the time being. Laura was so exhausted that she didn't really mind at that point. She took her medicine and we both headed off to bed. We didn't get much rest right away, because around 4:30 a.m. she started having horrible pains again, and we were worried that she might be getting worse because it should have been too soon for the pain medication to wear off already. We actually even called my Dad to see if we needed to go back to the clinic, but he told us that she should be ok and would just have to ride out the pain. After some deduction, we realized that she had actually only taken half the prescribed dosage of medicine, so she took some more and tried to go back to sleep.

Finally her pain began to subside and I was felt less worried, and we both fell asleep. It was about 6:00 a.m. Luckily, we didn't have any set plans for the next day!

Happy Anniversary, Duoc!

2012-10-31T02:30:00.000Z

After nearly 9 months of hard work, the teachers and staff at my campus finally got to let loose and relax a bit. The school holds an annual dinner celebrating the anniversary of the university, and this year was the 44th. Everyone received an invitation by email about a month before the event. I get so many school-wide emails that don't ever pertain to me, so I ignored it when I first got it. For the next couple weeks, I was so caught up in school and the pending midterm tests that I all but forgot about it completely. It was only when one of the staff members asked me if I was going that I remembered. I wasn't really sure I wanted to--it was scheduled for a Tuesday night, and I have early classes on Wednesday. But everyone kept talking about how much fun it was and how they always looked forward to it every year, so I was finally convinced.

All of us TIPS (the American teachers) have the same schedule on Tuesdays, so we agreed to meet up after work to get ready together. I was a little nervous because I am not really a "dress up" type person (see how worked up I got about a wedding dress), but another one of the girls is about the same size as me and offered to let me borrow something if I couldn't come up with anything from my own closet. I got home from work around 4:30 and started going through my outfits to see if I could find anything appropriate. Luckily, Aunt Jenn had taken me on a shopping spree before I left Florida last year and had helped me pick out some good dresses. Since I never have occasion to wear them, I'd nearly forgotten I'd brought them at all! But I pulled out a knee-length black and white dress with a diamond pattern that seemed perfect for an anniversary dinner. The only problem was that I'd lost the only pair of black shoes that actually fit me when I moved to the center of town. The ones I had were way too big, but it was too late to do anything about it then, so I just stuffed them with toilet paper and headed out.

I was the first to arrive at my coworker's house, and when she opened the door we both had a good laugh because her dress was very similar to mine. Guess we both have good taste! As we waited for the rest of the girls to arrive, we talked about how school was going (and both agreed we were definitely looking forward to the end of the semester). I mentioned that my shoes were not the most comfortable, and she ran to her closet and pulled out a pair of black flats that went great with my dress and fit perfectly. I almost felt like Cinderella! With the shoe dilemma solved, we turned our focus to the important stuff--wine and french fries. Chileans are notorious for beginning events much later than scheduled, so we weren't sure what time we'd actually be eating.

The rest of the girls showed up just as the fries finished cooking. We broke open the wine and had our snack while we made some last minute preparations. One of the girls had seen a video online about how to create a new hairdo (called "the spring flower" or something along those lines). The presenter in the video made it seem like it was a snap and so easy the cat could do it. It turned out that may have been a slight exaggeration, because in real life she'd had very limited success attempting to put her hair up in that style by herself. So we put in a group effort and managed to complete the hairstyle. It took three of us 20 minutes to finish a hairdo on another person that had been done by the woman in the video to herself in only five. So, we considered it a success! We all finished up with the minor adjustments to our outfits, and got ready to head out.

yorkblvd.com

The dinner was scheduled to start at 8:00, so we left the apartment around 8:30 so as not to arrive too early. We were surprised when we arrived to see that there were already quite a few people at the hotel, socializing and snacking on hors d'oeuvres. People were just kind of muddling around, so we did too. It was very elegant; there were waiters walking around carrying trays of all kinds of foods (even little bowls of soup--that was one braver waiter!). Of course, we had to try as many as possible! And what would a party be without alcohol? There were many options to choose from, but I went for the Chilean drink of choice--pisco sour. We made the rounds and said "hello" to the other teachers in our department, as well as some that we'd chatted with in the teachers' lounge. It was a little strange at first to see all the teachers dressed up for a party instead of for a professional setting, but it was also really nice to see everyone more relaxed and with their guard down a bit.

A little after 9:00, there was an announcement calling everyone into the dining room. The dining room actually happened to be a giant tent (almost circus-style) into which dozens of tables had been set to face a large stage and screen. The lights were dimmed and the room was illuminated by candles and colored light accents around the periphery. We headed to the table in the back corner with our department head and some other English teachers. They told us they hoped we'd eaten a lot of snacks, because it typically took a long time to distribute the food to all the tables. Luckily, we'd been allowed to bring in our drinks (and were still full of french fries), so we weren't too concerned. But they must've switched up the service order this year, because no sooner had we been seated than a line of waiters appeared through the door and headed directly to our table! We were the first group to be served! The teachers who'd experienced the anniversary dinners before couldn't believe our good fortune.

The first course was smoked salmon with a side of a green salad and couscous topped with huevos de pescado (the Chilean version of caviar). We were also given our choice of red or white wine, or fresh juice. Some people went for all three! I'm not notorious for my drinking abilities, and I'd already had a glass of wine and a pisco sour, so I opted for some raspberry juice. It was delicious, and very refreshing with our meal. By the time I finished my plate, I was feeling quite satisfied. What I hadn't realized was that that was only the first course! The waiters came around swiftly to collect our plates and make room for the next course.

Again, our table was the first to be served. This time, we received grilled chicken and steak on a bed of rice. The dish had a very beautiful garnish, but I'm not quite sure what it was. It looked like clovers to me (yes, I am quite sophisticated). I was starting to feel the effects of all my hors d'oeuvre-sampling and the first course, so I only managed to eat about half of the second course before I felt as if I could no longer move. I made a valiant effort to eat as much as I could, but my stomach can only stretch so far! Of course the others made fun of me, but in the end it worked out for them because they got to finish off what I couldn't!

Of course, the most important part of any meal is dessert, and we weren't about to miss out on that! Luckily, this time the waiters gave us a little more time between courses so our stomachs could settle a bit before attempting another workout. While we waited for dessert, the campus director made his way onto the stage and began to announce winners for various awards, such as a staff member of the year. One of my students also works at the school, and I was very proud to see that he was runner-up for "most invaluable asset" in his department! We'd heard from TIPS at other campuses that they also had an award for best exchange teacher, so we were excited to see who would get that. Unfortunately, our campus apparently doesn't give that award. We were only momentarily disappointed, however, because as the awards wrapped up, out came dessert! It was a big plate with three different delicacies--strawberries and cream, peach custard with a chocolate shell, and raspberry ice cream in an edible mini dish. They were all super delicious!

While we enjoyed our desserts, we were entertained by one of the design teachers doing a live sand art show. He was dressed up as an Arabian prince, and created a story simply by drawing in sand that was spread out on a table. It was really cool to watch, especially because it was totally synchronized with the music. He drew the story of Duoc, showing students in the classroom and all sorts of other activities that go on at the university. The whole show probably lasted 15 minutes, during which he drew continuously. It was really impressive! The grand final was when he drew the Duoc logo and wrote "Happy Anniversary" in the sand for posterity. Or at least until the cleaning crew arrived.

After the art show, we were treated to a talent contest. Unfortunately, none of us (American teachers) had heard about it beforehand. We were a little disappointed because we could think of a few good ideas that just might have brought us the prize. Too bad we won't be around next year. But we did enjoy watching the normally very primp and proper teachers strut their stuff on the stage in all sorts of outrageous costumes! My favorite was a group who did a medley of different dances, mostly to songs I didn't know, but ended with their own rendition of "Gangnam Style." Even though I didn't really know most of the participants, it was still really entertaining to watch! After the talent contest, there was one final act. A singer came on stage, pretending to be Spanish with a very exaggerated accent. Apparently he was imitating a very popular artist from about 50 years ago. Of course, that's way before my time (and place), so I had really no idea what was going on. All of the other women were swooning, though, so it must have been kind of a big deal. Our department head told us that everyone loved that singer because he was all of their mothers' favorite. It was funny to watch how they reacted when he would come up and sing personally to some of them! I wish I remembered his name so I could look him up and show a video. I'll ask around.

After the serenade, once it was assured that no one had fainted from heart-throb exposure, it was time to get the party started for real! Everyone was ushered back into the reception room for dancing and more free drinks. Unfortunately, by this time it was past 1:00 a.m. and the effects of the alcohol were starting to get to me--I was tired! The other American teachers also had to teach early classes, so we all agreed to go home together. We said our good-byes and went on our way. I still had a few things to get ready for class the next day, but by the time I made it home, I was lucky to get my pajamas on before getting into bed for the night! Luckily for me, no one noticed how tired I was the next day because I'm pretty sure they were all even more tired!

Feliz Día del Profesor!

2012-10-16T23:30:00.000+01:00

Happy Teachers' Day! I actually had no idea that it was a holiday at all! I remember seeing a couple weeks ago an ad at the mall for it, but quickly forgot about it. I had better things to think about, anyway, like the fact that we had Monday off from school! I slept in late, spent the afternoon at the park with my friends, went out for pizza, and finally reluctantly did some lesson planning at the end of the day. I was even starting to look forward to going to school the next day, because I had some pretty fun lessons planned out. Or so I thought.

Of course, it happened to be "Career Day" at the university, and of course I was not aware of it beforehand. This meant that the entire bottom floor of the main campus was filled wall to wall with booths set up by employers looking for new hires. It also meant lots of promotion in the form of very loud music and lots of yelling from loudspeakers. The room for my first class directly overlooks the courtyard in which all of these events were held, so as you can imagine, it was slightly difficult to maintain the attention of my students. The few that even showed up. We didn't even manage to get started until about half an hour in, and even then the whole next hour was a struggle. Most of the kids just wanted to get back downstairs to the festivities, and the ones that were trying to participate couldn't very well because of the noise.

Luckily, I only have two classes on Tuesday. I made it through the first one and was looking forward to getting the other one over as well. Fortunately, my second class is held in the annex, so at least I wouldn't have to deal with the noise. Unfortunately, because the passing period between classes is only one minute and I have to walk down three flights of stairs, down a block, and back up three flights of stairs to get there, I'm usually a couple minutes late. And the students know this and use it as an excuse to show up late themselves. Except that they're usually about 20 minutes late. I've learned to accept it. After all, it's not me that could use the extra minutes to practice English.

When I first arrived, there was only one girl in the room. She's the only one that is consistently on time. We chatted while we waited for the others to arrive. By about fifteen minutes later, five more people had arrived. There are only 14 people enrolled in the class, so that's actually a fairly good ratio. I was surprised because there are usually a few more people, especially a group of four girls who are all pretty quiet but do good work. I thought they might have decided to go to the job fair instead. I started class with the few people who were there. It took a while to warm them up, but eventually the energy started to rise and we started to have fun. We even danced a little.

Finally, about half an hour into the class, the four other girls showed up. They're not usually very late and I didn't question them because I just assumed they were at the job fair. They sat down and got straight to work. Even though the subject matter was a bit tedious (we're learning how to talk about health problems, not the most interesting or useful topic to a group of vigorous 18-year-olds), everyone participated and even laughed at my stupid jokes and crazy antics. By the time we finished, I was feeling much better and could tell that the students had enjoyed the class, as well. I dismissed the class, and everyone filed out, saying their "good-bye"s and "see you"s on the way out.

I'd turned my back to the room to clean up my supplies before heading out myself. I assumed everyone had left, but when I turned around, I saw the four girls that had showed up so late. Like I said, they're all pretty shy so when I asked them what I could do for them, they all just looked at each other to see who would speak. After a bit of an awkward pause, one of them got up the courage to ask me if she could speak in Spanish. It was after class, so I agreed. She told me that it was National Teachers' Day and the reason they were late for class was because there was a long line at the store. At first, I didn't make the connection between those two statements, but then the girls pulled out a gift-wrapped bag and handed it to me. They said they were glad I was their teacher, and had a gift for me.

I was shocked! I didn't even know it was Teachers' Day, and even if I had, I wouldn't have expected anything for it! But here it was! I opened the gift, and laughed at what was inside. They pay more attention in class than I thought! The gift was a pink, girl notebook with a cute cow on it. I tell my students that cows are my favorite animals because its something that both my "hometowns" have in common. They told me they knew my favorite color was purple, too, but that there weren't any notebooks in that color. To go along with the book, they also gave me two rainbow-colored pens. Do my students know me, or what!?

I was still so surprised that all I could do was keep saying, "thank you, thank you!" I wasn't quite sure of the protocol after that, and they seemed a bit unsure themselves. Are you allowed to hug your students for a gift? I think it would be acceptable here, but I've been so conditioned against it in the states that I just kind of stood there. I felt very awkward, but just said, "thank you," again. The girls smiled and acknowledged, and then headed out to their next class. I hope I did the OK, because I really do appreciate that the students take the time to do things like this for me! Although I guess my awkwardness is part of my gringa charm. Or so I'll say. So, I know it's unlikely, but girls if you read this--THANK YOU! You really made my day!

Salón del Automóvil

2012-10-04T01:45:00.000+01:00

There are some perks to teaching business people, although I wouldn't know because most of my students are young college-goers. I do, however, have a friend who is well acquainted with such benefits, and he was kind enough to share them with me on this particular occasion! But before I get to that story, let me tell you "our" story.

Dan is a gringo like me, but he's been living in Chile since 2010 (arrived just a few days before the big earthquake, in fact). He was actually the first person I talked to about coming to Chile before I did. Ever since I did my study abroad here, I'd been trying to find a way to come back. It was around 2010 that I heard about the TeachingChile program on a "Teach English Abroad" website. But, as you all know, I'm pretty skeptical and I have to read tons of testimonials and reviews before buying or doing anything new. It was difficult to find third-party opinions on this program, but through some searching I happened upon Dan's blog. He was already writing about his experiences on the blog, so I thought I'd give it a try and e-mail him for some advice.

To my surprise, he responded and we started a year-long cross-continental correspondence. He gave me some advice about the program and did his best to prepare me for the upcoming challenges. After helping me through so much, I was finally able to meet him in person at a BBQ when my group arrived in Chile. We've gotten to hang out a few times since then (and he's still always there for me with tips and tricks for living in Chile when I need it), but it's usually pretty casual like BBQs or pizza/game nights. When he invited me to go out on a Wednesday night, I knew it had to be pretty special (we're both kind of nerdy and usually reserve weekdays for planning, etc).

Dan works for an institute that caters more to business people in one-on-one settings, so he's gotten to know some fairly successful people here. One of his students works as an event planner for the Asociación Nacional Automotriz de Chile (ANAC), an association of importers and sellers of all brands of automobiles in Chile. It's a pretty big deal. Every 4 years or so, the association throws a huge car show, the Salón del Automóvil, to feature all the new models available in the country. The event lasts two weeks and is open to the public for most of the event.

Except opening night. That night is reserved only for VIPs and their invited guests. Being one of the main planners of the event, Dan's student was of course a VIP. He managed to procure some extra invites, and gave them to Dan as a gift. Dan is only one person but had two tickets. So, I got the honor of going as his date for the night (sorry, Scott!). It was a black-tie affair, so I did my best with my limited wardrobe to dress as nicely as possible. I think I did OK; my students would surely be surprised! Dan looked great in a suit and tie. The only problem was that neither of us owns a car, so we had to take a bus the half hour or so to the event center. It didn't start until 9:00 p.m., so at least the bus wasn't too full, but we did comment on the irony of traveling to a car show on a bus. We got a couple of weird looks when we walked through the gate as opposed to driving, but we can just chalk that up to our gringo-ness.

We were disappointed that we had to hand over our beautiful invitations before we were allowed in, but we were so awed by the sites that we soon forgot about that. Neither of us know very much about cars, but were still fascinated by the sheer number of different types of them all in one place! There were about five different pavilions, each home to different brands of cars. We walked past a stage (we realized too late that it was for the opening speeches) and into the largest of the pavilions. Most of the cars looked pretty similar to me, but what I found most intriguing were all the different female models standing next to the cars. My first thought was pity, because it was a pretty chilly night and most of those models weren't dressed appropriately for such weather. Then, I wondered why they were all female. Don't us girls deserve some eye-candy, too? All of the models were very gorgeous, but my favorites were the ones hired by Jeep. I'm not even going to try to explain; just look at the picture.

As we meandered through each display from each manufacturer, we were offered drinks (champagne, wine, and pisco, of course) and small hors d'oeuvres. They were very elegant, I have no idea what any of them were made of. But they were delicious (especially because I'd come straight from work and hadn't had time for dinner)! I'm a lightweight when it comes to alcohol, so I only managed to make it through one glass of champagne. Actually, Dan even had to help me finish that one off! But they did offer soda and juice, as well, so I didn't feel lacking. I know I'm so sophisticated, but my favorite snack was the kettle corn we were given by a race car sponsor.

In addition to getting our fill of food and drink, we also did admire some of the cars. Dan told me how he always had a special place for Subarus (it was the brand he grew up with and learned to drive on), so we stopped by the Subaru stand to snap some photos. I don't remember what brand of car I learned to drive on (I just remember it was awesome because it was green and sparkly and had mood lights and a tube tv inside). Dan was also a German teacher back in the States, so we checked out some of the German manufacturers and he helped translate the signage for me. My favorite stand was the Kia display. Not because I have any great feelings for Kia as a brand, but because theirs was the only car that was painted rainbow! I know absolutely nothing about it as a vehicle, but I am determined that that is the one I am going to get!

We walked through most of the pavilions, checking out the displays and trying to find Dan's student. I wasn't much help because I'd never met him before. But I did my best based on Dan's description of him being "kind of tall with brown hair." After a couple of hours of wandering, we were both starting to get tired (and all the free alcohol wasn't helping). We still hadn't been able to find Dan's student, but decided to call it a night and Dan would call him the next day to thank him for the invitations. On the way out, we passed by a display near the exit with life-size, real car characters from the movie "Cars." We almost passed right by it, but it was so neat that we decided to take a quick detour for the photo opportunity. As we got to the front of the line, we heard someone call out, "Daniel!" Dan turned to look, and it turned out to be his student! After all our looking, we finally found him just as we were about to leave! He was there with his wife (also a former student of Dan's), so I was introduced to both of them, and amazed at their English ability--both had only studied a few months! They insisted on taking pictures of Dan and me at the display. We could hardly say no; it was a pretty awesome display after all!

After a quick chat and some pictures, we said our good-byes and headed back to the bus stop. It was a few blocks from the event center, and as we got about a block away we saw the bus we needed drive by. By now, it was pretty late and we weren't sure how often the buses came. Even though we were a block away, Dan waved at the driver to get him to stop, and we chased down the bus like there was no tomorrow. It's a good thing that my highest "heels" are just boots, or that could have been dangerous. Luckily, the driver saw us and waited at the stop for us. In fact, we were the only people on the bus at that point. He actually apologized for not stopping closer to us, but said something about it being illegal or something. We were just happy that we weren't going to have to wait out in the cold for another bus!

The bus ride back was much faster than on the way there (traffic sure does die down quickly in a couple hours), and we got off near Dan's house. He helped me catch the correct bus to get back to my place. By the time I got home, it was nearly midnight and I was exhausted. I went straight to bed, and dreamt about my future rainbow car. All in all, it was a great experience and I'm so glad I stepped out of my routine do something a little different that night.

