They're Just Old Light

Let me begin by saying that I adore my Chilean family. Don't get jealous, real family. You know you still rank first in my official book of family adoration. But when one has a debilitating Chilean cold and is loopy on Chilean decongestants, one's Chilean family seems the logical choice for tender loving care. And this they provide, in spades. I am currently on my third enormous mug of tea with lemon and natural honey (Read: with chunks of honeycomb. Weird, but ok...and supposedly healthy) brought to me by Maria Elena, who pops in every fifteen minutes or so inquiring (translated since Blogger hates my Spanish characters), "What else do you need, girl?" in a worried, maternal tone. Alvaro keeps tiptoeing into my room and asking, in a jokingly cautious whisper, "How's the sick girl?" as if I am on the brink of death. And David didn't let some scary cold deter him from his ritual evening kiss of brotherly greeting, though I warned him of my virulence. Dinner came on a tray to my bedside, for the record. And Alvaro just came back from the supermarket with a package of chocolate and orange flavored cookies, "So the sick girl doesn't get too down." In short, I am one spoiled sick girl...

Back up to last Saturday and I'll start the story of my first travel adventure in Chile. After days of dealing with several foot-dragging American exchange students who kept hedging over making definite travel plans for our week off from school, we finally put together a small group to head up to the city of La Serena and the surrounding areas in the Norte Chico region of Chile. To introduce our travel group: Sarah is from Knoxville but goes to Hendrix College in Arkansas. Ben is from Knoxville and goes to Maryville College in Maryville, TN. Kelsey is from South Carolina but also goes to Maryville College. (This introduction was endlessly confusing to everyone we met on the trip. We probably should have simplified it somehow).

We set off on Saturday morning, beginning our journey with a seven hour bus ride from Vina del Mar to La Serena. Our dread of hours-long misery was blessedly dispelled by the incredible, nearly perpetual view of the Pacific Ocean to our left throughout the entire ride, crashing blue-green and angry against the imposing rocks beneath a dull pewter sky. Besides, a bus trip in South America that lasts only seven hours is a mere drop in the bucket (to go from La Serena up to the Norte Grande region near the border of Peru would have taken another twenty hours by bus, for example). We arrived at the bus station and took a quick taxi ride to our hostel, the Aji Verde, in the heart of downtown La Serena. Immediately and warmly received by the young and hip Chilean staff, we were given a tour of the place and shown to our room.

After dropping off our stuff, we headed out to grab dinner, famished after the bus trip and a disappointing lunch stop at an overpriced, mediocre travel center obviously in cahoots with the bus company. A second-story balcony restaurant at the nearby Mercado Recova provided a feast of seafood (ceviche and salmon), salad (tomato and avocado), bread, and a teeny tiny pisco sour apiece before and after the meal. Feeling much better, we wandered through the local supermarket to pick up some groceries before returning to the hostel to hang out with other guests. It was cool to get to know all of the different people staying there--two British couples, an Australian man, several Germans, three Swedish girls, the Chilean staff. All were friendly and talkative, and we had some great conversations on the breezy rooftop.

Sunday morning was our introduction to the Aji Verde breakfast of unlimited bread, butter, and jam, assorted fruit, tea and...Nescafe. Not terrible. We spent the day walking around La Serena, although things were pretty quiet since it was Sunday. Sarah had been struggling with a cold for a few days already, and by the time we stopped at a small cafe for a quick lunch it was apparent to me that I would also be a victim, judging from my rapidly worsening congestion and the floaty, dazed, weak feeling taking over my body. Still, we temporarily revived ourselves with sandwiches, espresso, and ice cream, then continued to walk through a hushed La Serena, past churches and plazas, Japanese gardens, and ever-present Chilean street dogs of varying hues. Our goal was the lighthouse on the beach, which we reached in the afternoon as the sun began to melt the morning clouds. We explored the area around the lighthouse, and the little girl in me insisted on copying my friend Laurel (who visited La Serena last summer) and riding a horse on the beach. Sarah declined, having already checked this life experience off her list, but Ben and I were game, so we ponied up (ha?) the three dollars to ride horses. As it turned out, my horse was kind of a gloomy little thing, which I guess I would be too if my life consisted of carrying around cheesy tourists on my back. And both of the horses had apparently been trained to return to the corral before giving up our money's worth. But it was definitely a surreal Chile experience, and I rewarded my reluctant steed with some nice pats on the neck and a few soothing words. Even got him to trot for a few seconds. Funny, he went way faster on the return trip.

