Happiness

It has been a great 2 weeks. But on Thursday the 22nd I had an exceptionally good day.

It started out with me waking up later than I should have and not going to get my Chilean I.D again...I was supposed to get it about a month ago. I casually strolled into my internship 20 minutes late, but that means I was on time if we go by Chilean time. Did some work, not much and nothing stressful. Then I ate my yummy lunch prepared by my "nana" (the grandma-like lady who cleans and cooks in the house and who refuses not to iron every single item of clothing that I own). Went to the library to pretend to do work and just ended up sitting outside and chatting with my friends for an hour before class started. Bought a donut-like pastry. And then class with Mauricio was amazing as usual.

Afterward I had a nice ride home on the bus. Whenever I get off the bus I have to walk 3 long blocks to get to my house. So instead of being a normal 21st century teenager and listening to my Ipod, I read my book. It takes me double the amount of time to walk because I can't walk too fast or I'll walk into something. I obviously get strange looks from people on the street. Everytime I remind myself of Belle from Beauty and the Beast, and then I smile because I love that movie. (Sidenote: I watched Aladdin 4 nights ago in English and then last night in Spanish. That movie can still turn any bad mood I am in into pure happiness).

Once I got home my brother, Vicente; my sister, Dani; and my brother-in-law, Alex (not really, just my sister's boyfriend of 4 and a half years who is always at my house), and his mom were at my house preparing for the garage sale they had this weekend. We sat and chatted for about an hour. I still love long conversations in Spanish, they make me so happy, especially when I forget I am speaking Spanish and just speak without realizing what language I am speaking in. And then of course something breaks the spell like me not being able to pronounce the word "usualmente" until about 5 tries later. Then for dinner Dani and Alex took me and the girl from my group who lives with Alex out to sushi.

We bought 60 pieces for the equivalent of about $22...

We took it back to the house to eat so that we could watch a movie. We stopped on the way back home at a mini market to buy soda. Alex came back and handed each of us a little piece of chocolate. So sweet. Little things like that can turn any bad day into a good one.

The sushi was delicious, I've definitely missed it. We ate and watched the Chilean news. Then we watched Limitless. Pretty good movie. Then I chatted with Dani about the beauty of the Chilean landscape while Alex drove my friend/his sister home. He obviously slept at my house, as usual.

It wasn't a special day, but it left me feeling really great afterwards. I can't believe we have passed the halfway point... only 2 and a half months left. Crazy!

And the weekend before was wonderful as well. The Chilean Independence Day did not disappoint me, especially since it is a whole weekend long event.

Friday the 16th we went to the Red Hot Chili Peppers Concert!
It was absolutely amazing! We got very close to the front but everyone was pushing and jumping so much that it was a little too much to handle. Everyone got separated so I was with just one of my friends, Annie, who is very short. This was very unfortunate for the concert because the lower in the crowd you were, the less air you received and the more sweat and heat you inhaled...
We eventually yelled at the guards to help us get out. They stood on an elevated surface, reached into the crowd, grabbed the belt loops on my jeans and just lifted me up as if it was no big deal. I then got passed from one guard to another and got escorted to the hospital tent. He was very confused when I said I didn't need medical attention, I just needed to get out of that crowd.
We enjoyed the rest of the show from the back and it was just as great, if not better. We just listened to the amazing music and took in the atmosphere... from an area where we could not only breathe, but sit.

When it was time to go, we looked back and saw how huge the crowd was. Probably should have left before the last song...



We somehow ran into Alex and his other brother and my friend who lives with him. I went with them because they live right near me. This was around 11:30 pm. We got home around 3 a.m. The city didn't issue extra buses to come to the stadium. Thousands of people were trying to get on these buses to get home. So many "lleno" (full) ones passed us. Every time we saw our bus it was just a tease because there was no way it was empty. When we finally got on after waiting in the cold for 2 hours, Alex had to literally pry the backs doors open so that we could get on. So tired at that point, but still so happy from the concert.

The next day I went with 2 friends to a "pueblito" (little town) called Rancagua. Everyone recomends us not to go there because there is nothing to do. But this was Chile's Independence Day Weekend so there were "fondas" (public barbeque/fair) everywhere in the country, even in this little town. It was interesting to experience, but I really wouldn't recommend that town to anyone for any other weekend besides that one. It was fun nonetheless. And when we got back we went straight to Alex's house because he and Dani were having an "asado" (barbeque) for their friends. Basically what people do this weekend is drink a lot and eat a lot of barbecue. So we obviously had to fit in...