Fantasilandia

2012-09-30T01:53:00.000+01:00

When I'm not off traveling, my weekends tend to be pretty monotonous. Friday is market day, Saturday is cleaning day, and Sunday is class preparation day. I'm not much of a night owl, and that's when most of the weekend socialization occurs here in Santiago, so I don't go out very often. This Saturday, however, turned out a bit differently. It started out as normal--I slept in, enjoyed my coffee while reading the news, and still wasn't dressed by 11:30 a.m. It was a good day, so far. I finally got up the motivation to start washing the dishes that I'd let pile up during the week when I noticed a strange sound. I'd lost my phone on the way to Mendoza and had just started using a new one. I still wasn't quite used to the sound, and ignored it at first. But the new phone has a handy "reminder" system, so it kept vibrating every 5 minutes or so until I finally realized what it was and went to check on it. Turned out to be a message from my friend, Heather. I hadn't seen her since before the semester started back in August!

"Hey, what are you doing?" read the message, "do you want to come out? Like, now? We're meeting at Fantasilandia at noon." Of course, by the time I'd realized it was my phone making the alert noises, it was already about 5 minutes to noon! There was no way I would be able to get dressed and all the way over to the theme park by then! But I didn't have any other plans for the weekend, so I texted her back and told her I'd meet the group there as soon as I got ready. I decided the dishes could wait another day, and quickly hopped into the shower. I got ready in record time, and and was out the door in less than half an hour. The park is actually located fairly close to my house, but because of the metro routes, it takes a while to get there. By the time I got to the park, got a ticket, and found my friends, it was around 1:30.

www.fantasilandia.cl

It was a group of about 12 people, only half of whom I already knew. The rest were friends of Heathers' roommates. It was quite an international group--we had people from the U.S., Chile, Peru, and India! When I arrived, we went through the standard introductions, and then got down to business--deciding which ride to go on next. The rest of the group had already been at the park about an hour, but it was so packed that they'd only managed to get on one ride! They'd stood in line nearly 45 minutes to get to the most popular roller coaster, the Raptor. I got a quick look at it, and decided that I didn't feel too bad about them doing it without me.

It was starting to get warm out, so before choosing our next ride we decided to take a quick drink break. It was still fairly early for lunch, so the line at the snack stand wasn't very long. Five of us got in line to get drinks, behind two other park-goers. The people in front of us ordered food, so they had to wait for it to be cooked. We figured it wouldn't affect us and continued through to order our drinks. We forgot that we were in Chile. The cashier took our money and gave us a receipt, telling us we'd have to wait at the other end until they called us to tell us our order was ready.

The gringos waiting for their drinks...

We were ok with that; there were a couple other people also waiting just for drinks, and all the workers were busy working on various tasks. We waited about ten minutes, and still got nothing. Now, the cashier wasn't doing anything because there was no one else waiting in line to pay. There were also two new workers who'd shown up but didn't seem to be doing anything. We went to the cashier and asked her if she could grab our drinks, since she wasn't helping anyone else at the moment. She told us we had to wait, that everything had to be done in the right order. Then, she continued to sit and twiddle her thumbs. We waited another ten minutes, and still nothing. We asked another person, who completely ignored us. Finally, the people in line ahead of us (who had ordered enough food to feed a small army) received their food. After a total wait time of nearly 25 minutes, we finally received our overpriced fountain sodas. By then, it was the most delicious soda that any of us had ever tasted!

Once we quenched our thirst, we began to explore our options for the next ride. Everyone agreed upon La Pirata, a viking ship that swings back and forth. Unfortunately, I am not the best at chugging, so I still hadn't finished my drink. Another friend, Kimberley, also needed some more time to finish her drink, so we appointed ourselves official photographers and sat the ride out. We did manage get some great pictures, though! After the ride was over, everyone (well, almost everyone) decided they were up for some more adrenaline. That meant it was time for the Boomerang! Kimberley and I did our best to escape, but when you've got a dozen people surrounding you, there really isn't much room to run.

www.fantasilandia.cl

We were forced to get in line and wait for what looked like the most terrifying ride known to man. And the worst part was that the line was very long, meaning that we got to sit through the horrified screams of all our predecessors. After enduring the blood-curdling cries of about 10 groups of people, it was our turn. I tried one last desperate attempt to get away, but two of the guys in our group grabbed me and dragged me into my seat. At least they were kind enough to make sure I was strapped in securely! The ride lasted just under 2 minutes (yes, I timed it), and I have to say that those were the most terrifying 120 seconds of my life. The ride is called "Boomerang" for good reason--you are first pulled backwards up a steep incline, where you sit for a few seconds. Then, all of a sudden, you are flung forward into a spiral that promptly turns into a loop. After you survive the loop, you are rushed up another steep incline where you are allowed a short break to catch your breath. Then, just when you think the worst is over, you are dropped back down the incline in the opposite direction and have to endure the whole track again, in reverse! My eyes were closed the entire time, and my hands hurt for an hour afterwards from holding on to the handrails so hard. It took just about as long for me to stop shaking; but I survived!

The rest of the group still didn't feel as if they'd gotten their fill of adrenaline yet, so they got in line for the Extreme Fall (have you noticed that all the rides have names in English? That's what they're really called; I'm not translating!). Kimberley and I had had just about enough adrenaline to last us the rest of our lives, so we once again sat this one out. We still had fun, though! We found a nice giraffe topiary and had a very deep conversation with it while we waited for our friends. We discovered that most giraffes are democrats, for obvious reasons. We even snapped a picture with him. Kimberley apparently has quite a bit of experience with giraffe topiaries, so she wasn't as impressed as I was. I guess I need to get out more! Apparently, free-falling from 115 feet builds a quite an appetite, because as soon as everyone got off the ride, lunch was the only thing on their mind. We went to a different snack stand this time, hoping for better service. Once again, we had a momentarily memory lapse about the fact that we were in Chile. And by now it was lunch time, so the line was pretty long, too. I wasn't hungry yet (I'd had a late breakfast), so I was given the all-important task of saving the table. It took about 45 minutes for everyone to get their food (not too bad, given the circumstances). We got caught up while everyone ate. We talked about our future plans--it looks like most everyone is planning to go home (or at least somewhere else) after our contract is up. We also got to know the new people in the group, which was quite interesting. It was fun to compare cultures (and discover that amusement parks are overpriced with much too long of lines in just about every country).

Lunch took about two hours, and by the time we were finished, I was starting to feel about ready to go home (besides, I had a Skype date with Scott that I didn't want to miss) . I agreed to go on a couple more rides before heading out. We got in line for a water ride, the Rapid River. Just in time, too, because it started to rain while we were in line! Everyone else must've had the same idea, because it was probably the longest line we'd been in all day. It took about an hour to get to the front of the line. The line wound back and forth, and in front of us on the other side of the rope was a man with his young son. When he saw me, he pointed right at my face and started saying, in English, "blue eyes!" I kind of gave him a smile and tried to go back to talking to my friends, but he kept talking. I finally said, "yes, thank you," just to get him off my back. But then he had to point out to me that his son had green eyes (obviously making us soulmates), and try to get my life story. Luckily, the line started to move so I didn't have to talk long. Until we ran into each other again as the line snaked back onto itself once again. I had to endure five awkward Spanglish conversations with them before the line straightened out and we finally got rid of them. Or so I thought. When we got on the ride, he was waiting in the spectator area. He shouted to get me to look at him, and snapped my picture! I guess I should feel flattered?

I think the ride was fun, but I was a bit flustered by my new friend. After being around the water so long, I had to take a bathroom break. I set out to find one while the rest of the group got in line at bumper cars. The line at the bathroom was just as long as for the rides, so by the time I got back to the group, they were next in line for the cars. So, once I again, I became official photographer. It was actually really fun to watch everyone fight it out in the bumper car arena! My camera wasn't too happy about the low light and quick movements, but I got a couple decent shots. And a whole bunch of really funny ones! After the bumper cars, I had to head out, but everyone else decided to stay another hour until the park closed at 8:00. We said our good-byes and went in our separate directions. It was nice to get out and do something a little different, and to meet some new, fun people while doing it!

La Chascona

2012-09-22T20:42:00.000+01:00

By Saturday morning we were feeling rested enough to go out exploring again. I've already done quite a bit of tourist-ing in Santiago, so I gave Mom my guide book and let her pick our destination. She decided on La Chascona, one of three houses built by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. It was about a 45 minute walk from my apartment, but we didn't have anything else planned for the day so we could take it slow. There are a lot of interesting sites on the way, so we started out on our adventure, planning to see as much as we could on the way.

We headed out towards Vicuña Mackenna, one of the main streets in downtown Santiago. It's only a few blocks from my house, but usually my only interaction with it is to cross it each morning getting to the metro. This time, we turned onto it and began to follow it into the heart of Santiago. We stopped by the hostel I'd stayed in for the first couple weeks in Chile, and it was fun to remember the memories and friends I'd made there. A few streets past the hostel, we saw a little street with quite a different personality than most others here in the city. This one was fairly narrow, and had tall, colorful, row-style houses lining it. Right in the middle of all the houses was a corridor covered in mosaics. We decided to take a detour down that street to admire the houses, and were pleasantly surprised to see that spring had brought fresh flowers to the front yards. The colors of the flowers blended perfectly with the hues of the houses, and the smell was wonderful! I stopped to smell the flowers while Mom snapped a few pictures.

Our next stop was Parque Bustamante, just on the other side of the neighborhood. I've been through the park before, but usually on my way to other places while in a hurry, so I've never really stopped to take a good look. Some of the other native English teachers from my school go there to work out after class, but so far my schedule hasn't meshed up enough with theirs to allow me to go. Plus, I'm not too into working out anyway. But I suppose if I must, Parque Bustamante would be a great place to do it. There are a bunch of exercise machines, just like you would see at the gym. Except these are much better because they are outside, and they're free! Obviously, we had to try some out. I was surprised at how well they worked, considering how many people have probably used them through the years. There were quite a few other people working out, too, including a toddler who was doing her utmost to use one as a swing.

And, just in case you don't like working out alone, there are free, live exercise classes! It was a nice day, so we stopped to watch for a while. Most of the participants were having a great time and getting some exercise in the meantime. There was, however, one woman who was taking her exercise very seriously. Even when everyone else stopped for water breaks, she kept shakin' it. Not only was she the most invested in the exercise program, she was probably the oldest by about 20 years. Most of the other participants seemed to be middle-aged or younger, but this woman had to be about 60. It's great to see people stay active! Especially when they are as entertaining as she was. Once we'd had our fill of watching other people exercise, we continued on our way. We passed by a nice cafe in the middle of the park that I'd never noticed before. It was two stories with a big pond out front. It was packed full inside and out of people enjoying the nice weather on the weekend morning. We'd had enough coffee at home before setting out, so we skipped the cafe and kept walking. We reached the Mapocho river--once the pride of Santiago, but now a small, polluted stream. And it has actually improved in recent years, apparently! It's sights like that that makes me ashamed. Although I guess I haven't really done anything to improve it, either, so I can't really complain, can I?

Across the bridge on the other side of the Mapocho, we came across another artisan fair. We stopped in, just to see if they had anything more to offer than at the fair nearer my house. We found a really awesome rainbow knitted sweater, but did our best efforts and self-control and avoided buying it. It'd definitely be a way to get noticed, though (not that I really need to make an effort for that here in Chile)! We stopped by another booth where a woman was selling jewelry made from recycled silverware. She had earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and even a tree for holding the jewelry made from forks! It was really neat, and we were very tempted, but it could only hold two necklaces or two pairs of earrings. If you've ever glimpsed my earring collection, you'd know just how inadequate that would be for me. Instead, we bought some necklaces to give as gifts.

www.nadir.org

Next, we stopped by a booth run by a young man, probably about my age. He was also selling jewelry made from alpaca (no, not the animal. It's a metal similar to silver). That isn't too exciting in itself; lots of people sell metal jewelry. What was so interesting about his was that it was all hand carved. Yes, he carved designs into each piece with a very tiny hand saw. He showed us one he was working on--a hair pin with the design of a kultrun on it. He told us that he is very proud of his Mapuche (indigenous tribe from the south of Chile) heritage, and that the kultrun was one of the most important symbols of his culture. He then even took the time to explain the symbolism for us, in English! Kultrun is a Mapuche word that means "object of sound" or, a drum. But these aren't just any drums--they are ceremonial drums onto which the whole story of relationship between heaven and earth is depicted.

pueblosoriginarios.com

The artisan explained that, first of all, the symbols on the kultrun explain the delicate balance of earth and heaven. The circular pattern is divided into four parts by lines representing the four cardinal directions--north, east, south, and west. Between the four points, two different patterns can be depicted. In the example I found online, there are four representations of the wind moving always through time. The artisan instead had two suns and two moons, also representing the passing of time. From each cardinal direction sprout two more branches, one for each month in the year. Long before being introduced to Western culture, the Mapuche counted 12 months in a year. The space between each grouping of three months represents a different season. Between east and north lies winter, the rainy season. For the Mapuche, this was the season of fertility, when the earth received nutrients and water. Next, between north and west comes spring. This meant it was time for the people to move from their winter habitation to their summer residence and begin a long period of work in preparation for the fertile summer that would hopefully result from a rejuvenating winter. Between west and south is summer--harvest time. This is a time of great abundance and celebration. Finally, between south and east is autumn. This is when families began to prepare once again for the difficult winter, stockpiling their resources from the summer harvest. It's a time to share what you have with others, both in resources and knowledge. Once the four seasons have been completed, it's time to start again. The circle continues with every new generation, never ending. There were a lot more symbols within the design, as well, but I don't remember enough to give an accurate account (and it is surprisingly difficult to find conclusive information on the internet!).

Not only was it great to hear the history of the Mapuche from a member of the tribe, it was wonderful to hear the pride in his voice as he told it. Like most indigenous people, the Mapuche have suffered a lot through the years and have lost much of their cultural heritage. It has only been recently, in the past generation or so, that the Mapuche are reclaiming their heritage and showing their pride. The last time I was in Chile, I even had the opportunity to visit the only school in the country taught exclusively in Mapudungun, the language of the Mapuche. In fact, the first class to go all the way from kindergarten to final year should be graduating about now! We didn't buy anything from that artisan because his stuff was a little out of our price range (definitely worth the price, though). We thanked him for sharing his heritage with us, and then decided we'd better move on from the fair if we wanted our money to last the rest of the week!

Pastel de Choclo

Although a straight walk should have taken us to La Chascona in about 45 minutes, our frequent stops drew out the time much longer. We were starting to get tired and hungry, so we stopped over in Barrio Bellavista for some lunch before going to the museum. Bellavista is a trendy neighborhood that is popular with young people because it is packed wall-to-wall with restaurants, bars, and clubs. Luckily, it was just past noon so the hard-core partying hadn't started quite yet (although we saw a few people who were definitely trying). Mom still hadn't gotten the chance to try any Chilean food on this visit, so we headed over to Galindo, one of the most well-know Chilean restaurants in Santiago. It was a nice day, so we sat outside on the patio. I tried to order humitas (they're like large tamales), but was told that those are only summer food. Instead, I went for the ever-popular porotos (bean stew). Mom opted for the world-famous pastel de choclo (corn pie). The restaurant is popular among tourists, so we got to hear all sorts of languages and accents as we ate. As tired as we were, we enjoyed our food quietly, trying to see if we could guess all the different accents around us.

Porotos

Once again, the portions were much bigger than we'd anticipated. Luckily for Mom, she hadn't eaten breakfast that day and managed to make a heroic effort on her corn pie. I, on the other hand, had to ask for a to-go box for the rest of my meal. When we finished, Mom went to the corner of the street to have a cigarette while I waited for the bill. During our meal the restaurant had gotten pretty busy, so I had a bit of a wait before I could leave the table. I was surprised that Mom actually didn't get bored and come back, but when I finally went over to meet her, I saw why. She had run into (once again) the woman from my apartment! They told me it must be fate, because this was now the fifth time in three days that they'd come across one another. I guess it's not that strange in the apartment (although there are about 250 units with an average of two people in each), but it was really amazing to run into her in the middle of the big city! She had actually just come from La Chascona and was heading out to explore the rest of the city. We chatted for a few minutes and then went our separate ways.

worldnomads.com

We thought our next stop would definitely be La Chascona (we were only three blocks away!), but we managed to get sidetracked one more time. We walked by a restaurant with a beautiful fence that looked like vines with flowers on it. Of course we needed to take some pictures! Next to the restaurant was a new store that I'd never seen before (I've walked past that area many times during weekend strolls). We weren't in a hurry, so we went in to check it out. The owner was very friendly and explained that everything for sale was hand-made by different people. The store was created by a group of friends who are all artisans and wanted a place to display and sell their artwork. Mom found a neat condiment holder made from a seashell, and we were about to leave when she spotted one more thing. It was a screen printing on canvas of some of the most famous stairs in Valparaiso. She really liked it, but didn't want to get it because she hasn't been there. She showed it to me anyway, just so I could admire it too. I looked at it and realized that those stairs were particularly familiar to me--it was just a few feet from the top that Scott had proposed to me! When I told Mom that, she got very excited (and tried to tell everyone in the store about the story). She decided to buy it for us as a wedding gift. But it's a surprise, so don't tell me!

www.tripadvisor.com

After dragging ourselves out of the store (there were so many unique things!), we finally made our way up the last few feet to the entrance of Pablo Neruda's house, La Chascona. We were in luck, too, because the next English-language tour would be leaving in only half an hour! We checked out the gift shop while we waited for the tour. I'd done the tour before, when Scott came to visit, but the house really is marvelous so I was excited to see it again. I was also glad to see that the tour guide that would be leading our tour this time was a different one than the first time. It's always interesting to see the differences between different guides (and you find out which part of the stories are made-up, too, because each guide adds a different twist)! When I went with Scott, we had a female guide, so a lot of the tour consisted of torrid love stories. This time, our guide was male. There was hardly any mention of romance (except what was required to explain the marriage of Neruda to the wife after whom the house is name), but there was a lot of emphasis on Neruda as a politician. Though most of the information was the same, it was fun to be able to experience the varied presentations of it!

Pablo Neruda and Matilde Urrutia
elmercuriodigital.net

Unfortunately, you're not allowed to take pictures inside the house, so we don't have any of our own. But there are plenty around the internet if you take the time to search! Not only is La Chascona interesting for its architecture, but also for all the various memorabilia collected by Neruda throughout his travels as an ambassador for Chile. There are also some pretty good stories attached to the house. Probably the most well-known story is how the house got its name in the first place. It is named after Neruda's third wife, Matilde Urrutia. She was easily recognized by her wild red hair, only one of many of her features that Neruda had fallen in love with. Because of this, he gave her the nickname "la Chascona," which means "disheveled hair" in Quechua, the language of the indigenous people of northern Chile. It was only fitting that the house built for her should have the same name.

sopame.blogspot.com

Neruda and Urrutia's relationship began in secret while Neruda was still married to his previous wife, Delia del Carnil. Urrutia was an artist herself and was well-known in Chile as a writer and singer. She and Neruda met for the first time through mutual artist friends in Santiago in 1946. They quickly became friends, but didn't see much of each other again until 1949 when they were both in Mexico. Neruda had been sent there in exile for his participation in the Communist Party of Chile. Here, they truly fell in love and began their secret affair. They maintained their relationship in secret for many years, telling only their closest friends the truth. One of these friends was Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, who commemorated the relationship with a painting of Matilde. In his depiction, she has two heads--one for each part she had to play in Neruda's life. One for the face she put out when she pretended to be just friends, and another she could wear when they were together as lovers. And of course she could not be alone in a painting about lovers--take a close look in her hair on the far right; you can see the outline of Neruda's face hidden within her curls.