So, girlish fantasy of riding a horse on the beach satisfied, the three of us began to walk back to the hostel...then caught a taxi to save ourselves from utter exhaustion. Dinner that night was spaghetti and bread, a successful group effort. We sat around watching a weird but good movie and talking with a couple of the hostel staff until late in the evening. Since we hadn't been able to schedule a tour until Tuesday, we stayed up late on Sunday night and slept in on Monday. Once we got up and moving, we set out in a different direction to take in more of the city. Wandering onto and quickly off of a military base, eating bowls of fried potatoes sloshed with ketchup and mayonnaise, and shopping for handmade artisan earrings filled the afternoon. Then it was back to the hostel...to eat again, of course. We grilled chicken--and veggies for me--soaked in lime and garlic marinade, and had rice, corn on the cob, and caprese salad (queso fresco, tomatoes, fresh basil, and balsamic vinegar). I know--posh, right? And surprisingly affordable.

Tuesday we woke up early and got ready to leave for our 8:30 tour. Wait, it did leave at 8:30, right? Wait, we were scheduled for a tour...right?? After going back and forth with Gustavo, the increasingly sheepish hostel employee who had supposedly made our reservations a couple of days before, it was determined that Michaela, another employee, had failed to confirm our tour. A likely story, Gustavo. He began calling other companies and came down to the kitchen a few minutes later (looking like he was a little afraid I might hit him) to let us know that he had in fact been able to get us booked with another tour company for later in the morning. Ahh, relief. If not for this tour, there would be little reason to visit La Serena. A while later the bus pulled up and we piled in with 10 or 12 other tourists. Our first stop was a local park, where we all got out and introduced ourselves--the three American college students, a dating couple, a newlywed couple on their honeymoon, one older Chilean woman currently living in London and another from Germany, a group of middle-aged sisters and friends, and our intrepid tour guide, Jorge, a teacher. After introductions, Jorge gave us a brief lesson in Chilean geography. Then we were off to the Elqui Valley, following the Elqui River through a microclimate where the principal products are papayas and grapes.

(((Cue magical realism)))

As I mentioned earlier, during this trip I had fallen victim to an insidious and disorienting Chilean cold-and-flu-type illness. The nasal congestion, headache, slight fever, light-headedness, and weakness brought on by the Chilean cold--combined with the suspicious effects of the Chilean decongestants I had picked up at a local pharmacy and the climactic conditions of a semi-desert region--lent everything about the day a strange, dreamlike quality. I swear, this one day alone could be the basis for my Nobel Prize-winning short story.

Odd details and experiences didn't do much to help my state. For example, when we stopped at a local orchard where papayas and chirimoyas (another fruit) were cultivated, we learned that the latter grew on bisexual trees. Their flowers produce pollen in the morning and then open up to receive said pollen in the afternoon. However, the flowers are green and blend in too well with the rest of the tree to be pollinated naturally by birds or insects, so the trees must be artificially pollinated by groups of female workers (they're gentler and more methodical than men, of course) who walk around and pollinate them by hand, with a tiny stylus, out of a tiny bag that they filled with pollen earlier in the day. Weird, right? We also saw signs of the parasitic carmine beetle, which is collected and crushed to release a red dye used in cosmetics and food products (yes, Caitlin, your beloved carmine beetle is a parasite, terrorizing Chilean fruit trees).

At the next stop we got out and walked up a hill to the enormous Puclaro dam, where the wind whipped through a giant acoustic resonator installed by an artist, creating strange music. On one side of the dam, the sun glinted off the shimmering surface of a lake containing millions of liters of water. On the other, the Elqui Valley wound its tranquil verdant way, tracing the route we had just taken. Windblown and feeling the ferocity of the Chilean sun, we wandered back down past booths of artisan objects and tasted a weird spiky fruit with flesh akin to that of a kiwi, but full of sour juice. A teaspoon or so of sugar improved things considerably. Then it was time to put in our orders for lunch; we would be eating at a restaurant where everything is cooked outside in solar-powered ovens, so it was necessary to place our orders several hours in advance. Most of our group requested roasted goat, while others ordered corn pudding and I asked for vegetable pie. A little farther down the road we stopped at a roadside stand to sample gigantic raisins dried in the valley and some fresh grapes of the variety used for pisco, the national liquor of Chile.

Sarah and I had just woken up from a groggy, cold-influenced nap on the tour bus. I felt like I was turning into a human raisin from the dry heat. So when we heard someone mention goat cheese, we asked no questions. We both liked goat cheese--we had to buy it! Perhaps if we had both been our healthy selves we would have seen a few of the obvious problems with this scenario: 1) we were on the side of the road in the Chilean desert, 2) we did not know when or how this cheese had been manufactured, 3) it was being stored in a deli case dating from approximately the 1930s. In the desert. In Chile. But groggy and ailing as we were, we handed over the pesos and turned over The Cheese to a bewildered Jorge, who popped it into a cooler in the back of the bus. Don't worry--this isn't the last time you'll hear from The Cheese.