Las chicas... only 2 gringas in this foto :)

It was really fun to go to a party where the majority of the people were Chilean, not gringos. But that also wasn't a discoteca but rather a much more personal party. I think we went through about 12 bottles of wine and other alcohol, at least, and even more pounds of meat. I spoke Spanish the majority of the night and overall had an amazing time. These are the types of parties I want to go to more often.

The next day was the actual day of independence, the 18th. However, technically this isn't the day that Chile gained its independence from Spain, it is only the day they declared independence, they fought for many more years to finally gain it 8 years later on February 12th. Anyway, my family (and of course Alex) and I went to the "campo" (countryside) to my mom's dad's house. The home is beautiful and has a large amount of land. It was here that I learned that family affairs aren't that different in Chile than those that I am used to back home. We ate a lot, everyone chatted for a while, and then the kids got bored. We played cards with the grandpa and chatted some more. Overall it was still a really great day. When we got back home I was supposed to go out with Dani and Alex later but we all just crashed from our food coma. They did end up leaving around 1 and coming back around 5 am. This reminded me that I am still not fully adapted into the culture, no way would I have been able to do that that night.

And the next day we went to another fonda. This one was in Santiago and obviously couldn't even compare to the one in Rancagua. This one had hundreds of games and places to eat, as well as a rodeo and a mini zip lining part. We ate again, more delicious food. My favorite is "choripan" which is kind of like a hot dog but 500 times better. After eating, Vicente and I decided we wanted to get rolled around in a ball. Weird, I know. There was a huge inflated ball that had little seat-type things inside for two people. Once you get strapped in, you get rolled off of a mini little hill. Defintely not the best idea after eating so much. But at least my family finally learned my secret identity - "scream queen" as some of my friends back home call me. How could I not scream as I was being rolled and bounced about in a big inflated ball?!

After this we were utterly exhausted. Vicente and I from rolling around in a big ball, and Dani and my mom from waiting for us in the heat because the line took about an hour..
Then my mom decided it was time for me to try "mote con huesillo." My new favorite drink! It reminds me of bubble tea from back home which I miss so much, but it actually isn't anything like bubble tea... It is basically peach juice with an actual dried peach inside, the "huesillo" part. The mote part is these little seed type things that are a little bigger than rice and the color of corn. Very strange and the drink would definitely be totally fine, and maybe even better, without them.

Overall, a very wonderful weekend.

But then on Tuesday night I got very stressed out. There are so many places I want to go, which means there are so many trips I need to plan. And it is very difficult trying to plan with other people because obviously everyone wants something different. I was so frustrated that night, something that normally doesn't happen to me. So to make myself feel better I called my mom and we talked for about 20 minutes. Then I obviously had to finish the healing process by watching Aladdin. Afterwards I was back to my normal self and feeling much better. The week clearly only progressed from there. It was that Thursday that was my great day with my siblings. And the next weekend was great as well.

On Friday we went to a new discoteca. It wasn't that great - the music was pretty bad and the crowd wasn't the best. But I still had a good time. A random man bought my friends and I tequila shots because it was the birthday of a boy from Colorado... but we had never met him before. The Chilean who bought us the drinks just assumed that all gringos know each other. We didn't complain. Then he told me that I looked 26. Not sure if I even take that as a compliment.

Then my friend Annie and I were talking to another boy. We decided to try to tell him we were Chilenas. Obviously that didn't work. So we asked where he thought we were from. The first thing he said was "no son gringas" That was the first time I have ever heard that - that we are not gringas, which means from America. So he went on trying to guess where we were from and decided we were from the Middle East...
Weird. He said this not because of how we looked but because of our accents. I told this to Dani and Alex the next day and they said that I am obviously a gringa. Silly Chileans.

The next day I went with my friends to buy our tickets to Mendoza, Argentina!! We are officially going there October 6-10. I am so excited!
Then Annie and I went back to my house and my other friend went to her house, promising to come to mine a little later because Dani and Alex told me to invite some friends over and we could all hang out.

Around 8:30 Annie and I were sitting in my room and all of a sudden the lights turned off. Ok... no big deal, they'll turn back on soon. I quickly remembered that my dad bought me a flashlight before I left for South America. I complained about that, telling him it was silly and that I obviously didn't need one. But he bought it because the Syracuse "What to Pack" List said I might.
Good job, Dad. The batteries he put into the flashlight were very obviously not the correct size! So the only lights we had were from our little cell-phones.
Then Dani yelled from upstairs asking if we were scared. This was right when Annie was making scary shapes on the wall with the light from her phone...