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By 1955, the lovers could not longer keep their relationship a secret and Neruda finally separated from his previous wife. He had actually begun to build La Chascona for Urrutia before the separation, in 1953. He hired another good friend to design it for him--Catalan architect German Rodriguez Arias. The architect commented that he was apprehensive about designing a house on such a steep hill, but did his best to design around it. It was initially designed to face towards the south to give a view of the city, but Neruda preferred the view of the mountains and had the house completely re-oriented. He also continually brought cypress and other wood species up from the south from which to construct the house. He also broke convention by asking Arias to build an entire room around his favorite couch and painting. In fact, the painting is permanently installed as part of the wall of the living room. By the time it was finished, the house was completely different than envisioned by Arias, but turned out to be exactly what Neruda wanted.

crystalacarte.com

The house is actually composed of three separate buildings--the guest house, the main living area, and the office. The entire house is completely filled with mementos that Neruda had collected during his travels around the world. Unfortunately, most of the original pieces housed in La Chascona were lost when soldiers destroyed the house and its contents after the military coup of 1973. The objects now inside the house were brought from Neruda's other houses and donated by the French government for which he was ambassador for many years. There were so many interesting details that I can't begin to describe them all here, but I'll note the most interesting ones. In the dining room of the guest house (which was very narrow with a low ceiling, modeled after a ship), each table setting had a different colored glass. This was because Neruda believed that color of the vessel influenced the taste of the liquid, so always had many options available for each of his moods. According to our guide, Neruda's favorite "flavor" was green. Another interesting detail of the guest house is the pantry. One side is just what you would expect from a pantry--full of shelves and everyday kitchen supplies. But the other door opens up to a secret stairwell that leads upstairs to a breakfast nook and guest bedroom! I am most definitely getting one of those for my house!

taraandkarinagoout.com

We continued on our tour, overwhelmed by the electic mix of objects throughout the house and garden. In just about every room, and hung on some of the trees, were giant sketches of eyes. We asked the guide why, and he told us that they were Neruda's version of security cameras. No matter where you are in the house, you're always being watched. So don't misbehave! That must explain why there seemed to be extra eyes hung on the tree next to the outdoor bar--extra temptation there! Mom decided that the bar was the part of the house that she wouldn't mind adding to hers. It even came complete with a giant pair of shoes, something Neruda had apparently picked up from a shoe shop in the south of Chile. During that time period, there was an extremely high illiteracy rate in the country, so shops had to display the goods they were selling. And if you want to sell shoes, how better to demonstrate your wares than to hang up a giant pair of them!?

artofschmidt.com

After our tour, we were starting to get tired out, but decided to try to walk back home anyway. It was a nice day, so we thought we might stop for a drink on the way back. We walked through Bellavista, this time avoiding all the artisan shops. We didn't completely manage to avoid all temptation, though, as we came across a street vendor selling trees and animals made from bent wire. He ended up having a conversation with us in English, and even offered to drop the price of his tree down from 10 mil to 5 mil, and throw in two free flowers just for fun! We could hardly say no to that offer! He also tried to sell us a sculpted tarantula, but Mom told him she would probably get in trouble for bringing that on the plane. He told her not to worry, because he had, in fact, already traveled on a plane with it! He did get momentarily detained when the customs officers insisted on searching his bag for live animals and he threatened that his giant pet spider would bite them. Apparently, it took a while before anyone was brave enough to actually open the bag. But he guaranteed that it would be allowed past security. We politely declined and went back on our way with our new metallic flora.

On the way back we walked through Barrio Lastarria, a bohemian neighborhood that is mostly populated by actors and musicians. On the weekends there is a street fair with vendors selling used books and antiques. Of course we had to stop by for a look. Unfortunately, all the really cool stuff was too big to fit in a suitcase, so we had to pass it up. That doesn't mean we didn't enjoy looking, though! Once we'd had our fill there, we walked a couple blocks more to where all the restaurants were located in the neighborhood. We'd made it about halfway home by this time, so we figured we deserved a break. We chose a restaurant that was built into the ruins of an old estate that had been build to resemble a castle. We were mostly just hot and tired, so Mom ordered a glass of red wine and I ordered some ice cream. The waitress listed off some strange flavors that I hadn't heard before, and she couldn't really describe them when I asked her to. So, I told her just to surprise me. I never really was sure what the flavors were, but they were pretty delicious! And the best part was the fact that it was served in a martini glass with a fresh flower decorating the top!

By the time we finished our wine and ice cream (great combination, by the way), it was starting to get dark. We thought about taking a cab the rest of the way home, but decided to brave the walk. The last few blocks were a big tough, but we managed to get there pretty much in one piece. We took a quick stop at the grocery store across the street to get some more wine for dinner, and headed up stairs. We ate some leftover curry, watched some bad American tv, and went to bed. For a day that started out on a whim, it turned out fairly awesome!

La Feria Libre

2012-09-21T21:43:00.000+01:00

The next few days were pretty relaxed, and consisted mostly of CSI marathons. We stayed in all day Thursday, just trying to recuperate. By Friday we were feeling good enough to venture out a bit, if only to the fruit and veggie market a few blocks from my house. I guess I've gotten so used to it that I forgot how impressive it was to see the first time! It really is quite a sight--four whole blocks covered in stands full of fresh fruit and vegetables. Some people also sell household goods, cleaning supplies, and even toilet paper. Sometimes there is a fish stand, too, where you can pick out your fresh fish and they will gut it for you right in front of your eyes. My personal favorites are the used-clothing stands where you can get three t-shirts for 500 pesos (about a dollar). A large portion of my wardrobe has come from there (which may explain why my students say I look like a hippie cowgirl). So, it was fun to go with someone who had never been before and was still impressed by everything. It can get pretty crowded, so my main objective is usually to find the best prices and get out of there as quickly as possible. Luckily, we got there early enough to avoid the huge crowds and be able to enjoy the market at a bit slower pace. There were more sellers than usual, too--probably because we're moving into spring here in Santiago and there is more produce available to sell. We brought my market cart, because we knew we needed to stock up--at this point, the only food left in my apartment was a quarter bag of rice and some snacks Mom had gotten on her plane ride from the U.S.

Before we reached the food section, we passed through the used clothing/antiques/other random goods section. I'd recently taken up knitting to pass the time between classes (sometimes I have 6 hour breaks!), so I've gotten to know "the knitting lady," as I call her. She sells all sorts of assorted items, among them knitting supplies. She is really friendly and is usually sitting and knitting something herself during the fair. I've tried knitting before, but as many of you know, I'm not so good with numbers and a bit part of knitting involves careful counting. Therefore, I have not had much success with my past attempts at knitting. The lady at the fair, however, showed me a cool "beginners" contraption that keeps track of the stitches for you. It's great for people with short attention spans, because no matter where or why you stop, you always know exactly where to start up again. I'd bought the contraption from her a few weeks ago, and had been going back every week since to buy more yarn for my creation. I'm (trying to) make an afghan. It's going to be made up of many squares of different colors. So far, I've finished two squares. I'm guessed I'll need about 9 to finish it off. Wow, I'd better get working on that! Anyway, we took a quick stop at the knitting booth where the lady gave me some advice for my afghan, and Mom bought some yarn to make strap covers for one of her bags.

Then, we got down to business--the food! Not only does spring mean more selection, it also means better prices! I was excited to see that avocado, for example, had fallen from 2400 pesos per kilo down to 1500. I've still seen cheaper, but at least it was a start. And even at the high prices, it's always much cheaper than it ever was in the states! We bought a few for snacking, and continued on. Like I said, I'm usually all business at the market, so I had to remember to slow down for Mom to take some pictures. I'm really glad she did; I'm sure I'll want to show people what the market is like when I get back home. And then I'll probably get depressed at how expensive food is in the U.S. Or England. Why can't I live somewhere tropical, again?!

Speaking of tropical, we found some strange fruits that Mom had never seen before. She was feeling brave again (after having enough time to recover from our parrillada), so we bought some to try out. They're called pepinos dulces in Spanish, and I haven't been able to find a good translation for that in English. It literally means "sweet cucumber," which is a fairly good description, I suppose. In terms of taste, at least. It looks kind of like a pear with a harder, more colorful shell. They're usually purple and yellow, so obviously I liked them before I even tasted them. The best English translation so far is "melon pear," because it looks like a pear but tastes like a melon. I actually think they're pretty perfect, because I love melon, but I don't have much self-control and tend to eat the whole thing in one sitting. Now, I can have the taste I crave without overindulging. They're natures original 100-calorie packs. I tried to convince her to try a Chirimoya, too, but she decided one exotic fruit was enough for one day. Maybe next time!

We finished up with our purchases of the essentials (i.e. ingredients for curry), and were about to head back home when Mom caught site of the fish stand. She went over to take some pictures and, as always seems to happen to her, managed to end up having a conversation with a couple standing in line with their baby. Of course, they didn't speak English, but an in-depth conversation ensued despite that minor setback. Turns out, they had just moved to Santiago from a small village in the south of Chile, and were astounded by the prices of fish in the city. The conversation had initially started when they asked Mom if she was taking pictures of the outrages prices. Apparently, in Santiago the fish they wanted to buy cost almost $30USD, whereas they could have gotten the same thing from their hometown for less than $7! We commiserated for a while about our mutual dislike for big cities, and we learned that they only reason the family was in Santiago in the first place was because the husband was an internal medicine resident and had to complete a few years at a major hospital. The wife told me they were heading back south the instant he finished.

As the conversation got more complicated, Mom couldn't understand the adults anymore, so she began to play with the baby. Soon enough, the baby was laughing and having a grand old time. The sound of laughter coming from her child threw the woman off guard. She told us that her baby was usually really fickle, and absolutely hated strangers. So obviously he would become best friends with Mom!

After saying our good-byes from the family, we started our way back to the apartment. On the way, Mom bought some flowers to freshen up the apartment. We also had to stop at the antique booths to see what they had to offer. We bought a silver vase for the flowers, and Mom found a unique wall hook to take home. With my cart (and our arms) full to overflowing, we finally made it back to the apartment. We were pretty satisfied with our loot, and started to put it away right away. Mom's back was still a bit sore, so sat down and read while I finished organizing our stuff. I put away everything except what I needed to make curry. I was nice this time, and made it as mild as I could. Despite our long stop at the fish stand, we'd forgotten to get any sort of meat for the curry, so I threw in some crushed almonds as a protein instead. I made a yellow curry with eggplant, onion, carrots, and almonds. We watched some more CSI as we waited for it to simmer to perfection.

When dinner was ready, I was surprised that not only did Mom like hers, she even asked for more! So far, I've always had to coerce people into trying curry (yes, even Scott who is now addicted to it). After dinner, Mom went upstairs for a smoke while I worked on some school preparations. I was deep in concentration mode when I thought I heard some voices speaking English in the hallway. At first, I thought it might be some new neighbors (there are a lot of foreigners in my building), but then I realized that one of the voices sounded a lot like Mom's. When the door opening, it was Mom, and another woman that I didn't recognize.

www.santiagopubcrawl.com

Apparently, the woman had just moved into the building a couple days ago, but she and Mom had already run into each other about three times! They got to talking, and Mom learned that the woman was from the states, but had been in Argentina the past few months looking for a job teaching English. Having had no luck there, she decided to come to Santiago and have a go here. We invited her and talked for nearly an hour. We exchanged stories about the funny anomalies in the language in Chile and Argentina, and laughed at how little our training in Spanish actually helped us in "real life." I gave her some names of English institutes that I'd heard were hiring, and lent her my book of Chilean slang. By the time we finished exchanging details, it had gotten fairly late. After our new friend headed back to her apartment, we got ready for bed in preparation for another exciting day to come.

Back to Chile

2012-09-20T03:30:00.000+01:00

We returned to Chile early on the morning of September 19. When I was looking for tickets, I had initially wanted to return the 18th, but could not find one flight to Santiago on that day. September 18 is a national holiday, and Chileans do take those pretty seriously. I wonder if there were any flights in Chile at all that day! Things worked out in the end, though, and it was nice to have the extra day in Mendoza. The flight back was pretty full (all the Chileans returning to work after the long vacation), but the process was much easier this time.

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We got to the airport really early, nervous because of our experience coming to Argentina. We got there so early, in fact, that the check-in counter wasn't even staffed yet! It looked like a few other people had the same idea we did, though, because we were about the 8th group in line. Mom held our spot while I ran to grab us some coffee to wake us up and keep us warm. Of course, the 19th was the coldest day in Mendoza so far, and the LAN check-in counter was right next to open door. Luckily, the coffee did the trick and lasted just long enough for the employees to arrive and get settled in. The attendant was really friendly, and even moved our seats for us--row 3, business class! On this particular plane, that just meant that we were closer to the exit and had a partition between "us" and "them," but we felt special nonetheless.

www.toasto.com

The check-in process went so smoothly that security for our gate still wasn't open by the time we finished. We waited nearby for a few minutes, but it didn't look like they were going to open up any time soon. We took the opportunity to head upstairs to the cafe for breakfast. Unfortunately, Argentinians are apparently not into big breakfasts, and the only options available before 11:00 am were alfajores and croissants. Disappointed but hungry nonetheless, we ordered some croissants and more coffee. We sat for a while, eating and just observing the other people in the cafe. It seemed that most of the people were just there to relax, or hold business meetings. Only one other person had luggage, a sweet-looking old lady of about 70. She ordered 6 croissants and a large coffee, gulped it all down and was on her way before our coffee even had a chance to cool down! She obviously wasn't on the same flight as us, because we took our time and security still wasn't open by the time we got back down. I got in the growing line while Mom went out for one last cigarette break.

inmagine.com

By the time she got back, the line had started to move. A little in front of us was a large crowd, and we couldn't tell if they were part of the line or not. They all did move forward whenever the line moved, but none of them seemed to have any luggage. And they were all crying. As they reached the checkpoint, all but two of them pulled back. The two that stayed were a young couple in their mid- to late-twenties. They were hugging, and the woman especially looked like she was holding on to the man for dear life. She was sobbing uncontrollably. Their embrace seemed as if it would last forever, until someone behind them yelled for them to hurry up. At first, we all thought they didn't hear, because they didn't move. Eventually, the man backed up and pushed the woman away. He looked pained as he walked through the checkpoint, the whole while looking behind him at the large group left in the lobby. The woman followed him until the glass window turned to concrete and they could no longer see each other. As their final good-bye, they lovingly "touched" hands through the glass window, lingering until a security officer told them they were blocking the way.

I have no idea what the back story is, and I can't decide if it's romantic or maybe a little pathetic. If he's going away for a long time, or maybe going to do something dangerous--totally romantic. If it's just his first weekend away from home--come on, people! I don't know how things are in Argentina, but in Chile, children live with their parents until marriage. The average age of marriage is actually higher in Chile than in the U.S., meaning most people are almost 30 before they leave "the nest." Families are typically very close-knit, and even after marriage the children still visit their parents weekly (if not more). Maybe it's just my different cultural upbringing, but I personally find the attachment a little intimidating. For foreigners like me, it makes it very difficult to make friends, because social groups are comprised mostly of family and family friends. The only way in is to have a previous connection (or a romantic one). I'm not trying to say that one model is better than the other--sometimes I think that we in the U.S. are too quick to become independent and often have trouble developing the deeper relationships that are so common in countries like Chile; It's just difficult for me to understand the feelings involved.

I mean, in the two years (and some months) of dating, Scott and I have only been physically together for about 9 months. In fact, we've already talked about the importance of our own independence, and have agreed that it will most likely be necessary for each of us to periodically spend time alone (or at least not with one another) to maintain our relationship. Of course, this mentality is strange even for people from the U.S.--we often get asked why on earth we'd want to marry each other if we already know that we don't want to spend 24/7/365 together! Maybe we're just total oddballs, but we both agree that one of the most important aspects of a healthy relationship is for each partner to be comfortable with who s/he is alone. After all, how can you be comfortable with another person if you can't even be so with yourself? Just my two cents here, feel free to leave your own opinions!

www.shelovesmagazine.com

Anyways, once the romantic movie scene finished playing out in front of us, we got through security without a hitch. There wasn't much on the other side--just an insanely over-priced cafe and a small duty-free shop. I guarded our luggage while Mom grabbed a drink (a $5 Pepsi) and perused the duty-free shop. She took the opportunity to buy a carton of cigarettes to last her the rest of her stay, because cigarette prices in Chile are through the roof! I don't smoke so I don't know exact numbers, but I've heard enough complaints from my counterparts to know that it's even more than in the states. Most of that is due to the 62.3% ad valorem tax implemented in 2010. Moral of the story: don't smoke!

With our final important purchase in hand, we sat down to wait for boarding. We didn't have to wait long, because they called us about five minutes later. Being in business class, we got to board first (along with the babies). We were even given caramel candies as we boarded! We settled in and got comfortable for the short ride back to Santiago. Unlike our first flight, this one was only about five minutes late to take off, and that didn't even affect the arrival time. In fact, we touched down a few minutes before estimated!

www.flickriver.com

Back in Chile, we had to go through passport control and customs again. This is one time I was glad that Santiago is such a big city, because they had about 10 lanes open, and we got through passport control in about 5 minutes. We could have breezed through customs just as quickly, but for the fact that we had to wait for our checked luggage (my dress!). We decided that Mom should get through customs with her carry-on while I waited for the checked luggage. Of course, being some of the first to check in for the flight, our luggage was some of the last to come out. It took so long that most everyone else had already been through customs, so I didn't have to wait much at that line either. There was a small snag when they discovered Hannah's mask (made of seeds), but after a closer inspection they let it through. They also had to pull out the dress because the view on the scanner made all the beading look like seeds. After the minor delay, I was back out onto Chilean soil.

We arranged for a Transvip shuttle back to my apartment, but ended up having to wait almost half an hour to leave. Apart from the Christmas holidays, September 19 is probably the busiest travel day in the country. By the time we left the airport, our shuttle was packed full of people and luggage. Luckily, we were the second ones dropped off. When we arrived, Mom's friend (the cleaning lady) came out to help us with the luggage. Juan, the friendly concierge, welcomed us back to Santiago although he expressed sincere disappointment at our lack of participation in the Chilean festivities. He told me that there was still one fonda going on, and we could catch it if we went out at 8:00 that night. We thought about it, but decided that after our long day, 8:00 was just too late to be awake. I guess this just means that I'll have to come back another year for the September 18 celebrations!

Back up in the apartment, we had a quick lunch (leftover curry, yum!), pushed our luggage out of the way, and got into bed for a well-needed nap. The rest of the day was spent relaxing and inventorying all the goodies we'd acquired on the trip. It was a cold day, but that was OK with us because once we got in, we stayed in. That night, we could hear the shouts of party-goers giving one last hurrah for the much-anticipated independence holiday. We celebrated our independence of choice, and went to bed.