Ill-advised roadside purchase completed, we continued on our journey to one of the highlights of the tour, at least for me: the village of Monte Grande, childhood home of Gabriela Mistral, the first Latin American woman to win a Nobel Prize for Literature, for her work Desolación. We saw the modest schoolhouse where she lived with her mother and her sister, the schoolteacher. We saw the room where she slept and dreamed. Her photos lined the walls, and the image of her first communion burned in my floaty-feeling brain as I beheld the serious face, out of place on such a tiny body, dressed in clothes far too elegant for a little girl. Looking into her ancient eyes, it was obvious that she knew. Barely seven years old, and she knew something more profound that most of us ever will. By some miracle, our tour guide Jorge turned out to be the first Chilean who didn't mock or misunderstand my choice of academic focus. Instead, wonderful teacher that he was, he talked Latin American literature with me and recommended various favorite authors, short stories, and novels for me to read. Thesis ideas began multiplying in my head...

Lunch was next, and together we gathered at a long table at the Solar Villaseca restaurant to share our sun-cooked specialties. I didn't tell anyone, but mine was cold in the middle. Haha. We spent lunch getting to know/entertaining our tour group, especially when Sarah and I ordered mote de huesillos for dessert. It's a typical Chilean food, a sort of dessert-y drink with tiny spiced peaches and grains of wheat floating in it. Very confusing, but mostly tasty and refreshing. The group got quite a laugh as we tried to figure out whether to eat it or drink it--you have to do a little of each. Our next stop was the Fuegos distillery, which produces artisan quality pisco. The liquor is aged for four years in Chilean, French, and American oak barrels, and then each bottle is individually filled and labeled by hand. Our final stop was the small town of Vicuna, where the rest of the group would depart, leaving us three hours to explore before embarking on the second phase of our tour-packed day, a visit to a local astronomical observatory. We said our goodbyes to Jorge (who left me with a list of authors to investigate) and the rest of the group.

Ok. Three hours in a sleepy little town. Well, at least we had some delicious homemade goat cheese to eat with fresh-baked bread from the panaderia! Wait--was that a long reddish hair that I saw on the goat cheese? And was it inside the plastic wrapper? No matter, we decided. We just won't look at that side. We found a park bench, broke off chunks of Cheese, and passed them around. A Chilean street dog of the Husky variety plopped down expectantly in front of us, pale blue eyes fixed on our food. As expected, The Cheese was strong. Not a bad flavor, necessarily, but the more cautious nibbles we took, the more we thought about the dubious circumstances of its manufacture and purchase. And there was the undeniable presence of that disturbing hair. In the end, Sarah and I got grossed out and couldn't eat any more. Our rational minds returned--if briefly--and we decided to ditch The Cheese, despite the protests of Ben and the dog.

Another street dog had anticipated our plans, though. As we tried to walk nonchalantly away from the trashcan where we had stashed our rank error in judgment, we observed a yellow lab (yes, family, a yellow lab) mosey over in a beeline to the trashcan, stick his head in, and emerge with the offending disk of Cheese clenched tightly in his jaws. Triumphantly, he trotted away with his treasured find, with several canine friends in tow. He was definitely a long lost Chilean cousin of my own dear yellow lab brother back in South Carolina, I just knew it. We could only hope that the terrible digestive problems undoubtedly faced later by the dogs did not result in too much misery for the population of Vicuna...

Our first dinner plan thwarted, we wandered around in search of another option. And decided that there was a slightly creepy air about the city, something strange lurking just beneath the surface that we couldn't quite identify. Now, this could have just been our worn-out, sun-addled condition or the Chilean decongestants talking again...but I feel that now is a good time to mention that the Elqui Valley is also considered by New Agers to be the center of the universe, a strong focus point of spiritual energies. According to the highly reputable website EN Chile (heh), "Spiritual seekers began to arrive in the Elqui Valley in the sixties, guided by a prophecy that said that this geographic point would be like a magnetic center, that it would be a natural sanctuary where the new spiritual civilization of Aquarius would develop in The Magnetic Valley." That's right, Aquarius. As in, "Age of." Signs of those lingering hippies were everywhere, from a puzzling roadside sign reading "Free and Life" to the rune necklaces abounding in gift shops to the artisan market of doom run by a group of very spaced-out individuals, one of whom commented to Sarah in English, "I am your uncle. I have silver rings," right before we high-tailed it out of there. If our friend Gino had been with us, he would have sworn that we had wandered onto the set of the awful slasher flick Hostel.