When about 5 minutes passed we started to get more worried. Especially since the whole block was dark. We remembered that Vicente was at the movies with 3 of his friends. Then my mom started to freak out because he is only 13 and must have been really scared. She wanted to drive to get him (cell-phones were barely working) but she had just let Alex borrow her car. So somehow we got through to Alex and made him come over. Meanwhile the mom of one of Vicente's friends said she was going to get them. So now we only had to worry about ourselves. So what did we do...
Dani, Alex, Annie, and I decided to watch Aladdin in Spanish. Perfect way to spend a blackout. Except for that fact that Dani's computer died in the middle of the movie.

So Dani decided to nap while Annie, Alex, and I decided to eat as much as possible because the food would go bad otherwise.
Then Alex decided to take a swim in the pool.
And then my friend Alex from our group walked over to my house because he lives close. He used a headlamp on the walk over...

Soon after he got here, and we ate some more, the lights turned back on. Before all of this happened, we decided we would go get some more of that super cheap sushi. That's what was the worst part about the black out, that we didn't have our sushi (pronounced Suchi here). So obviously as soon as the lights turned back on we went to go get it. For 6 people, we bought 120 pieces...
That and some alcohol made a perfect end to the night.

We later learned that 93% of the entire country didn't have electricity! We didn't have electricity for just 2 hours but some other parts didn't have any until today.
short article about this

I was very surprised that when I tried to look this up this morning, there were barely any articles about the situation  And the ones I found were very short and not informative. bad public relations, Chile!

a better article, in Spanish

So it ended up being a very fun night. And an overall fun weekend.
Now I just have to write 2 essays that I've known about for months and are due this week...
We'll see how well that goes.

"Studying abroad" doesn't actually include as much "studying" as the name implies...

Parents, Horses, and Rivers

It has been an amazing 2 weeks since I last posted.

Not only am I enjoying my time with my new family, but my real parents came to visit! They stayed for a week and it was absolutely impeccable timing. With the switching of families and finally beginning to get real work in school, I was really beginning to get homesick. But as they usually do, my parents fixed up any problems I was having.

I was supposed to meet them at their hotel the day they arrived, but I have never been there before so I was assuming I’d get lost. I didn’t because I had a very obvious sign… my dad was the only man in all of Santiago standing in the street wearing a T-shirt (most people were still walking around in winter jackets).  The first day they arrived we went to have lunch with my host family. The mom wasn’t there but it was still a really great time. I had no idea my host sister spoke so much English, which made the situation much easier for me because I didn’t have to translate as much.

View of Santiago from the the top of Cerro St. Cristobal

Papa's shoulders are a little wide...

The rest of the week we spent doing very touristy activities. Many of them I have done before, and a few that I have not. As much as I wanted to, we didn’t go outside of Santiago too much. Although my host family did take us to a little village called Pomaire which is famous for its pottery and its extra large empanadas… 

My Chilean Family :)

Empanada, mmmm

We also went to lots of delicious restaurants. One where I got a 20% discount for the next time I go basically because the waiter liked me. And I was even wearing my new llama sweater that night.

My mom has a new found obsession with llamas. We actually saw one just casually crossing the street one day...

llama llama

My dad also drank with my friends a couple of times. At first I thought it was a joke, no one would take me seriously when I suggested drinking with my dad to my friends. But my dad and my friends all actually got very excited. So my parents second night in Santiago I invited 3 of my guy friends and one girl over for drinks. Of course my dad bought vodka. Absolut…which to college kids is a delicacy; to my dad it’s just an average vodka. And my mom of course was worrying about what food to serve them, because of course you can’t drink on an empty stomach. So armed with chips, aji (which is basically pico de gallo), and vodka (with chasers for the children of course), we were ready at the hotel waiting for my friends.

My dad drank straight vodka. We had it mixed with orange juice. Everything went perfectly. My friends loved my dad and visa versa. The conversation was absolutely amazing, I never imagined my dad getting along so well with people my age, but it happened. A few days later my parents and I took the same group, plus one other boy, out to our favorite bar HBH. My parents bought drinks and pizza. It was another great chat. I was talking with one of my friends that went about why I never do that at home and we realized it’s because we aren’t allowed to go to bars in America. Still another year and 3 months for me… It’s going to be terrible when I get back from this country and still have to wait a year to drink legally.