Last Day in Mendoza

2012-09-18T20:16:00.000+01:00

Revived after a fairly relaxing day (and a great dinner), we woke up early on our last day in Mendoza. It was still pretty chilly, but not quite as windy as it had been the day before. Since this would be our last opportunity to savor the free breakfast at the hotel, we took our time and enjoyed as much as possible. Plus, it was still cold enough out to encourage us to stay within the warm confines of the hotel a bit longer. We used the time to talk about--what else--girly stuff! Well, as girly as either Mom or I can get, which amounted to more wedding ideas. Now that we had the dress, we had to figure out accessories! The most important accessory, of course, is shoes. And if you haven't noticed (I may have even mentioned it a couple posts back), I sincerely despise shoes. We purposely had the dress fitted so that I can wear no shoes if I want. However, it is generally recommendable to wear something on your feet if you're going hiking, so I'll probably have to come up with something, at least to wear after the ceremony. After buying the Toms-like shoes and talking to Jaimee (who has a slight obsession with Toms shoes) a couple days before, we thought that style would be a good option. Mom is really crafty, so she offered to jazz up a pair for me. We'll see what transpires between now and next summer, but as of breakfast, we'd settled on some shiny pink shoes with white lace. That's bridal, right? As bridal as you're going to get from me!

As you can see, I (and Mom) have kind of been taking over the wedding planning without giving much input to Scott. I haven't really had much of an opportunity to talk to him since he went to England, because he still doesn't have internet at his house, and it costs 25¢ per minute to call his cell phone from Skype. I'd already used up more than my monthly phone allowance calling him, so I was pretty much resigned to waiting another month until he finally gets internet at the end of October. However, Mom was nice enough to top up my Skype credit so that I could call him a little more. Her donation allows for 400 minutes, which seems like a lot, but spread out over a month runs dry pretty quickly! We've still got 20 more days of non-internet, and we're already having to ration pretty strictly. Anyways, the point is that I did get to talk to him from Mendoza, and it was awesome. I told him about some of our ideas for the wedding (leaving out the specifics of the dress), and he said he'd be OK with anything I wanted to do as long as we were married in the end. He did have one request, however, and that was regarding the cake.

www.brides.com

Scott's favorite season is autumn, and probably the only reason we're not getting married in the fall is because of the school schedule. To go along with his appreciation of the season comes his admiration for the colors its produces, particularly orange. We talked about mixing our two favorite colors--orange and purple--but the hue of my spontaneously-bought dress made this plan difficult. Strange that purple and orange can be combined well, but pink and orange rarely work. I'm not sure why this is, but I'm sure if I ask my design students they can enlighten me! They were getting very frustrated when I made them do an exercise arranging sentences by the color I had shaded each word. They were annoyed not because the exercise was difficult, but because I labeled the colors as "blue" instead of "cyan" and "pink" instead of "magenta." So maybe we're mistaken and Scott's favorite color isn't orange, but perhaps auburn or even amber! Either way, he is adamant about somehow incorporating this into the wedding, and is determined that the cake will be autumn-themed regardless of the actual season at the time of the wedding. That's fine with me; I never really was into matching anyways. My main concern is figuring out how to get a cake from The Little Aussie Bakery. If you've never gotten the chance to try one of their cakes, you haven't truly eaten cake.

Anyways, after much coffee and wedding planning, Mom and I decided we were ready to tackle the day. In all our days in Mendoza, we still hadn't gotten the opportunity to check out any of the museums. There were a couple close to our hotel, but we were feeling adventurous and decided to try out one that the information officer had pointed out to me yesterday. It was a bit of a hike, but it was built right on top on the center of the "old" city, so was sure to have a lot of history. We had a map of the city, but after our experience trying to use a map to navigate the park, we were slightly hesitant to trust it. Nonetheless, we headed off to the north, encouraged by the few rays of sunshine poking through the clouds. Our plan was to head straight north until we came to the street on which the museum was located, then go east until we reached it.

We walked for quite a while, just enjoying the nice weather. It was slightly chilly, but there was no wind and the bits of sunshine that broke through the clouds made it a perfect day for a walk. We walked in silence, admiring the architecture and the slow pace of the people in the city. We'd nearly reached the street where we were supposed to turn, but saw a big hill just a few blocks more to the north and decided it was worth the detour to investigate. Turns out that was the corner of the Parque Central, a smaller but nonetheless impressive city park. This park is also much newer--it was built in 2003. We managed to walk the entire thing without getting lost once! It helped that it was landscaped and heavily manicured, but we were proud of ourselves anyway. We walked past a large mosaic and through the playground and stopped to watch a toddler chase the pigeons. She actually managed to sneak up and grab one while he snacked on a piece of bread left on the ground! I think she was more frightened by that development than he was!

We also stopped to admire some of the sculptures scattered throughout the park (while at the same time attempting to avert our eyes from the dozens of young lovers admiring one another). Most of the artwork is what would generally be considered "modern art," and neither of us are big fans of that, so after a few minutes we decided to continue on our way to the history museum. We passed under a highway bridge to get to the other side of the street, and came to the conclusion that we enjoyed the graffiti there much better than the official artwork in the park. What can I say? We have expensive taste.

After a brief detour down the wrong street, we were once again on track towards the museum. As we approached our destination, the architecture began to change noticeably. Not that the buildings downtown were skyscrapers, but they were fairly tall. Out in the "old" city, it became mostly residential, and even the commercial buildings were smaller and less ostentatious. As I mentioned in a previous post, this is because this is the area that is considered the "original" Mendoza. Before the earthquake, this area was filled with beautiful, traditional houses and was the commercial center for the city. When the earthquake hit, everything was destroyed and the citizens could no longer bear to see the reminders of the former glory of their crippled city. For many years, that section of town was completely ignored and became a place for homeless and vagabonds. Eventually, the area became such a detriment to the town's safety that it was eventually rebuilt, but never to the same degree of elegance that it had originally.

Despite the citizen's reluctance to rebuild the area, they did a very nice job. After walking quite a while through pretty boring streets, we came upon a beautiful plaza full of flowers and monuments. If any of you are familiar with the layout of Spanish colonial cities, you may have been surprised to learn in previous entries that the main plaza of Mendoza is Plaza Independencia. It is typical of Spanish colonial towns to be centered around a main plaza called "Plaza de Armas." This is because the majority of these cities were founded to serve military purposes, so the main plaza was the place around which weapons (armas) were stored. Usually the military leaders had the privilege of living the closest to this plaza, while those of lower social classes were forced to live further away. Even today, when the military is not as prevalent (and if it is, tends not to be located right in the center of town), most colonial cities are still centered around their original "Plaza de Armas." So, the plaza we came to here in Mendoza was the original Plaza de Armas that was destroyed with everything else in the city in the 1861 earthquake. When the city was rebuilt, the main plaza was moved westward and given a different name. Even to this day, there is no Plaza de Armas in Mendoza (although many tourists mistakenly give that name to Plaza Independencia, accustomed to the traditional layout of Spanish colonies). The plaza we came to is now called Plaza Pedro de Castillo, after the founder of the city

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At the far end of the original Plaza de Armas, next to Rio Mendoza (which actually turned out not to be a river at all, but instead an irrigation ditch dug by the Huarpes), stood the original cabildo (colonial government building). It had been destroyed by the earthquake and nearly forgotten for many years. In fact, a new fruit and vegetable fair was built on top of the former seat of government and life continued. It wasn't until the late 1980s when archaeologists studying old maps realized the importance of the land underneath the fair. They began to excavate and uncovered some of the original plaza. Most importantly, they discovered a very well-preserved shell of the cabildo, protected over the years by the very thing that had been set up to forget it. Excavations intensified to discover as much as possible about the history of their beloved city. A foundation was even set up to preserve the discoveries. Finally, in 1993, the Museo del Área Fundacional was erected directly on top of the old cabildo.

Now, before all my archaeologist friends get all nervous, don't worry. Excavations are ongoing, so there is usually an archaeologist present to ensure the integrity of the site. Of course, all objects were mapped and photographed in-situ before being removed for conservation and eventual exhibition at the museum. The more fragile parts of the cabildo are visible only through a glass floor. The other parts are visible but access is restricted. While you can't actually go right into the cabildo, you can stand right above it and imagine its glory in years past. The museum displays objects and information about the history of the area from Pre-Colombian times through to the present. It's not a very large museum, but I was surprised at how in-depth the history was! I've already given the basics of it in a previous post, so I won't go through it again. The part that I enjoyed the most was the first-hand accounts given about many historic events throughout the history of Mendoza. As I reach each story, I could almost imagine myself living the life of each individual throughout time. In the end, I decided I was very glad to live in my own time period.

After perusing the museum for probably way too long (anyone who has ever been to one with me knows that I have to read every single panel about every single object), we were starting to get hungry. It was quite a ways back to our hotel, but we figured we'd go part of the way and find a restaurant to have some dinner and restore our energy. Mom took a quick smoke break before we started off, and I took the time to admire the statues in front of the museum. I hadn't noticed before, but there was one story for each different era in the history of the city, and a quote underneath from a notable person from that era. Of course, I had to take a picture of all of them. If you want to see, check out the album on my Facebook page. For now, you'll just have to be satisfied with my favorite. After admiring the artwork, we started off back towards downtown. Of course, after a couple hours inside the museum while the weather was perfectly sunny, it started to rain as soon as we began walking. Luckily, we made it fairly quickly to Avenida San Martin, a large street filled with shops. Most of them had awnings, so we stuck close to the buildings, trying to stay as dry as possible. Strangely, we weren't having much luck finding any place to eat, so we continued on. At one point, the rain started to come down in a downpour, so we waited it out inside a discount store. Full of imported and imitation goods, it reminded me of the dollar store. Oh, home sweet home!

Luckily, the rain let up fairly quickly and were able to continue our search for sustenance. We still didn't see many options, but kept telling ourselves it would be only on the next block. About 10 "next blocks" later, we'd arrived back to Peatonal Sarmiento, the pedestrian street that we'd shopped on many times in the past few days. Surely there would be something here! There was actually a really delicious-looking restaurant right on the first corner, but when we got closer to investigate, it turned out they were closed. At this point we were getting so desperate that we nearly just went to the McDonald's at the end of the block, but decided to give it one more try. Good thing we did, too, because we came across a great restaurant! Since this would be our last meal in Mendoza, we ordered one last bottle of wine and decided to try one more new type of meat. We weren't quite as adventurous as day one, but we did order some grilled goat, just to round off our list of exotic meat. I enjoyed it, although Mom wasn't a big fan. It was heavily seasoned with rosemary, which reminds me of the food at The Little Aussie, so that may have been part of the reason I enjoyed it so much! In the end we were glad we tried it, even if it didn't turn out to be our favorite.

www.englishrussia.com

After dinner, we went back to the hotel to pack up for our early departure the next day. We still had to go pick up my dress, but were told it wouldn't be ready until after 8:00, so we used the time to organize our souvenirs and to just relax after the long day. Finally, at about 7:45, we headed out to retrieve the dress. When we got to the store, we were disappointed that Monica wasn't there (she was on business in Buenos Aires). The saleswoman showed us the modifications that had been made, and took me into the dressing room to try it on one more time. We had a bit of a scare when they couldn't get the zipper up, but rubbing it with a bar of soap fixed that. Good motivation not to gain weight, I guess! I modeled the dress one more time in front of the mirrors, and felt reassured that I still felt like a princess. The seamstress pulled out a shawl and showed Mom how she could tie it behind me so that it wouldn't fall off. She took some pictures so that she wouldn't forget in the 10 months before the wedding. The saleswoman packed everything up into the garment bag and we were on our way. We had a slight delay when we set off the alarm system and realized that they'd forgotten to remove the device from the skirt of the dress, but that problem was resolved quickly.

I felt a little strange walking through downtown carrying a huge dress above my head, but the awkwardness was overshadowed by my excitement to wear the dress. Back at the hotel, we carefully packed it up in the suitcase we had bought especially for it. We did some last-minute preparations, asked for a wake-up call, and headed to bed. The trip back to Santiago the next day was much easier than the trip to Mendoza! We were very glad for that; our trip sure had tired us out!

My New Friend

2012-09-18T03:30:00.000+01:00

After so many warm days in Mendoza, we were surprised to wake up to a cold front the next morning. We made sure to drink extra hot coffee during breakfast. While we dined, we discussed options for the day. Mom's back pain had flared up a bit, so we decided it would be best to take it easy. Not even a bit of pain can keep a woman from shopping, however, so we got ready and headed back downtown to check out some more souvenirs.

The cooler weather must have scared most of the tourists off, because the shopping area was nearly deserted. It could have also been the fact that we were awake a bit earlier than most people, too! We picked out a few more souvenirs from the shops, and headed off in a different direction than yesterday to see if we could discover anything new. We had been told that we might find some good leather shops in that direction. Although we'd already gotten quite a few leather goods, there really is no such thing as too much leather. Especially at the great prices they had in Mendoza! Mom actually found a really neat leather bag that has three separate compartments meant to carry a thermos, mate, and hierba. She's not really into hierba mate, but she bought it to use as a purse and to carry water (or Diet Coke) when she travels. The salesperson also suggested that it would be a good place to hide wine. Hopefully she'll refrain from doing that, especially in foreign countries! I know we're all for new adventures, but I think jail is one that we'd all like to avoid, if possible.

On the way over, we started talking about the dress and realized that we really didn't have any good way of getting it home. Even though it's not a traditional wedding dress, it still is pretty big! We'd only brought our carry-on suitcases, so there was no way we'd be able to fit it in one of those. We discussed just bringing in on in the garment bag, but were worried about having to crumple it up in the overhead bins. We decided the best way would be to invest in a new suitcase altogether. Of course, as soon as we decided to start looking for one, they became almost impossible to find. We ended up stopping back at the dress store to ask the salespeople there for a suggestion. Unfortunately, all of them were completely different than the ones that had been there on the night we bought the dress, so were a bit confused at first (they thought we wanted to buy some luggage from them). Once we'd explained that we'd already gotten a dress from their store, they pointed us in the direction of a luggage shop.

www.suitcases.me.uk

It was just on the next block over, and we'd actually passed it numerous times in the past few times without even noticing it! We first tried to find a large rolling garment bag, but soon realized that it wouldn't be much bigger than our carry-ons and that it's singular purpose would make it inconvenient for future trips. Instead, we asked for a large, hard-sided suitcase. They had some really great Samsonite sets, but we decided to forgo those upon learning that they were more expensive than the dress itself! We were about to give up and try another store when the salesperson pulled out a huge (very ugly) black suitcase. It was probably large enough to fit a good-sized toddler inside, and then maybe even have room for his pet puppy! It was the display model, but still had (some of) the protective plastic covering on it. It looked like someone had gotten bored and started to pull bits and pieces off in places, which didn't help with the aesthetic appeal. But it was sturdy, and it was on sale! We decided to go for it, despite it's hideousness. Maybe we can paint it pretty colors later.

I quickly took the suitcase back to the hotel while Mom relaxed in the plaza. Even though it was only about 11:00 a.m., we felt pretty accomplished with our day. We definitely deserved some coffee. Of course, we couldn't return to any of the same coffee shops, we had to try something new! We saw some tables outside on the other end of the block, and began heading in that direction. On the way, we passed by an old, official-looking building with a beautiful stained-glass window at the entrance. It turned out to the be the tourism office, so we decided to take a quick detour to see if there were any other things we simply couldn't miss in Mendoza. The building was undergoing some remodeling, so the information was actually upstairs. Mom's back wasn't behaving very well at this point, so she stayed down in the souvenir shop while I went up to get some information. The guide showed me some points of interest on the map, most of which we had already seen in our wanders around town. She circled a few museums that we should visit, but told me we'd have to wait until the next day because all the museums closed on Mondays. When I caught back up with Mom, she'd already managed to have a conversation with the salesperson in the store and had bought some beautiful hand-blown glass jewelry for some of her friends.

Armed with more information and more souvenirs, we found our way to the coffee shop at the end of the block. This one was probably the most "traditional" Argentinian coffee shop, in that most of was actually a bar where the customers stand to drink their coffee. We were lucky enough to snag the last indoor table left. The place was filled with people, mostly older men discussing politics and the lottery. Seems like a strange combination of topics, but I guess they do both involve gambling. We ordered our regular Diet Coke and cappuccino. Mom was feeling a bit hungry, so she also ordered a "carlito." Yes, in most Spanish-speaking countries, this would be the name of a little boy. In Argentina, however, it is apparently a hot sandwich. Hers came with ham and cheese. I didn't get a taste, but I'm assured that it was delicious. The waitress was a bit concerned that Mom didn't want any mayonnaise on it, though.

After our brunch, it seemed to have gotten even colder out than when we started. This wasn't helping with Mom's back, so we decided to go back to our warm hotel and take a break for a while. We'd ventured a bit farther than we thought, so it took us over half and hour to get back. By the time we made it up to the room, I was beginning to get hungry. Luckily, we still had our huge bottle of Diet Coke and some leftover bread and fruit. I snacked on that while Mom relaxed with a nice game of "Angry Birds." Well, maybe "relax" isn't really the best word. Let's just say that Mom can get a bit competitive with her online gaming. I learned quite a few new words as she played! I am happy to report, however, that she is slowly but surely defeating those pesky pigs and has now reached level 6. I really hope I never make her as angry as those birds do, though!

With Mom settled in for her anti-pig campaign, I decided to head out on my own a bit, lest I get caught in the crossfire. I headed out in the opposite direction from which we normally went. The woman at the information center had told me that there was a tower in the park that way, and that it had great views of the whole city. I arrived to the park at 2:35 p.m. The tower closes at precisely 2:30. I was kind of disappointed about missing it so closely, but there were still plenty of other things to see in the park. Spring has arrived in South America, so there were all sorts of fresh-blooming flowers everywhere! There was a very large trellis covered with beautiful, purple flowers. They smelled amazing! They almost looked (and smelled) like lilacs, but not quite. Either way, they are awesome and I want some. Maybe someone out there can help me identify them. There was also a huge tree filled with white blossoms. They didn't smell as good to me, but the local bees thought otherwise. I couldn't find a hive anywhere nearby, but the entire tree was surrounded by hundreds of bees! I spent a while trying to get some pictures of the, but bees are quick little things! It took me about 45 minutes, but I did finally get some good pictures. In fact, the picture set as the cover to this blog was taken at that tree!

I wandered around a bit more, just enjoying the clean air. It was nice to get out of the big city and be able to breathe for a while! Eventually, I decided I'd better make sure Mom wasn't getting too violent with her pigs, so I started back towards the hotel. On the way, I passed by the courthouse, where there was a protest going on. I'm not familiar at all with Argentinian politics, but apparently there is a law that prevents mining companies and others from dumping contaminants into the drinking water supply. Recently, there have been talking about repealing the law and allowing the companies to let their waste run off into the rivers--specifically the one that provides potable water to the city of Mendoza. The protest was fairly small, maybe about 30 people in total, and quite peaceful. In fact, most of them were just sitting on the steps, holding their signs and eating sandwiches. I paused to take a look, and one of the young men came down the steps to explain their campaign to me. Half of the explanation was made while he still had some of his sandwich in his mouth, so I didn't quite catch the specifics. He said they were making a petition for the local government not to repeal the law. He asked me to sign, and said it was ok for me to do so, even though I was a foreigner. It sounded like a good cause to me, so I signed. Hopefully I understood his explanation enough and didn't just sign up for a free year-long trip to Antarctica or something like that!

Now that I'd signed my life away, I figured I'd better definitely hurry back home. I made a quick stop to snap a photo of some more flowers I saw on the other side of the courthouse. As I was packing up my camera, a dog walked out from under the bushes and just sat down right in front of me. I said "hello" to him, to which he responded by jumping right up on me and trying to "kiss" me. I love animals and everything, but ever since my "flea" incident the last time I was in Chile, I've become very wary of strays. He was very friendly and not in the least threatening, but I've learned the hard way that touching unknown animals doesn't always yield good results. I pushed him down, said "good-bye" and continued on my way. Apparently he wasn't quite ready for "good-bye" just yet. He started to follow me, and I checked to see if maybe I had some leftover food somewhere on me that he was trying to get to, but I found nothing and I told him so. He continued to follow me anyway.

I tried a few more times to get rid of him, but he just kept coming. I've had dogs follow me for a block or two, but none ever this insistent! The hotel was a good 20 minute walk away, so I figured that if I kept going, he'd eventually get bored and go back to his home. Guess not. He actually ended up following me all the way back to the hotel. On the way, people kept asking me about him, assuming he was mine. Even when I abruptly changed directions, he stayed right on me. I eventually gave up and just gave in to the idea that I had a new pet for the day. When we reached the hotel, he even tried to come inside with me! The concierges weren't too keen on that, so they made sure to keep him out and even chased him a little. Before I went in, I tried to tell the dog to wait outside for me, but as you all know my "dog-language" is a bit rusty so I couldn't be sure that he understood. I wanted him to wait because we still had the leftovers from the parrillada in our hotel room, and I thought he definitely deserved a reward after walking so far with me. I ran up to the room to grab the goodies, and hurried back out to try to find him.

I didn't see him anywhere on the sidewalks or in the streets of the next few blocks, so I figured the concierges must have scared him off. I decided to walk back a bit in the direction we'd come from, to see if maybe he'd turned off onto another street. I didn't have to go that far, though, because I found him in the little convenience store next to the hotel, trying to beg some chocolate from the owner. Of course, the owner told me to get "my" dog out of his store. I didn't even have to say anything, because as soon as the dog saw me, he ran right towards me. There was a lot of meat left over, so I started out just giving him small pieces. He wasn't too fond on the sausage, but he really liked the pork ribs. He devoured the pieces so quickly that I finally just gave in and dumped out the whole bag for him. I'm pretty sure he thought he'd gone to heaven at that point. As he enjoyed his meat, I said "good-bye" one last time and headed back to the hotel. I knew that if I stayed until he finished, he would try to follow me again and I was already doing all I could to fight the temptation to take him home with me! By the time I came out again an hour later, he was gone. At least I know he was well-fed!

Back in the hotel, I found Mom in the courtyard reading and enjoying some more Mendoza wine. I asked her how her "Angry Birds" progress was, but she didn't want to talk about it. Instead, we discussed the wedding a bit more. I was concerned because I had initially planned to wear a simpler, shorter dress so that we could go straight from the ceremony to hiking in the mountains. With the change of plans in the dress department, it looked like that wasn't going to happen after all. And now that I had such a beautiful dress, I wanted an excuse to be able to wear it more, not less! We talked about having a more traditional reception afterwards, but that's just not really my (or Scott's) style. In the end, I decide I'm going to go hiking in the dress anyways--all we have to do is figure out some way to rig up the skirt so that I don't fall. Although having a higher skirt doesn't necessarily guarantee that I won't fall anyways.

www.toursinspain.com

With that important decision made, I took a look at my watch and saw that if we hurried we could still make it to the open-top bus tour of the city. Mom was still recovering from her back pain and her violent battle with the birds, but told me to go ahead without her. The tour was scheduled to leave from Plaza Independencia in about 10 minutes, so I rushed out and hurried to the plaza. I shouldn't have worried; Argentinian time is even less precise than Chilean time! I got to the pick-up point just about two minutes before the scheduled departure, and the bus was only half full. I figured it was because of the cold, dreary weather and hopped on to find a spot by myself near the back. There were a few more people behind me, and once they got on, it looked like we were good to go! Apparently not. I guess the driver was determined to fill up his bus, even if it did mean some hard selling. He left us in the parked bus and started to wander the plaza, trying to sell people on the idea of riding in the open-top vehicle up a large hill on a cold, windy day. Most people weren't buying it. Finally, he convinced a family of six to sign up and fill in the remainder of the empty seats. Now, twenty minutes after the scheduled departure, we all settled in and got on our way.

As it turned out, the tour didn't show much of the city itself, but was instead focused on Parque San Martín. The only part of the city that was included on the tour was the street leading from the plaza to the park. I was kind of disappointed, because I'd thought that we'd already seen most of the park, but it was too late to get off now. Oh, well, at least I would get the history this time. Going up the main street to the park, I learned why we hadn't seen any very old buildings during our explorations of the city. Mendoza was originally founded in 1561 by Spanish explorers who had come from Chile. In fact, the city's official name is "Ciudad de Mendoza del Nuevo Valle de La Rioja," after the then-governor of Chile. The town center was strategically placed on what the Spaniards believed to be the largest river in the area, but actually turned out to be a wide irrigation canal dug by the indigenous Huarpe people. In fact, Mendoza is naturally a pretty harsh desert, but the native people had long ago conquered it with a complex series of irrigation ditches, some which are still in use today.

www.diasdehistoria.com.ar

With all the dirty work in preparing the land for habitation out of the way, the Spanish did what they did best: moved in and took over. Actually, an interesting fact about this city is that it was one of few (or perhaps the only) that was acquired legally according to the standards of the native peoples in the area. The explorer Pedro del Castillo had developed a good relationship with the Huarpe people, and had even spent an entire winter living among them. This, along with the fact that the Huarpe were an exceptionally pacific people, led them to agree to allow the Spanish ownership of the land. And besides, it really was in the middle of nowhere without easy access to water and other villages; how advantageous could it really be to them? The Huarpes even helped to establish and build the new Spanish colony and were, in fact, its most populous residents throughout the rest of the 16th century. Despite efforts by Chilean authorities to send colonists to the new land, it seemed most were reluctant to cross one of the largest mountain expanses only to reach a desert surrounded by "savages." It wasn't until the early 17th century when a group of colonists were sent to the city and them promptly denied access back to Chile that the city started to grow. Forced by the blockade to grow their own crops and become self-sufficient, the new settlers finally resigned themselves to life in Mendoza and adapted to their new environment.

www.juggle.com/mendoza

They adapted quite well (with the help of some farming techniques learned from the Huarpe), and by 1813, Mendoza was a thriving metropolis and served as an outpost for traders moving goods across the Andes Mountains. It was this year that it also became the center for the newly establish province of Cuyo. Things were looking good for the city of Mendoza, and it seemed as if nothing could slow its upward progress.

www.metaforaenadobe.blogspot.com

That is, until the night of Thursday, March 20, 1861, almost exactly 300 years after its founding. As the clock approached midnight, the 12,000 residents were awakened as the earth began to move beneath them. The area had been prone to tremors before, but nothing of this scale. By the next morning, the 7.2 magnitude earthquake had killed nearly 5,000 people and left the survivors homeless. Not one building had been untouched, or one life unaffected. To date, the 1861 earthquake is still the largest ever recorded in the area. For the residents of the city, that year became known as "el año que Mendoza desapareció."--"the year Mendoza disappeared."

But the Mendocinos are strong people, and the survivors dusted themselves off and began to rebuild the city almost immediately. The "old" city near the river was left exactly as it had been by the earthquake. Instead, new construction was begun to the west of the original city, closer to the mountains. There had been a few houses in that area prior to the earthquake, and portions of them were still standing. Architects designing the "new" Mendoza wanted to start over, so the post-earthquake structures were build in a very modern style, as opposed to the very traditional architecture of the original buildings. In fact, the people held such reverence for their old city that it was over half a century before anything was rebuilt in the "old" section of the city. In the newer parts, however, some interesting architecture sprung up. Instead of completely demolishing the old houses, new structures were built right into them ! There are quite a few such houses that can be seen on the road leading to the park, but the bus was moving so quickly that I only managed to get a shot of one of them. This building is now used as apartments, but the land was originally owned by a wealth Mendocino who built his estate there. The entire building was destroyed in the earthquake, save for the magnificent turret that was incorporated into the apartments and now serves as a grand entrance for its residents.

By the time our quick history lesson was complete, we had arrived at the gates to Parque San Martín. The park is part of the "new" city built after the earthquake. In fact, it was built as part of a reforestation program that began in an effort to combat the epidemics of diphtheria, measles, and cholera that had plagued the city since the earthquake. Originally named "Parque del Oeste" (Western Park), construction on this European-inspired garden began in 1896. It was an ambitious project at a time when the city's resources were already spread much too thinly, and it was the cause of quite a bit of controversy among the city's leaders. Some argued that the money would be better spent improving the sewers and waterways of the city. Eventually, it was agreed that the park would do the most good in improving city health by enhancing the air quality in the area. They also argued for the benefits of a "trickle-down" economy, contending that the beautification of the land would lead to higher property values encouraging a wealthier class of citizens to make their way to Mendoza, bringing their money with them. This money could then, in turn, be used to make other improvements that the city required.

I'm not sure if it was a direct result of the construction of the park, but Mendoza's economy sure seemed to be booming when we were there! And I sure appreciate the efforts to construct the park--it's a great place to escape and relax. It's also home to some of Mendoza's most famous landmarks, such as the Estadio Malvinas Argentina and the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. The university's medical school is located right in the heart of the park. What a great place to study! Another not so famous yet equally important landmark that can be found inside the park is the Club Mendoza de Regata--the city's rowing club. We were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the team out for their afternoon jog as we passed by the club. Most of the people on the bus were middle-aged women, and I'm pretty sure the collective sigh that this sight released from them could be heard throughout the park. It did, of course, catch the attention of the team, who were all kind enough to look over and wave at us. I'm surprised none of the women fainted at this point.

As we all settled down from that excitement, the driver drove us to a roundabout with a huge fountain in the center. This, he told us, was the "fuente de los continentes." As stated before, the creators of the park were very inspired by European examples and wanted to emulate their idols as much as possible. It'd be great to have a grand story about the origin of the fountain, but it was actually purchased from a catalog. Yes, that is correct--apparently such catalogs were fairly common at this time (was this the same era in which you could buy your house from a Sears catalog?). It was purchased in 1910 from a French foundation for the equivalent of about $2000USD. Despite its somewhat boring origins, it is a very beautiful work of art. Modeled after 18th century European fountains, its four sides represent the four world continents--America, Asia, Europe, and Africa (at the time, Oceania was considered part of Asia and Antarctica wasn't really considered at all). Each continent is held up by figures modeled after Greek statues, and at the base of the fountain mermaids can be seen frolicking in the water. It's an interesting juxtaposition of many different cultures. We drove around three times just to get a complete view!

Now it was time to head to the main attraction--Cerro La Gloria. It is the biggest hill in the city (the Andes aren't in the city, so they don't count), but that's not what makes it so famous. The hill is famous because it is home to the Monumento al Ejército de los Andes. The "Ejército de los Andes" was the military unit from Mendoza that fought to restore independent governance to Chile and to free Peru from Spanish dominance. Led by general José de San Martín, it was comprised mostly of freed mulatto slaves and former Chilean soldiers that had emigrated to Mendoza after the Chilean revolutionary war. They are most famous for their successful crossing of the Andes, which took nearly a month. Once across, they joined with other Chilean forces in Santiago and were instrumental in the defeat of royalist forces in various battles, including the Battles of Chacabuco and Cancha Rayada. The Mendocinos are very proud of their contribution in these historic events, and this monument commemorates the brave men who fought so valiantly.

The monument was commissioned by law in 1888, but its creation did not begin until 1909. It was designed and created by Uruguayan sculptor Juan Manuel Ferrari. The work took many years to complete, but finally, in January of 1912, the final stone was laid on the statue on the anniversary of the army's departure across the Andes. The monument was officially inaugurated on February 12, 1912, the 97th anniversary of the Battle of Chacabuco, and the day was declared a regional holiday. Today, the monument is the most visited attraction in the city of Mendoza. It's interesting to see the great detail in the monument, and I can easily understand why it took so many years to create. In fact, I'm surprised it didn't take more! I also learned (by eavesdropping on a different tour group) that there are international rules regulating the creation of monuments. According to the regulations, if a soldier is to be depicted on a horse in a monument, the horse must be positioned differently depending on how the solider died. If the soldier died in battle, both of the horse's front legs must be reared up. If he died as a result of wounds received in battle, one of the horse's legs must remain on the ground. Finally, if he died of natural causes, all four of the horses legs must be firmly planted on the ground. Not all sculptors follow these regulations, but Ferrari was a stickler for details. His depiction of general José de San Martín shows the horse with all four legs on the ground. After a successful career, the general retired to France, where he died of old age in 1850.

We stopped to enjoy the the monument and the view from the top of the hill for about 20 minutes. Most of the people used the time as an opportunity to take a bathroom break and to grab snacks from the vendor at the other end of the parking lot. Not many were too interested in the monument (which might explain why all the information I gathered came from reading the plaques and listening in on other tour groups instead of from our own guide). I tried to get as much information as I could, because I know how much all of you love to read the extended history lessons on my blog! I also took way too many pictures of all the detail on the monument. I can't post them here, but check out my Facebook page to see all the pictures I took! I also took a moment to enjoy the view of the city of Mendoza. It's a lot bigger than I imagined, and it kind of reminds me of San Antonio. The population is just under 2 million people, but even in the downtown area you always feel as if you're in a small town. I guess that's just what you get from spread-out desert cities!

By the time we got back on the bus, the temperature had dropped and the wind had picked up. As we headed down the hill at full speed, we all started to wish that the bus weren't open-topped. We tried to enjoy the views on the way down, but I think most of us were just hoping to get to the tree cover as soon as possible and hopefully get out of the wind. On the way down, we passed by the stadium, and everyone got really excited about that. Most of the other people on the tour were Chilean, and apparently there had just been a big Chile v. Argentina match at that stadium, so of course this called for extensive heckling of our Argentinian guide. He took it all in stride, though, and invited them to come back into town for the next match, when the tables would surely turn. The rest of the way back to the plaza was fairly quiet, with the guide focusing on avoiding the rush hour traffic and the guests huddling together to keep warm. I've never seen a group in such a hurry to get out of a vehicle, not even after the 10 hour flight from the U.S. to Chile!

After thanking the driver, I hurried back to the warmth of the hotel, where I once again found Mom cursing the birds for their inability to destroy the pigs. By this time we were both pretty hungry, but neither really wanted to venture into the cold to find something to eat. Instead, we opted for the hotel restaurant where we could avoid the wind and still get some great wine. I opted for a salad, but Mom went for the stuffed chicken. When we got our meal, we were disappointed that we'd left the camera in the room (but too hungry to make the effort to go back to get it). My salad was very colorful, with fresh seared salmon. Mom's dish looked almost too good to eat! Her four large pieces of chicken were stuffed with a blend of ham and cheese, and were all arranged atop a saffron-spiced bed of rice. To top it all off, there was a beautiful latticed potato slice sticking right out of the middle of it all. We were pleasantly surprised to learn that not only was the presentation beautiful, the food was exquisite! And reasonably priced, too! We got our two meals and two glasses of wine for under $35! All in all, it was a great way to end a long day.

Bees? Bees!? Bees!!

2012-09-16T22:00:00.000+01:00

The previous day had been such a whirlwind that we just needed to relax a bit the next day. We actually woke up fairly early, considering how tired we were the night before. At breakfast, we discussed our options for the day. We decided not to try to venture anywhere too exotic, and stick mostly to the shopping area downtown. Mendoza is know for it's wine and leather. We'd already had some wine the night before to celebrate, so we headed out to check out all the hype about the leather. If it was anywhere as good as the wine, we were in for a treat!

We walked through Plaza Independencia to get to Calle Sarmiento, the main pedestrian street in Mendoza. It is full of all sorts of great shops and restaurants. We were going to try just window-shopping at first, but that really only worked at the first store (and only because it wasn't open yet). There were so many unique things to see that we couldn't help going inside! We had some requests for souvenirs from family and friends, so we were also trying to keep our eyes open for the perfect gifts. Jaimee had asked for a mate, which you'd think would be an easy task in Argentina. What we didn't realize is that there are about twenty million (give or take) different types, sizes, and designs, and then once you figure that out, you have to decide on the bombilla (straw) to go with it! She'd also requested one that was already cured (most are made from wood or gourds, so you have to seal them so they don't leak), so we asked everyone about that. I think that might be the only phrase in Spanish that Mom knows, we asked so much! Apparently, pre-cured mates are not very common. We eventually found a really great one from an artisan in Plaza Independencia, but she'll still have to cure it. Sorry, Jaimee!

Hannah had asked for a mask (since Mom had brought her some from Costa Rica, she'd kind of started a collection), but of course once we started looking for those, they also became quite elusive. Masks are typically an indigenous art, but nearly all of the natives of Argentina were wiped out when the Spaniards began to settle in the sixteenth century, so not much of their cultural heritage is left. Eventually we found a great hanging with a Mapuche mask on it. The artisan told us that it represented the sun, and it was supposed to help the owner find peace and harmony. Hopefully it'll work out for Hannah! We had some trouble getting it through customs on the way back into Chile, because it also has a wind-chime component that is made out of large seeds!

We also found a really neat chocolate shop, with the factory right in the same building! Sometimes, they give tours of the factory, but it was closed at the moment. We had to be satisfied with a peek through the glass windows. We also got to sample some freshly-made alfajores, so it was definitely worth the visit. The store was filled with every type of chocolate you can imagine, and we were very proud to be able to muster the self-restraint to only buy three packages of it. We bought a box of typical chocolates from around Argentina, along with some "ramitas," which are very fine pieces of chocolate curled on top of each other to create a delicious, flaky treat! They're popular in other parts of the world, as well, but Mom had never had one so I convinced her to give it a try. We also got a super-secret gift for Dad that I cannot disclose but can assure you is awesome, and delicious.

www.buenosaires-argentina.com

Our shopping had tired us out, so we decided to take a coffee break. We stopped at a cafe called Havana, which is a popular chain in Argentina (it exists in Chile, too, but Chileans aren't as into coffee as Argentinians). Mom ordered her daily Diet Coke and I ordered my cappuccino. This one was beautiful as well, but I was too caffeine-deprived at this point to take out my camera and snap a picture. Even the pastries were more complete--we got two little chocolate-covered cookies (as opposed to just one sugar cookie the day before). While the presentation was a bit fancier, I'm still sticking by my declaration that my first cappuccino was better. The service at this place was the best, though! The waitress was very attentive and even helped us out with suggestions. She came to check on us and cleaned off the table before we sat down. I know it might seem I'm getting overly excited about little things, but those gestures are extremely rare among waitstaff in Chile (at least in my experience)!