The day before my parents left, we went to those two beach towns, Valparaiso and Vina del Mar. Did a lot of touristy things there too… 

Valparaiso is famous for its funiculars

Valparaiso

We also visited the Naval Museum where I was extremely proud of myself for knowing most of the history without even reading the information given by the museum... Thank you Mauricio. 

This is the device they used to get the Chilean miners out in October 2010... 
Papa could barely fit inside

The next day my parents’ flight was at night so technically we could have spent another day together, but my entire group was coming to Valparaiso with my coordinators. I found out about this after my parents already booked their flight. So we said goodbye in Valpairso and they went back to Santiago as I met up with my friends in Valparaiso. So we did some more touring around the city. And I didn’t have my camera because my dad had been taking pictures with his all week. It was almost torture seeing all those beautiful sites and not being able to take a picture of it all. But the cities are only an hour away from Santiago so we will definitely be going back there soon.

The day after we spent the entire day on the beach in Vina del Mar, just laying down and enjoying the sunlight and the water, the sand and the good conversation. It was a wonderful end to a wonderful week. 


The next week was nothing special. But the next Saturday definitely was. At 5pm I met up with a group from my Chilean university called "Coordinadores Generales Comision de Acogida" or in English, "General Coordinators Welcome Committee" The abbreviation in Spanish is CAUC...pronounced "cock." 


But anyway, that was a little off topic... what I ended up doing on Saturday was going on a cabalgata - horesback riding. But not just any horseback riding trip - this one was in the mountains of Santiago under a full moon with a barbecue waiting for us at the top. 


It was absolutely magical. We rode up the mountain for an hour and a half during the sunset, which was beyond beautiful. 

Hello moon

Of course I had a few issues along the way. My horse wasn't one of the brightest horses, and he was also very slow. I thought it was very obvious what he had to do... follow all the other horses. A very simple game of "follow the leader." But apparently to him it wasn't so obvious. He liked to steer off the track and when he was following the other horses he was going at an exceptionally slow rate, creating a very large gap between us and the horse ahead.

Also, for some strange reason, there are these very weird trees in Chile that have spikes on their branches instead of leaves. Obviously my horse walked under each one we passed (which was a lot) and I had to duck every time, and of course I missed a few times. And once he walked me right into a regular branch - my shoulder has been sore for days. But we got there in one piece, somehow. And what we arrived to was magnificent:

View of Santiago (a little blurry, sorry)

The coordinators quickly started a fire and an asado (barbecue). The food was delicious and the fire was excruciatingly hot and smoky, but also so wonderful because it was freezing up there.

so much warmth

I think I have run out of synonyms of "amazing" because there are no words that I can find to adequately describe the beauty of the ride back down. I didn't take any photos on my way back down, I just wanted to take it all in and appreciate it for myself. Selfish, I know. Also, I physically wouldn't have been able to because my horse on the way back down was a giant and liked to try to run down the hill. But this time it actually felt like I was truly riding a real horse. I didn't have to focus too much on guiding him and could really appreciate the view. Although I do wish I captured it because it was breathtaking. The only light was from the full moon and the city lights down below in Santiago. The horses were calmer, as were the riders. Everything was just perfect on that ride down.


The next day I went hiking in the morning. I was supposed to leave my house at 10:30 but was only walking out at 10:45, so I was obviously rushing. So much so that I accidently let my dog escape...the one rule in the house. I quickly got my host mom and we chased after him for three blocks screaming "Happy!" We looked crazy. But we caught him eventually. Thankfully. I was already imagining awful scenarios in my mind about how I ruined their lives and me getting kicked out of the house. So glad that didn't happen.


I was late to go hiking. But I didn't miss it. My 2 friends and 2 Finnish guys that one of my friends met were waiting for me at the bus terminal. We slept on the hour long bus ride, perfecto.


The hike was beautiful, it was a wonderful day. We went to a national reserve called Rio Calillo, somewhere that most Chilean natives have never heard about. Even though it isn't one of the most popular reserves in Chile, it was still pretty amazing.

We sat on these rocks for about an hour and a half. Casually dipping our feet into the ice cold water and bathing in the sunshine.

And instead of taking a bus back to the metro, we ended up getting a ride from a random Chilean man. Not something our parents or coordinators would be proud of us for...but he was a very nice man. He drove us a long way and we just chatted, mainly about how cold Finland is in comparison to Chile.


It was a perfect relaxing day after the cabalgata the day before.


Hopefully I keep having more wonderful adventures here in Chile, this weekend is Chile's Independence Day so we'll see what happens then!