We sat at the coffeeshop for a while, just enjoying the cool breeze and watching people walk by. Afterwards, we checked out some more leather shops. I am notorious for hating shoes, and the ones I'd brought on this trip were about to fall about (that's what happens when you buy them for $6 at Lider/Walmart). I'd been keeping my eyes out for new ones, but I'm extremely picky and hadn't seen anything that I liked. Then, we came upon a very small store that we nearly missed altogether. In the window, they had some beautiful leather shoes that looked similar in style to Toms. I know leather is pretty expensive, so I didn't seriously consider them, but we stopped inside the store anyway. Turns out they were 150 Argentine pesos, which comes out to less than $35USD. I tried some on that had a painted floral pattern, and surprisingly enough, they fit well and were actually comfortable. I was really excited (I don't think anyone can truly appreciate how much until they've tried shoe-shopping with me. It's usually quite an ordeal). Now I've got my casual shoes, so hopefully I won't have to shop for them again for a while! Mom also tried on a pair and ended up liking them so much that she bought two pairs! She even bought a matching belt to go with.

All the excitement from the shoes made us hungry again, so we headed over to the Mercado Central to see what we could find for lunch. Unfortunately, since it was Sunday, the meat and vegetable vendors closed up early and we didn't get to explore that part of the market. But the prepared food stands were still open, so we went in to check it out anyway. We ended up deciding on pizza, but didn't know what size to get. I asked the waiter to just bring the best one for two people, but I should have learned on the first day that what Argentinians consider food for two would be considered enough for four elsewhere! We ended up getting a delicious, yet very large pizza. The fresh-made pizza and two bottled drinks came out to around $12USD, so the price was very good. We filled up after the second slice each, but forced ourselves to eat a bit more. That way, we wouldn't have to waste much (and maybe wouldn't have to eat dinner, either)!

Satisfied from our late lunch, we decided we'd had enough shopping for the day and headed back towards the hotel for an afternoon nap. We were almost back to the hotel when we noticed a couple girls staring up into a tree. We were a bit confused at first, but as we neared the tree, we saw what they were looking at--a huge nest of bees! I'd forgotten my camera that morning, but Mom pulled hers out and snapped some photos. The tree was really tall, so the nest was fairly high up, but even still it looked huge! It's good to see that the bee population is thriving somewhere, at least! We watched the bees for a while, mesmerized by the intricacy of their nest and the coordination of the hive. Then we went back to the hotel to enjoy a nice, quiet evening with a nap and some reruns of CSI on TV. I will leave you with a commercial that we saw. This commercial actually plays everywhere in Latin America, so I'd seen it before in Chile. What I didn't realize until now was that they use the same actors for each country, but change up the accent to fit the target region! It was a bit shocking to see the same actors I'd been watching for the past few months with completely different voices. I'm now left wondering what accent they actually have, and which ones were dubbed! Or maybe they're just such good actors that they can do any accent. Hmm... the mystery...

Here's the commercial they show in Chile:

And the one they show in Argentina:

Dancing and Dresses

2012-09-16T00:44:00.000+01:00

Despite going to bed early the day before, Mom and I managed to sleep until almost 10:00 a.m. the next day. Luckily, it was Saturday, which meant that the complimentary breakfast would be open until 11:00. We were now well-rested, but very hungry (remember, we'd only eaten one meal the day before), so we threw on some clothes and headed down to breakfast. When we'd arrived the day before, we'd see the breakfast area, and it looked just big enough to have coffee and maybe some toast. To our surprise, what we'd thought was a wall was actually a giant door that opened into a large dining room with a breakfast buffet on an entire wall. Of course, we went straight for the coffee. Chile isn't known for having the best coffee, so we (especially me) had been feeling a bit deprived. Argentina, on the other hand, was settled by a large population of Italians, so they can do coffee right.

Chilean Alfajores

Argentinian Alfajores

The breakfast was mostly a cold spread, with pastries, cakes, meats, and cheeses. There were also some scrambled eggs and toast, and even a fresh fruit bar. They had cereal available, but the bowls they provided were so tiny you would have needed about 5 of them to equal a "normal"-sized cereal bowl. Most of the selection was a bit on the sweet side (they even had something that looked like pecan pie with chocolate and caramel), but we were still feeling adventurous (and very hungry) so we tried a little bit of everything. We even got to try Argentinian alfajores--sugar cookies filled with dulce de leche and bathed in chocolate. Alfajores exist in Chile, as well, but are a bit different. The Chilean cookies are thinner and not as sweet, and are filled with manjar, which is thicker than dulce de leche. Chilean alfajores also do not usually have chocolate, but are instead coated with coconut flakes. The two types of cookies are so different, I can't really say I have a favorite. Although the chocolate did go quite nicely with fresh coffee!

After getting our fill at breakfast, we headed back up to the room to shower and plan the rest of the day. We decided to check out Parque San Martín, the oldest and largest park in Mendoza. We figured it might be a good idea to get a map this time, though, so we stopped at the front desk on our way out to ask for one. The map showed the whole city, but also seemed to have a pretty decent layout of the park, so we took it and made our way in that direction.

We passed by Plaza Independencia on the way over and heard some loud hip-hop music and saw a large crowd gathered in the center of the park. We took a slight detour to see what was going on. Turns out there was a youth dance competition, so we stuck around to watch for a while. There was a new act starting just as we got there--a large group of middle-school aged girls doing a hip-hip routine. We were a bit shocked by the vulgarity of the lyrics, but no one else seemed to be too concerned with it. I guess that's the beauty of not understanding English--you can play all the popular songs without worrying about offending anyone! The girls were of varying skill levels, and there were a ton of them--about 30 all dancing together! And the entire routine lasted over 15 minutes and through at least 4 different songs. It was just as entertaining to watch the spectators cheer the girls on as it was to watch them dance. We took a seat and thought we might stay for a while to watch the other acts, but when the first routine was done, a large camera crew came out onto the stage and started interviewing the dancers. It would've been interesting to hear the interviews, but they weren't broadcast to the crowd, so everyone there just had to sit and wait until it was done. It was a short interview--less than 10 minutes--and then the group left the stage. It looked as if another group of older girls would go next, as they started arranging themselves on the stage. They were just about set up when the camera crew once again came over and ushered them off to do some interviews off-stage. This time, they started interviewing each girl individually. We got bored after about 10 more minutes of waiting, and decided just to continue our trek to the park.

Along the way we passed through one of the more upscale neighborhoods of the city where high-profile people, such as politicians, live. The houses were very large and gorgeous, although none of them seemed that old, which confused us a bit. Mendoza was founded in 1561, and this was supposed to be the main part of the city, so we thought we'd have seen some older architecture. We found out the reason we didn't during our trip to the history museum a few days later. I'll explain that part in a while, but for now it must remain a mystery.

It took us a while to reach the park, but that was mostly because we had to stop fairly often to admire the mansions and also to say "hello" to some of the dogs that resided in their yards. Eventually we arrived at the gates to the park, and immediately felt as if we had been transported back to 19th century Europe. Apparently, that is exactly what the designers of the park wanted. There are actually three gates--a large one in the middle with two smaller ones on each side. The structure was actually designed in Scotland in the late 19th century for the Moorish Sultan Abdul Hamid II. Unfortunately, his kingdom fell upon hard times, and the doors were left unfinished at the factory in Scotland. That is, until the governor of Mendoza heard about them and decided to buy them from the fabricator and modify them with definite Mendocino flair. They are made mostly of iron, and stands 22 feet at the highest point. On each door, the coat of arms for the city is carved and painted gold. On the top center is a statue of a condor, another symbol of the city of Mendoza. They were installed in the park in the year 1907, just over a decade after the inauguration of the park in 1896. It really is a splendor to see, especially with the beautiful green trees outlining the park and the snow-covered mountains in the distance.

We admired the gates for a few minutes before entering the park. As we walked in, we saw a visitors' center off to the left and realized that we were actually quite thirsty. We'd already walked a bit farther than expected, and it was about 85 degrees out. We stopped over at the center to grab some water and see if we could find more information about the park. We tried to get a more detailed map of just the park area, but couldn't find any. We glanced at the large map on display and figured that we could just explore a bit and use our small map if we got lost. The park was grand, but it didn't look unmanageable based on the map. On the map we'd seen an icon for a zoo and thought it might be fun to check that out, so we began walking in approximately the correct direction. We followed the main street within the park for a while, but began to get tired of the fumes let off by all the cars and buses. There were some trails leading into the forest, so we though we'd try for a shortcut through one of them. There were only about five streets marked on our map, and none of the pedestrian trails were marked, but we figured it wouldn't be too hard to make it as long as we continued towards the direction of the zoo.

We walked for another 45 minutes or so and passed through a couple playgrounds full of children, some exercise areas, a large parking lot, and even through a row of families barbecuing in preparation for the lunch crowd, but still didn't come upon the zoo. We sat down to take a look at the map, thinking that we must have been nearly at the other end of the park by now. We sat next to a large building surrounded by barbed-wire fences, but couldn't manage to find it on the map. Eventually we found some street signs and saw that we had made it about a third of the way to the zoo, and had made even less progress towards the end of the park. Of course, we only realized much later that the entire park covers nearly 400 hectares, and that a large portion of that is a very steep hill with a tense tree cover. We probably made the right decision when we decided to forgo the zoo and head back into town.

By this time it was early afternoon and we were getting thirsty again. We remembered seeing a coffeeshop on the street leading to the park, so we went back the same way to stop there for a break after our two hour adventure in Parque San Martín. We found a nice spot in the shade on the patio and sat down to relax. Mom ordered a Diet Coke, and I ordered a cappuccino. We didn't realize it at the time, but we had just started our Mendoza tradition--a mid-afternoon break every day for soda and coffee. I tried to get a photo of every coffee I ordered throughout the week to compare them, but there were a few times when my need for caffeine outweighed my desire to find a camera. I did manage to get a photo of this one, though, and I must say that I believe it was the best one of the trip.

www.damen.nl

While enjoying our drinks, we chatted about the day and plans for the rest of the week. A young man about my age sitting across the patio overheard us speaking English and asked us where we were from. He was relieved to meet some other English-speakers, because he was from Holland and was only in South America for a short time to visit a friend. His friend was ill that day, so he was on his own. He heard us talking about the park, and asked us for some advice because that's where he was headed next. We started out talking between the tables, but eventually we just invited him to come over and sit with us. His name is Kun, and turns out he graduated from university last year and has been working for an international ship-building company called Damen ever since. It was really interesting talking to him and learning about how ship-building works! He even got to spend two weeks at the factory in Romania just to see how everything goes together. We talked with him for a while and gave him some advice for South America, and he gave us some for Europe. We talked for quite a while, but eventually said our good-byes (and warned him about conserving his energy if he wandered in the park), and went our separate ways.

Kun headed off for his adventure in the park, and we went back for some more tranquil shopping downtown. We browsed some of the shops for a bit and bought some odds and ends souvenirs for friends and family (well, mostly Mom did. I'm not that nice). We were still pretty tired out from our excursion to the park, so we started heading back to the hotel around 5:00. Before we'd left for Argentina, I'd shown Mom some of the ideas I had for wedding dresses, so (unbeknownst to me), she'd been keeping her eye out for some dress shops. Right as we turned off from the main shopping street, she saw exactly what she was looking for. There was a small boutique shop with a beautiful blue dress displayed in the window. It was more of a fancy beach dress, with a large floral print and beading on the bust and straps. It wasn't exactly what I'd been thinking of for a dress, but I did know that I didn't want a simple white one.

I'm not really into clothing, especially not formal outfits, but Mom convinced me to go inside and look at some of the dresses. The shop was more of a formal/quince shop rather than a wedding shop; in fact, I don't recall seeing any white dresses at all! It was also quite small--there were only two racks of dresses on display, and apparently they had a small storage closet in the back where they kept a few other ones. I only hate trying on clothing a little less than I hate trying on shoes, so I agreed to go in and take a look but nothing more. Of course, try saying that to a mother who's excited about her daughter's wedding. And this might actually be the last time we see each other before the actual wedding, so Mom really wanted to at least see me in some dresses. After much coercing, I agreed to try on a few, just so she could see them.

We asked about the one in the window, but apparently all the pieces are one-of-a-kind and that one was already sold. Instead, Mom pulled out a purple gown with one beaded strap. I'd never imagined myself in a dress of that style, but I tried it on anyways. I did really enjoy the color! It was a size 10, so the saleswoman really had to pull it in an put clips on it so that it didn't fall off. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would, although felt a bit nervous when they had me come out to step on the podium in front of the windows. Not only was it way too wide for me, it was also quite long and I nearly killed myself taking the four steps out of the dressing room and onto the podium. It looked pretty good, but I really wasn't thinking about buying dresses; I was mostly just trying them on to humor Mom. I thought I could get one on and that would be enough, but by the time I came out, she already had three more picked out for me to try! The next one was similar to the one in the window, but the straps crossed over each other in the front and were made entirely out of large (heavy) beads. It was very colorful, but it seemed more appropriate for a beach setting. I liked it as well, but once again it was about 8 sizes too large, and the crossing straps at the front bunched up. This only served to make me look like a 6-year-old trying on mother's clothing. I reluctantly came out onto the podium, and everyone agreed that this wasn't the dress for me. "Good," I thought, "we can be done now." Not quite; now Mom handed me a light pink strapless dress with silver and pink flowered beading on the bust. The skirt can only be described as "fairy-like"--it was straight when I stood still, but whenever I moved a little it flowered out in all different directions. It was still much too big, but when I walked out of the dressing room with that one on, everyone (including the other customers) gasped and agreed that this was "the dress."

I wasn't really sure, and I definitely didn't want to make such a quick decision, so I asked the owner, Monica, if we could come back in a day or two. She said we could, but that if I wanted to have the dress ready before we left town on Wednesday, they'd have to start altering it soon. I was really reluctant to decide at that point, especially since the dress was so different from what I'd been picturing in my mind. As I was about to just say "no," the seamstress came in and saw me in the dress. Monica asked her about alterations, and they both agreed to take my measurements for the dress, just in case I did decide I wanted to buy it. By now it was around 6:30, and the store was going to close at 9:00. They said they'd pin up the dress for alteration, and that if I let them know before closing they'd get started on it right away. If not, I had no obligation at all. Mom was really excited about the dress, and took some pictures so that we could show Jaimee and get some fashion advice before making the final decision. As you can see by my expressions, I was a bit overwhelmed by how fast everything seemed to be moving.

The seamstress had me stand back up at the podium to pin up the dress, and as she did she asked me about the occasion. I told her and Monica that the dress was for a wedding, and they inquired whose. When I told them that it would be for my own, they both gasped and squealed, shocked that a bride would wear such a thing. I thought they might try to convince me not to do it at first, but then Monica's eyes lit up and she ran off towards the storage closet, yelling "don't move!" I thought, "uh oh, here she comes with a 'real' wedding dress and I'm probably going to have to put it on just to please everyone." Instead, she'd pulled out the most stunning princess gown. "Now this," she said, "would be perfect for a bride." It did look more like a "traditional" wedding dress, but that was kind of what I'd been trying to avoid. Everyone just looked so excited, though, so I agreed to try it on before we rushed home to ask Jaimee about the other dress.

When I put the dress on, it fit perfectly right away, no clips needed. That was a definite plus, not having to worry about it falling off as I stood on the podium to show it off. Even before I came out of the dressing room, I felt like a princess. And despite being strapless, it was actually quite comfortable (except for the bag of extra beads that they had stuffed inside of it to hide as I showed it off to everyone). This one was pink, which wasn't really the color I'd originally had in mind, but it looked beautiful anyway. The top part was a shaped corset that hugged my body just perfectly and was adorned with hundreds of small beads. Beneath the beading was the silk corset with a beaded flower accent. The skirt was very princess-like, and poofed out just enough to give me the "perfect" figure. It gave way at the bottom, giving the look of a small train. Everyone fell silent as I stepped up to the podium, and even I had to agree that it took my breath away (and just not because it was tight-fitting). It was completely, 100% opposite of everything that I'd had in mind, but it was gorgeous. The seamstress took a look at it and said that it really didn't have to be altered at all--maybe just shortening the skirt if I wanted to wear flat shoes. She could definitely have it done by Wednesday, no sweat.

Of course by now it was 7:30 and we still wanted to get back to the hotel to quickly ask Jaimee's opinion on the fashion and Dad's opinion on the price. And I was so overwhelmed, I felt like I wasn't even in my own body anymore. The Brittany I know doesn't wear poofy, pink princess dresses, even if it is her wedding. But she had also never felt so beautiful. This was quite a dilemma. I was very flustered, and Mom was so excited, so we rushed back to the hotel to get the opinions quickly. We couldn't get a hold of Dad, but Jaimee gave us the go-ahead, and Mom also agreed that it was perfect. I don't think I can even make a decision about lunch this quickly, but I decided to go for it. We hurried back towards the shop, only to realize that we'd left in such a flurry that we didn't remember the street it was on! We only got slightly lost, and managed to get back to the store just before closing. We told Monica the good news, and she sent me next door with her saleswoman to run the credit card.

While we were gone, Mom somehow managed to tell the whole story to Monica (even though she doesn't speak Spanish and Monica doesn't speak English--I have no idea how she keeps doing that!). It really is a great story, and I'm sure we'll have lots more to add onto it as the years go by. So far, we've gotten engaged in Chile, bought a wedding dress from Argentina, will be married in the U.S., and then live in the U.K. The rest of the story is a mystery, and I can't wait to find out how it unfolds.

Meat Me in Mendoza

2012-09-14T22:34:00.000+01:00

We woke up at 5:15 Friday morning to get ready in time to catch the shuttle I had reserved a couple weeks before to take us to the airport. Even though the flight wasn't supposed to leave until 9:30, the shuttle company always schedules extra time, just in case. We were supposed to get picked up outside the apartment at 6:15, so we went downstairs a few minutes early to wait. It was pretty cold outside, and when the shuttle hadn't arrived by 6:30, we were starting to get a bit nervous. I called the shuttle company to confirm that they were on their way, and they couldn't find our reservation! I was really surprised, because I've been using this company for every trip I've taken in Chile, and for when Scott and Mom came to visit, and I've never had any problems whatsoever. I'd actually only taken a taxi once here in Santiago, and that was when I moved from the hostel to the boarding house. The hostel had arranged that for me, but I'm not really comfortable using the taxis alone (I'm not sure how to tell which ones are legitimate), so I went inside to ask the concierge to call one for us.

www.elautoperfecto-taxis.blogspot.com

Of course, the one one duty was the one that I've had some "conflicts" with, so he wasn't all that excited to help me out. Ever since we resolved our differences, he has pretty much ignored me (which is fine with me), but I really wanted to be sure that I got the right taxi. When I asked for help, he kind of looked at me like I was stupid and asked me why I didn't just get one outside. I explained that I didn't know which ones were safe (I remember the last time in Chile that some of the people in my program got into some big problems when they chose the wrong cab company). He still gave me "that look," but came out exasperatedly and pulled over a cab for us.

www.foroaviones.com

It actually turned out better to get the cab, because it was only a few dollars extra, and we ended up getting to the airport more quickly than we had expected. This turned out to be a definite advantage, because what I hadn't realized when looking at our tickets the day before was that even though the plane was owned by Iberia, it was operated by LAN. We didn't have any luggage, so we'd planned just to use the self-service kiosks and go straight through security. Apparently, however, that is not allowed on flights shared between different companies. I tried to check-in at both the Iberia and LAN kiosks, but neither could find our reservations. I was a bit nervous because our reservations weren't found by the website the day before, either, but I'd called the company and had been assured that they'd had the reservations. While I tried one last attempt at the automated kiosk, Mom got in line for the check-in counter, just in case. The line was so long that it had to snake through the queue reserved for the next airline over, and then still came nearly out the door. With no luck from the machines, Mom suggested that I try at the LAN ticket sales counter to at least confirm that they had the reservation. The line there was much shorter than at the check-in, and I only had to wait for one person in front of me. I handed the woman all of my reservation information, and there were a few tense moments when she couldn't find the reservation. Eventually she managed to find it and assured me that we were confirmed. However, our only option to get our tickets would be to stand in line. I thanked her for her help and went back to find Mom

www.practicallyathome.blogspot.com

By this time it was about 7:45 and Mom had moved about three inches since I last saw her. At the rate the line was moving, we were worried that we wouldn't make it to our gate on time. But we really didn't have any other choice, so we got in line and waited. And waited. And then just for something different, we waited some more. Luckily, the attendants were really good at paying attention to flight times, and were walking through the line, pulling people whose flights were leaving soon. We waited about another hour, and were finally near the front of the line. There were only about three more groups in front of us when the attendant starting walking through and calling our flight. He pulled us and we got to skip ahead of those three groups--woo hoo! Once we got to the counter, we once again faced some anxiety when they couldn't find our reservations in their system. Of course, it worked out that we got a trainee as well. I mean, you've got to learn sometime, but I'm not sure that putting a new person out during the busiest travel week of the year at the same time the electronic systems are being completely overhauled is the best idea. Eventually, she and her mentor managed to find our reservation and get everything smoothed out.

www.blackdresstraveler.com

It was about 9:00 by the time we got to the security checkpoint, but luckily, that part was easy. We didn't have to take out our electronics, we didn't have to take off our shoes or jackets, and we didn't even have to empty our pockets! There wasn't even a line to get through, so that part only took a couple minutes. Of course, on the other side we had to fill out some international documents to leave the country. We were a bit frazzled because no one had given us any forms to fill out, but we found them in a basket at the end of line. I felt very special because I got to fill out the "resident" form, and I actually didn't even need to use my passport because I had a Chilean national ID. Mom got a little nervous when the control agent took away the form she had filled out upon entering Chile, but she promised that she would get a new one upon returning to Chile.

We got through all the steps and finally arrived at our gate just a few minutes before the flight was due to take off. The area was already pretty full, but we found two open seats near a mother and her toddler. I left to buy Mom a soda, and by the time I came back, she was friends with both the mother and her child. They played together for a bit while we waited for boarding to begin. It was incredibly foggy outside--we couldn't even see the plane outside the window--so that delayed the boarding a little. Eventually, they called for pre-boarding, so the mother took her baby up to start boarding. Shortly thereafter, they called for general boarding and we got in line. They got about half of the people through, but when I went to give my ticket to the attendant, she told me to wait.

www.ajaccioairport.com

We figured they were just waiting for the congestion on the bridge to lighten up, but Mom went over to the window and saw that they weren't using a bridge. Our plane was actually out in the field, so they were going to put people on buses to transport them to it. However, there was apparently something wrong with the first bus, so they sent it away while they just left everyone waiting outside. It was really cold out, and of course most of the people out there were the pre-boarders, i.e. elderly and infants. After about ten minutes, a woman came back up the walk and started yelling at the counter attendants. Apparently, she was the mother of one of the very young infants and was getting concerned about the wait. The attendants tried to calm her down, but said they really didn't know when the bus would be ready. They told her just to wait at the top, out of the wind. Mom was the last person whose ticket had been scanned, so she was also at the top, waiting for me. She and the woman commiserated about the wait, even though neither spoke each other's language. I'm always amazed at how Mom can connect with just about anyone, even through a language barrier!

www.absoluteastronomy.com

The wait started to drag on, and people from the back of the boarding line started to come up to ask what was going on. The counter agent started to sound like a broken record, so many people kept coming up. I'm not sure why she didn't just announce it, but it was interesting to watch as her attitude deteriorated with each new person. I'm pretty sure she was the most relieved of everyone when she finally received the notice that the bus was ready. We were all shuffled into the bus and shuttled over to the plane. We found our seats and got settled in for the short flight over the mountains. I'm disappointed that I didn't have my camera available for the flight (they'd made us put everything into the overhead bins because we were in an exit row). The view of the Andes was amazing! There really is no way to describe the vastness of the mountain range. We flew over them for about 20 minutes, which is a really long time to be over mountains when you're moving that fast! It really was breathtaking! I don't have my own picture, but this one from an online encyclopedia is a great representation of what we saw. The view helped relax us a bit after all the excitement of the morning.

We arrived to the Mendoza airport a bit before 11:00. The airport is really small, and we were the only incoming flight at that time. We were seated in the middle of the plane, but somehow we ended up near the end of the line for passport control. Even though we were only one flight, there were only two people working the booths--one for Argentinians, and one for foreigners. And of course there were a lot more foreigners than Argentinians. The wait to get to the front took another half an hour or so, but we got through it without too much trouble. Then, we had to wait in another line to get through customs, but that only took about ten minutes. Nonetheless, we were definitely ready to be done by the time we got out of the airport. We got a taxi to our hotel, and were surprised that it only cost 25 pesos ($5USD).

We were also quite surprised that the driver spoke English very well. He asked us where we were from, and told us that he had lived in Florida for ten years. He was really nice, and even drove out of his way to show us around town (without charging extra, either). He gave us some advice on the best things to do in the area. Even though we were tired and didn't really want to talk at first, we couldn't help it with him, he was just so friendly and happy! It was a great way to be welcomed to this new country.

We arrived at the hotel just before noon. Check-in didn't start until 12:00, so we sat on the nice leather couches in the lobby while we waited for the last-minute preparations on the room. We got a room on the 8th floor with a great view of the city and the mountains in the distance. We got settled into the room, and realized that we were really hungry! We hadn't eaten anything except a piece of bread each, so we decided that the next step should be to find some lunch. We headed out to find a good place.

We were so hungry that we stopped at the first place that we saw. It was a warm, beautiful day, so we sat on the outside patio. The waiter was very attentive, and patient with us and our questions. Being in wine country, we of course started out with some local red wine. And the only thing better than Argentinian wine is Argentinian meat. We decided to go all out and order the parrillada for two. It was a big platter with a variety of meats prepared in traditional Argentinian fashion. When we ordered it, the waiter tried to tell us that we wouldn't like it, but we were feeling adventurous and went for it anyway. We overestimated our stomachs, because we only ended up being able to eat about half of this "meal for two" (bodybuilders, apparently).

The meal came out in two segments--the first course included such delicacies as choricillo (spiced sausage), morcilla (blood sausage), molleja (calve's glands), riñones (kidneys), and chinchulines (pig intestines). We must have been really hungry, because not only did we eat most of that, we actually enjoyed it! The only thing we agreed to not really like was the molleja, because it was just very greasy. But we were proud of ourselves for trying anyway! And I think we surprised the waiter, too! He's probably used to tourists ordering this dish and then complaining that it's too exotic. After we finished off the more exotic meats, we were served the more "normal" ones--ribs, veal, and chicken. They were all really delicious, but we were so full from our first course that we didn't manage to eat much of that course. The waiter was nice enough to wrap it up to go for us.

www.igdigital.com

We finished up our meal and were feeling very satisfied when we realized that we didn't actually have any Argentinian cash. That was fine, because we could pay the check with a credit card, but the waiter told us that tips had to be left in cash. He had been so attentive and helpful to us that we wanted to make sure to leave a tip, so Mom stayed at the table while I walked to the casino a couple blocks away to use the ATM. Of course, ATMs only give very large bills and while the waiter had been great, a 75% tip was a bit much. So, after getting the cash I continued walking in search of a place to get some change. I found a small convenience store and bought a 2-liter soda to keep in our room. It didn't come out to an exact amount, and the cashier asked if I had any small change. I didn't, and she didn't have enough in her drawer, so she ended up selling me some yogurt candy to make up for the change.

Eventually, I made my way back to restaurant with the right change to leave a tip. The waiter was very gracious (and even went out of his way to say "hello" to us when we saw his the following days). By the time everything was settled up, it was nearly 3:30, but we were much more satisfied and relaxed. We were tired out from our trip, but decided to try to keep going a bit longer before heading in. We walked towards the downtown area and shopped a bit, and just generally enjoyed the nice weather. In the main plaza of the town, Plaza Independencia, we found some artisan stands and picked out some nice souvenirs from the vendors there. It was really nice, too, because the artisans were really friendly and a lot of them even chatted with us. We met another person who had lived in the U.S. for a while (New York for this one), and also quite a high proportion of Chileans who moved from Santiago to get away from all the commotion. I can definitely understand that! Mendoza is a fairly large city (population around 2 million), but it definitely has a much more relaxed atmosphere than Santiago.

After our shopping excursion, we headed back to the hotel to finally slow down for the day. We got back around 7 and thought about getting dinner, but were too stuffed to do more than that. We actually didn't end up eating anything else for the rest of the night, we were so full! We got settled in, put on our pjs, and just relaxed for the rest of the night before going to bed early, exhausted but satisfied from our first day in Argentina.

Mom's Visit!

2012-09-13T21:17:00.000+01:00

www.origamichile.cl

Happy Chilean Independence Day! Well, next week, officially. Mom came down for a visit during the holidays (because I don't have to work the entire week), and we decided to take the opportunity to enjoy some relaxing outside of Santiago. I'm a little disappointed we're missing out on the Fiestas Patrias in Chile, but from what I've heard, it probably would have held our interest for a few hours and then we would have had enough. While the official Independence in on September 18, Chileans start celebrating as early as the 13 or 14 with outdoor festivals in parks and other open areas called "fondas." While I can't give exact details as I've never been, it sounds a lot like Oktoberfest in Wisconsin! There's a lot of drinking (terremotos), sausages (choripan), and dancing (the cueca). Granted, the details are a bit different, but it's basically a big festival where more than a few people get drunk. I've posted a picture from a Chilean blog. One of the concierges here really wants us to go to a fonda, and reminds of us them every time he sees us (there is one still today that will go until about 10:00, but we're a bit tired from our travels). It's a great time to get shocked into Chilean culture all at once, and I hope that I'll be able to experience it sometime, but I'm very glad we went to Mendoza this time.

Mom actually arrived Wednesday the twelfth, and I still had a few days of school to get through before the start of the holiday. Luckily for me (but not so much for my students), it was testing week so I didn't have too much to prepare. Of course, now I have a bunch of grading to do, but that's another story! I started a new incentive system in the form of coupons to use as extra points on the tests, but unfortunately implementing the system has been more complicated than I anticipated. I'm preparing myself for lots of "but it's just not fair!" But that would happen whether or not I had a good grading system. As you can see, I'm not really looking forward to going back to school quite yet, but I still have four more days to get used to the idea.

www.duoc.cl

Anyways, Mom got in early in the morning while I was at class, but I'd left my keys for her so that she could get into my apartment. I came home between classes to meet up with her after her long trip. I was really excited to see her--we hadn't seen each other since last Christmas! She greeted me as I walked in the door, and almost immediately showered me with gifts. The best one was a Kindle reader that Mom and Dad had gotten me for my birthday. It arrived just in time, too, because I had just finished my very last book the night before. She also gave me some really beautiful earrings, and some tea from the Celestial Seasonings factory in Colorado. I gave her the gifts I'd been saving from Easter Island. After our exchange, we decided to head out to lunch at the mall so that she could see my school at the same time. She even got to meet a couple of my students (who even spoke to her in English). After that, she was definitely feeling the effects of having traveled for nearly an entire day, and went home to rest while I finished up the rest of the school day.

The next day was also pretty uneventful as I went to class and Mom tried to get rid of her jet lag in time to start traveling again on Wednesday. She did have a bit of excitement, though, when she went up to the rooftop deck to relax and saw one of the housekeepers sweeping on the other side. She went over to say "hello," but the woman was so engrossed in her work that she didn't notice Mom walk up and nearly jumped out of her skin when Mom reached out and touched her shoulder. Of course, the episode became instantly famous throughout the building, and I heard about it upon my return from the concierge before I even had the chance to see Mom! But now she and the housekeeper are friends (of course)! And the fame doesn't hurt either.

Other than that bit of excitement, it was a pretty quiet day, relaxing and getting ready for our departure to Mendoza early the next morning. Dad had sent us an email from LAN saying that they were changing their electronic ticketing systems and that travelers should get to the airport 4 hours early in case of delays due to the change. We were nervous at first, but then I looked at my e-receipt and saw that our flight was through Iberia, so we ignored the warning. I should have looked a bit closer...

Mi Cumpleaños

2012-08-28T01:25:00.000+01:00

I'm starting to get old--I turned 25 today! I'm not usually one to make a big deal out of birthdays, but somehow I'd let it slip to my morning class (the "nice" class--so called because we had to introduce ourselves on the first day and every single person said "I am nice." I also have my "cat class," but that's another story). Anyway, I really like my morning class, but it can get frustrating because it starts at 8:30 a.m., and hardly anyone ever shows up on time. We don't usually get started into the lesson until almost 9:00!

Which is why I was surprised when I arrived to my classroom around 8:20 Monday morning to find almost half of the class already there! Not only were they in the classroom, they had decorated it with purple balloons (my favorite color--they remembered!). As I walked in, they all yelled "surprise!" And boy, was I surprised! Then, they pulled out a big cake (manjar flavor, of course), and topped it off with candles in the shape of the number "25." When the rest of the class arrived, the lit the candles and everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to me--in English! After the song, they all started yelling "que lo muerde, que lo muerde!" Apparently, it's a tradition in Chile that before cutting the cake, the birthday-er takes a big bite out of it. I was a bit confused, but they wouldn't stop yelling until I took a bite. It was pretty delicious! And I managed to get frosting all over my face, which they of course found very hilarious. Turns out I was pretty lucky, because the second part of the tradition is that someone comes up behind you and shoves your whole face into the cake. My students were courteous enough to forgo that cultural lesson for the day.

otoolefan.wordpress.com

I had planned a short reading activity for the day, but had already tried it in other classes without much luck, so I decided just to go with the flow and continue with the party. The students had take a survey on the first day where I let them ask me any question they wanted. I took the opportunity to pull out the survey and answer their questions. Since quite a few of the students in this class also took me last semester, a lot of the questions were about Scott and the wedding. Unfortunately, I didn't have much information to give them on that subject, but at least they got some new vocabulary out of it! Some of them also asked about what my life was like in the U.S., so I pulled up some photos of Wisconsin in winter and even let them see some of my baby photos. They really enjoyed that part! They wanted to know what people do for fun in the U.S., so I pulled up a youtube video of some good, old-fashioned Texan line-dancing. Some of the previous students remembered me showing some last semester, and specifically requested that I play "the big belt song." For those of you unfamiliar with this, it is "Cotton-Eyed Joe"--a part of the dance to this song requires that you grab your belt buckle and show it off. Texans understand the importance of this gesture quite well, but I had an interesting time trying to explain it to my Chilean students (by the way, don't try to Google it--"Texas Belt Buckle" can also apparently have another definition that is not classroom-appropriate).

A few students tried to do some line-dancing with me (I'm so glad I lived in Texas and can show off that type of dancing--it's the only type I can manage!). Then, they showed me the traditional Chilean dance, the cueca. A couple of them were actually really good at it! One girl in particular had some excellent cueca skills, and the rest of the class began to make fun of her. She retorted back that she was the only good Chilean in the class, as it should be a national duty to learn the dance. Surprisingly, this quieted down the heckling, if only temporarily. Of course, after the demonstration, I was expected to attempt the dance as well. As I've mentioned, dancing is not my forté, but I gave it a try anyway. A couple students filmed it on their phones, but luckily no evidence has appeared on the internet as of yet.

www.k9ring.com

We spent the remainder of the class enjoying the snacks that the students had brought and searching the internet for strange cultural customs to share with one another. I think I won the contest when I showed the picture of the American "walking" his dog from his car (thanks to Scott for finding that one). So, while the day may not have been the most productive in terms of language acquisition, I think I can safely say that there were some good cultural lessons (especially for me!). It was a great start to my birthday--thanks to my amazing students! While that was the only class that threw a full-out party for me, I did get songs from the others. A couple students even gave me chocolate as gifts! One class of boys offered me a striptease, although I did have to politely decline that generous offer. Even the school gave me a present--a coffee mug with the school logo printed on it. All in all, I must say it was definitely one of my more memorable birthdays! Thanks to everyone who contributed--I felt very special that day!

Valparaíso

2012-08-05T04:00:00.000+01:00

Just a few days until Scott had to head to New York to finalize his UK visa, we decided to take a quick day trip over to Valparaíso, the coastal city about an hour north of Santiago. We'd been talking about doing it the whole two months that he was in Chile but, as you can see from previous posts, we got sidetracked with other adventures. He knew that I really loved the city--ever since I studied abroad there in 2007, I've been trying to get back! So, he's heard a story or two about it. Unfortunately, it looked like we were running out of time and wouldn't make it together this time. The night before, we realized we didn't have anything else to do and tentatively planned to take the trip up north. However, when we woke up, I wasn't feeling up to it, and really just wanted to stay in. Scott is normally happy to stay home and hang out, so I was surprised when he started trying to convince me to go. I put up a good fight, but finally I gave in and agreed to go, even though I was still a bit confused as to why he wanted to so badly!

We headed over to Pajaritos bus station to get our tickets. The last time we'd taken a bus to visit my former host family in Vina del Mar, we'd tried to leave from the Central Station--that turned out to be a disaster and we weren't ready to try it again any time soon! Luckily, it was much less chaotic and easier to navigate at the smaller station--we bought the tickets and boarded the bus within five minutes. On the way, a movie was played on the drop-down screens on the bus. The movie on this trip was called "In Time," about life in the future when time has replaced money as currency. It was really interesting! Just as I was getting really into the story, the bus pulled into the terminal at the Valparaíso station. So I don't know how it ends, but I'm going to get around to watching it one of these days. When I have some extra time...

We got off the bus and headed straight to the bathrooms--just some advice: don't drink a lot of coffee before getting on bumpy, hour-long bus ride through the mountains. Once we were feeling a bit more relaxed, we headed to the tourist booth to get some more information and, most importantly, a map. Of course, the woman tried to sell us a 4-hour tour of the city and surrounding areas. It looked like a decent deal, but it was such a nice day that we decided to go it alone and see what we could explore ourselves. The bus station is on the northern end of the city, so we figured we'd walk to the southern end and work our way back from there. It was a bit of a distance, but we weren't in a hurry and the weather was much warmer than we expected, so we set off.

We followed the coastline the whole way, enjoying the sea breeze and the view of the boats in the harbor. We even got to see quite of few official naval ships. I have to admit, I can't really tell one ship from another, but Scott was pretty excited about that. About halfway along our walk, we stopped at Muelle Prat, the dock from where boat day tours leave. We dodged some more salesmen, but spent a while enjoying the view and admiring some of the smaller watercraft docked there. There were also some souvenir stands, so of course we had to check out our options there before moving on. There were some interesting things, but we decided it was a bit early in the day to be loading up on souvenirs just yet.

www.wikipedia.com

We continued following the coast until we arrived at Ascensor Artilleria. This is one of the 16 funiculars that still exist in the city, dating all the way back to the late nineteenth century. The funiculars were built to help citizens move up and down the city's various steep hills. This particular one is one of the oldest--the third ever built in the city, it was constructed in 1892. It it considered one of the best places to go for a beautiful panoramic view of the city. And the skies were perfectly clear, allowing some truly great views! I was also surprised to see that the carriages had been painted since I was last there; now, there is modern artwork covering the outside. I much prefer that to the solid colors they were before. I didn't get any pictures this time, so you'll have to do with an old one from the internet. Just imagine it much more colorful.

After a bit of a wait in line, we finally got into the funicular and rode up to the top. Not only was it fun to watch the city and the ocean drop below us, it was also interesting to listen to the various languages being spoken inside the carriage! There were a few Brits, some Australians, a couple Germans, and I believe maybe some French? Everyone was in their own little world, so it was fun to watch their expressions (physical and verbal) as we ascended the hill. We got another entertaining moment as we exited the carriage, only to be greeted by a very tiny, very excited dog. Apparently, he lives at the top of the hill and oftentimes believes this gives him the right to ride the funicular for free. We had to wait a bit as the attendant chased him off (a common duty for her job, she said), but we did eventually make it through the gates and out to the vista at the top.

The view was spectacular! I didn't have my camera, but Scott got a couple nice shots of the view (and me, of course). We spent a while just walking around the platform, taking in everything. We could see the whole city, and it seemed like the whole ocean, too! We watched as some barges were unloaded and the crates packed onto trains and hauled off towards their final destinations. We watched as other people enjoyed the nice day, riding their bikes or flying kites below. We even met a friendly cat sunning on top of a car. Although I really hadn't wanted to come, my mood was starting to lift and by 2:00, I really was beginning to enjoy myself. And I was starting to get hungry.

Scott shared my feelings, so we started to look for a good place to eat. We didn't have to look far, because just up the hill was an old house (think old San Francisco style) with a sign out front advertising a daily lunch menu. It turned out to be a coffeehouse/ice cream parlor/restaurant, and the building was pretty awesome, so we went in to check it out. It was small and relaxing, and there were even a bunch of books to read while you enjoyed your coffee! It looked like a place that had a lot of regulars, but would also be friendly to tourists. The waiter was very friendly and attentive (something that is not always easy to find in Chile), and even helped us with some suggestions as to what to choose. I chose the menu of the day, which included a pisco sour, a seafood empanada, and baked fish with rice. Scott got some loose-leaf tea with grilled chicken and creole mashed potatoes. The food was served efficiently and it was delicious! My empanada could have been a meal in itself! Luckily, we hadn't had much of a breakfast, so I managed to eat most of the fish, too. I slowed down a bit by the time I got to the rice, but Scott helped me out with that. I also managed to get a quick taste of his before it disappeared, as well.

After lunch, we decided that we might as well check out the Naval Museum since it was just across the street. I love history, so it was fun to learn the history of Chile's navy. I'm not really into naval stuff, but it was really fun going there with Scott! He was so excited about all the model ships they had (they even had a special temporary exhibit going on, displaying the work of the local model ship club). He stopped at every one to explain to me how they were built and what they were used for, and often he even gave me historical examples of battles they were used in. It was really helpful, especially because the museum didn't provide much of that kind of information (it mostly gave the name of the ship, and maybe of some of the people who were on it). The Naval Museum was also probably the only place that Scott actually asked me to take his picture--next to a huge model of... some kind of ship. It was large and impressive, but that's all I can tell you about it. And I don't even have the picture, so you'll have to talk to him if you want more information. But be careful--he might give you a lot more than you asked for! I loved it! Seeing him so excited just made me more excited. If you know him, Scott is usually pretty subdued, but he was like a kid in a candy shop at this museum! He actually had been a bit less restrained than usual all day, but I still didn't really know why.

There was also an exhibit about piracy around the world. It had some fun interactive features, like stockades. Of course we had to lock each other up for a bit. And play on the model pirate ship. We only had to leave when a tour group full of firemen came in to "view" (play with!) the exhibit. Probably the best part of the museum, though, was the exhibit in the courtyard of the Fenix. The Fenix is the capsule that was used to rescue the trapped Chilean miners in 2010. And the object on display wasn't a replica, either--it was the actual capsule that held the miners during the rescue operation. I was a bit confused as to why it would be displayed in a naval museum, but apparently some of the doctors that attended at the scene were naval doctors. It was amazing to see, and to imagine what it must have been like for the miners. The space for a person was so small that I had a hard time getting myself into it! It definitely was not comfortable, especially considering that each journey out of the mine took about 20 minutes. But after two months trapped, I'm sure that was the least of the miners' worries. It was very interesting to be able to experience something that I had heard so much about on the news. But I'm very glad that it was just a taste--I don't think I need any prolonged experience like that!

We spent a few hours in the museum, a bit longer than we had expected. By the time we came out, it was about time for the sun to start to set. We still had a bit of sunlight yet, so Scott suggested trying to explore some of the other hills by foot. This is much easier said than done, as Valparaíso's street plan is not the most intuitive. We tried to walk to the next hill over from the one we were on, but kept running into dead ends. Scott was, again, being much more persistent than normal in his attempts to persuade me to keep going. He was very intent on getting to the top of a hill for sunset. I was a bit confused, because it is not in Scott's nature to have such a strict mission, especially when he is on vacation. I convinced him that the path we were on wasn't working out, but did agree to try to get to the top of another hill. We walked down by the water again for a while until Scott saw another hill that he thought was worthy of our ascent.

www.phlogy.com

The new goal was to climb to the top of Cerro Toro. There was a funicular, but it had conveniently broken down. So, we got to walk up about six flights of stairs to get to the top. I was in no hurry, so I took my time getting up the stairs. Scott ran up in about 30 seconds. I asked him again why he was so determined to get to where ever it was we seemed to be going, and he said that he just needed to have a destination. This is a very out-of-character statement for Scott, but I humored him and followed along. From the street below, he had seen a beautiful white balcony at the top of the hill, and had decided that that was to be our destination. Of course, finding that balcony once we had reached the top of the hill was another challenge. After a bit of wandering, we discovered that the balcony belonged to the Lord Cochrane Museum. The museum was no longer accepting visitors, but we were allowed to go into the courtyard behind the building. It was here that we found the balcony Scott had seen from below.

The whole hill was pretty empty, but in the courtyard was a man playing with his dog and young son. We all smiled at one another and said the expected polite "hello," but then they went back to playing and we went to the corner of the balcony to enjoy the view. I think the view from there was even better than from Cerro Artilleria. The colors of the buildings were so vibrant, and they transitioned perfectly into sand on the beach and out into the ocean. The sun was setting, adding another layer of color to the already stunning scene. It was quiet and peaceful, so I spent a long time just staring out into the endless rainbow of the city. It was very relaxing. Eventually, the man and his son left, and I could tell that the museum grounds were about to close.

I told Scott that we should probably leave, but he insisted on staying just a little longer. I was starting to get uncomfortable, because I could tell that it was time to lock the gates, but I agreed to stay for one more minute. Scott pulled me over beneath a tree, right where the best view was. He thanked me for coming with him, and for letting him stay with me in Santiago. I was about to say "you're welcome," and pull him to leave, but he continued. He told me that he felt very lucky to be with me, and that the past couple years together have been the best in his life. Then, he got down on his knees and asked me to I would spend many more years with him as his wife.

I was so shocked! I had not expected that at all! We had talked about getting married, but had figured that since we haven't exactly managed to stay in the same place for very long yet, that it wouldn't happen for a few more years. I am pretty sure that my face was bright red, but I was so happy! I pulled him up and said yes, of course! He sighed as if he hadn't taken a breath the entire time, pulled me towards him and kissed me. I was still in a bit of shock as the guard came out and told us that we had to leave, now. Apparently he had seen what was going on, and waited until we were finished to kick us out. Very nice of him!

We were both so excited that we got lost a few times before managing to find the way back down the hill again. After a few minutes, when he'd managed to catch his breath again, Scott stopped me and asked, "you said 'yes,' right?" I laughed; he'd been so nervous that he didn't even grasp what I'd said! I assured him that I had, and we continued our walk. I couldn't stop grinning. I'm pretty sure that people thought we were crazy, and it's probably a bit true.

The best part of this was that it was almost completely spontaneous. So much, in fact, that he didn't have a ring yet. He said that he hadn't really planned it at all, but knew how much I loved Valparaíso and at least wanted to come see it with me before he left, which is why he was so insistent on coming. He wasn't even really thinking of proposing yet; just of spending a nice day with me in a city I like. When we got there and he saw how beautiful the city was and how much I liked it and how much we were enjoying being together, he decided that it would be the perfect time. He just needed the perfect place, which explains his mission to get to the top of a hill before sunset. I am so glad he convinced me to go--it turned out to be one of the most memorable days of my life (so far)!

Another advantage of the spontaneity was that I got to pick out my own ring. Scott said he'd actually been to the market a few times to try to find one, but never saw one that stuck out to him. Then, there was the small problem of trying to explain what he was looking for to the vendors, so he never managed to get very far with that. He was going to wait until he could get to England and do it "properly," but I guess he just couldn't wait! When we got to the bottom of the hill, we stumbled upon an artisan market where we decided to stop in for a quick look. We weren't even really intending to buy a ring (I'd been looking at rings since I arrived and hadn't found much I liked, either), but just as we were about leave we came upon a jewelry booth with just what we'd been looking for. It was a small silver ring with a circular lapis lazuli. I tried it on, and it fit perfectly. Of course we knew that this would be "the" ring. It's not traditional, but I think it's perfect!

We shopped a little bit more, and I bought Scott a birthday present (a mug with "awesome face" to use at school), and then we headed back to the station to catch a bus back to Santiago. There was another movie playing on the way back, but I couldn't tell you what it was. I was way too excited, thinking about our next adventures together!

Petroglyphs and Valle del Arcoiris

2012-07-17T04:30:00.000+01:00

immortalgeisha.com

Ok, before I start on this story, you need to get a good visual in your head. First of all, nights get cold in San Pedro. Really cold. Also, climate control is not a common feature in Chile (especially not in budget hostels). So we were really bundled up at night. For me, that included long underwear, an undershirt, my flannel pajamas, my winter coat, and my hat and gloves. It was about the same for Scott, except he had an additional item: an authentic monogrammed Japanese kimono that he had gotten during his stay in that country. While I don't have a picture of the real thing, you can check out this photo I got from an online catalog. Scott's is pretty similar (just imagine a large "R" on the left breast."

My story starts in the wee hours of the morning. Remember how we wanted to go to bed early to get rested up for our tour the next day? Well, our room happened to be right next to the courtyard of the hostel. Up until now, it hadn't really been much of a problem (there were a couple times we had to go out to ask people to quiet down, but that pretty much settled things). This night, however, a new group of kids from Santiago had just arrived. They started drinking on the patio around 10 and were being a bit loud, but we didn't do anything because that isn't really too late for this culture. By midnight, though, they still hadn't quieted down, and in fact only seemed to be getting louder. We waited another half an hour or so, hoping they'd tire themselves out soon. That didn't happen, so I went out to ask them to please be quiet. It was a small group--three girls and two guys. I asked (in Spanish) as politely as I could, although I can't say that I was at my best--I was cold and tired and also had a sore throat (probably from inhaling so much sand!). The girls gave me a weird look, but one of the guys agreed to quiet down. I thanked them and went back to the room. They were quiet for about three minutes, after which they started talking and laughing even more loudly than before.

This time, Scott offered to go out. Even though he doesn't know much Spanish, we hoped that maybe they could intimidate them more than I could. Turned out, they spoke English! He asked them why they hadn't quieted down when I asked, and one of the girls said that I was mean and demanded that they be quiet instead of nicely asking. She said that she felt that I had no respect for other people. Of course, you all know how mean and disrespectful I am. Oh, well; at least the girls seemed more receptive to Scott's request. In fact, all of them somehow managed to get into some philosophical discussions about the state of the world. Scott found this a bit odd, given the time, but soon realized why. While they had begun drinking around 10, they had only recently gotten high. Their compromised state, along with the interesting night-ware Scott had, led them to believe that he was a monk.

Of course, who better to discuss philosophy with than a monk! Apparently, the girls though he was a pretty attractive monk, as well. They couldn't get enough of his outfit, and even made him turn around so they could see all of it. They must have been quite impressed, because they then invited him to come and smoke and stargaze with them. He politely declined, explaining our plans for the tour the next day. Disappointed but with a great respect for their wise new friend, they told Scott not worry about the noise, as they were off to a party soon anyways. Sure enough, they were on their way within 15 minutes. Plus, Scott had some new friends--the one girl was very excited to greet him the next time she saw him (although understandably disappointed about his lack of kimono).

Thanks to my valiant monk, we managed to eventually fall asleep and get enough rest for our next day's adventures. It was the only tour we did the whole trip (we hadn't realized that attractions were so far away from the town, and hadn't budgeted enough to go on all the "hot" tours). We decided to opt for the Valle de Arcoiris tour. This one was actually probably one of the least popular (the most popular are the Geysers of Tatio, Laguna de Cejar, and sandboarding), but we found it the most intriguing. When we had gone the day before to the tour agency to sign up, they had asked if we wanted it to be in English or Spanish, and we chose English. Interestingly, when the van arrived to pick us up at the hostel, their "English" sure sounded a lot like Spanish. Turns out when they asked about our language preference, they were asking how we wanted the packages explained to us at the agency. They had never inquired about our preference for the actual tour. More practice for my translation skills, I guess!

The tour group was small; in fact, there was only one other couple signed up. Then there was the driver, the tour guide, and two of their friends. The guide also happened to be the son of the owner of the tour agency. He did speak some English, but it ended up just being easier for me to explain to Scott afterwards. The other couple pretty much kept to themselves, but the guide and his friends were really nice! One of the guys was there visiting for the weekend from his job as a engineer for a mining company up north. He was so excited about all the geology and geography of the area! He actually studied English at Duoc! Unfortunately, he hadn't gotten much practice since, so he could only do basic words and phrases. I was kind of disappointed, because he really wanted to discuss geography, and I don't really know that much about it. He would have loved to talk to Scott about it! I tried a bit to interpret for them, but things were too technical for me to follow very well. He was still really interesting to talk to. It's so fun to meet people who are passionate about what they do, and about life in general!

On the way to see the petroglyphs, we had to take a short pit stop because of a group of llamas in the road. We took it as a photo opp, although Scott wasn't too excited about getting too close to the llamas. Said something about them being like giant sheep. Once the path cleared up, we were back on our way to Yerbas Buenas, where the largest collection of petroglyphs in the area can be found. But first, it was time for breakfast! We stopped at the entrance to the park, and unpacked at the picnic tables nearby. The breakfast was included in the tour, and was actually much better than we expected! It included fresh bread and sliced meat and cheese for sandwiches. We also got some fresh fruit and juice, and of course, coffee and tea. We took the opportunity to talk to and get to know about our travel companions. There were even some entertaining attempts at English from them (and Spanish from us)!

After breakfast and a quick bathroom break, we started off on the path to see the petroglyphs. They range in age from the beginning of inhabitation of the valley to almost present day. Unfortunately, I don't remember much of the information given during the tour, and I can't seem to find any information about the area on the internet. I do know that the area was believed to be a meeting-place for shamans from all over South America, even as far away as Brazil! This is because of the presence of some strange petroglyphs, such as a palm tree (not usually seen in the desert), and even of a monkey--the closest of which would be found in Brazil. There are two theories as to how such unusual petroglyphs came to be found in the middle of the most arid desert in the world.

The first theory, like I said before, is that the area was a meeting place for all the shamans in South America. Some tribal traditions state that every two or three years, the shamans had to make a pilgrimmage to a sacred place to share their visions and ritual techniques with each other. Of course, regular citizens never knew exactly where this sacred place was, and the shamans weren't about to disclose, so San Pedro is as good a guess as any. Perhaps some shamans gave from Brazil and shared stories of the fantastic huge palm trees and strange monkeys that inhabited their lands, demonstrating them by drawing on the rock walls.

Another theory is that only local shamans used the area, but were able to "travel" to Brazil with their minds. It is common practice among the shamans here to ingest hallucinagenic plants and go into a trance-like state during which it is believed that can see anything they wish. Actually, according to our guide, this theory was recently put to the test when a scientist attempted to disprove a local shaman's claims that he could travel in his mind to places that he had never been to in real life. The scientist sat in his bedroom in Europe and spoke to the shaman via telephone in South America. The scientist had a photo album with him, but upon request by the shaman, he chose one to place on the pillow of the bed. Of the dozens of photos in the album (none of which the shaman had ever seen either), he correctly guessed that the photo on the bed was of the scientist's cousin. That was enough proof for the scientist, who no longer questioned the claim that native shamans in Chile could have "traveled" in their minds to Brazil, bringing back images of the exotic species there to etch on their own walls. I guess it's up to you to decide which, if either, of the stories you believe. Either way, the monkey is pretty cute!

After checking out a few more petroglyphs, we piled back into the van and headed towards the main attraction: Valle del Arcoiris (Rainbow Valley). It's name comes from the magnificent variety of colors that can be seen in the rocks covering the hills in the area. The unique blend comes from the fact that the valley is actually the inside of a volcano. Many thousands of years ago (millions, even), the valley was actually a large, active volcano. The earth being as young as it was, it was still quite prone to violent tantrums and one day decided that a large-scale earthquake was in order. The earthquake was so destructive, in fact, that it knocked the volcano completely on its side, splitting it wide open and spilling its contents across the valley. There are some rocks that look like "traditional" volcanic rock, but most of them are completely unique due to the strange nature of their release. So, not only did I get to experience a wonderful, picturesque valley, I can now also say that I have been inside of a volcano. How often can you do that?

Also in the valley are some of the tallest cacti in the desert. Apparently, the tallest one measured was 40 feet tall! We didn't manage to find that one, but we were pretty impressed with the ones we did find. Most of the tallest ones were out of climbing distance, so we had to settle with taking a photo next to one of the "baby" ones. He was only about 15 feet tall. There were also all sorts of interesting, strange plants and flowers. While the other group members were taking photos of themselves jumping around, I was attempting to get the perfect photo of this small, spiky cactus-flower. It was very strange and very intriguing. The photo doesn't show very well just how small it was, either--about the size of my thumb nail! Too bad books are so expensive here--I could have taken one and pressed it as a souvenir! Next time!

Once everyone had their fill of rainbow rocks and crazy photos, we got back into the van for our ride back into town. Everyone was very excited to talk about what they had seen, and at first we listened to some good Chilean music and chatted. However, the road got long and the seats got comfortable, and pretty soon everyone (except the driver, I hope) was fast asleep. The ride back took about an hour and a half--the perfect amount of time for a nice, refreshing nap! When we arrived back in town, we said our goodbyes and everyone was dropped off at their respective places of lodging. We had been a bit wary of taking any tour at all, but this one turned out to be a great experience! And we even made a couple friends along the way.