We saw strangely beautiful moments, too. When a tiny, malnourished tabby kitten wandered down the sidewalk, obviously abandoned by its mother, Sarah and I considered rescuing it--until a woman with her boyfriend bicycled by out of nowhere, stopped abruptly, and gathered it into her arms. "What's wrong? Are you hungry?"she crooned lovingly to the tiny creature. But the odd feeling remained, nagging and inexplicable. Every restaurant we passed was open, but completely empty of customers. Uniformed schoolgirls skipped normally by with their bookbags and violins in hand, but there remained an uneasy sense of being very conspicuous, of being watched but in a bad way. Maybe we were just having trouble adjusting to a small town after a month of urban living. Or maybe the spiritual forces of the Elqui Valley really were at work...

Around 8:00, we headed over to the corner where Jorge had told us to wait for our second guide, praying that he would show up on time and rescue us from our strange surroundings. Eventually, to our relief, other people showed up who were waiting for the same tour. We no longer felt so trapped in the Twilight Zone as we made friends with Cristiana the chain-smoking German and a young woman from Brooklyn. The first bus pulled up and out piled a group of familiar faces from our hostel--Ingrid from New Zealand, the Colombian guy, a couple of girls from Holland. Unsure if this was our tour, I tried to ask the guide a few questions, to no avail. He simply confused me more. Luckily, Jorge had left us the guide's name, Beltran. The first guide turned out not to be him. Unfortunately, when Beltran finally arrived, he was not much of an improvement. When I tried to help Cristiana establish that she was on his list of customers, he silenced me with a brusque hand in my face. Hmpf. This rudeness was quickly forgotten, however, as we jolted up the bumpy, winding road to the observatory, perched in the mountains outside of town. The northern region of Chile has the clearest sky in the entire world, making it a prime spot for astronomers to do their work. Probably billions of dollars have been invested in observatories here (this wasn't one of the fanciest, but still). You didn't need a telescope of any kind to note the immediate, awe-inspiring difference in visibility.

We arrived at the Mamalluca Observatory, a spot where the Milky Way leapt out at us from above, creamy clouds of nebulae and shooting stars swirling in the blackness. Our astronomer guide, Luis, introduced us to his unearthly world. What looked like one star to the naked eye was really two stars--or a million. The words of one of my favorite singers, Regina Spektor, echoed in my head. "They're just old light, they're just old light." My sky is not your sky. Before Galileo ever had his telescope, the Incas watched the Fox follow the Baby Llama follow the Mother Llama on their way to do battle with the Snake, all constellations made of dark star gas. I saw Gemini, Virgo, Leo, Orion--all upside down in their Southern Hemisphere recline. The flames of dying Beetle Juice, the gleams of Sirius and Polaris. I saw the rings and moons of Saturn, a clearly recognizable burning spot in the telescope. I learned that in 2.5 billion years our Milky Way will likely collide with the Andromeda galaxy. And I felt like a speck, living on a slightly bigger speck in an obscure corner of a living breathing growing dying fading universe. And I wondered what the heck I would go to grad school for, and why we even bother with anything, for that matter. "This isn't helping my existential anxiety at all," I whispered uneasily, my religion-student sensibilities kicking in. "It's the worst feeling. And the best," posited the girl from Brooklyn, a theology student herself. Under that punched tin of the universe, which felt like the sky from The Truman Show as well as the inspiration for The X-Files (here's to you, Three's Company...), I didn't know whether to sob or laugh or pray.

And I guess that's how it goes.

Chile, El Bonito

Today was one of those magical days when just about everything finally seemed to go my way . Everyone, it seemed, was in a stellar mood, and tiny acts of beauty were noted all around. Is it that things were actually different, or was it merely some small shift in my perception? I can't say for sure, but I think--at least for the moment--that Chile and I have put aside our differences and begun our love affair once more.

A random collection of experiences, notes, and thoughts gathered over the last few week or so...

--I exchanged more than three words with Mari, our nana, today. It is still really strange for me that we have household help, and so I feel awkward sometimes not really knowing how to relate to her. Like, I sometimes try to sneak and wash my own dishes when she's here...and she inevitably sneaks up on me and whisks them out of my hands to do it herself. It's a real blow to assertive American self-sufficiency. She brings me lunch on a tray. She makes my bed twice a week. She knows what my underwear looks like. It's weird, right? And mostly our conversations go like this (a translation): Mari-"Are you ready for lunch?" Kelsey-"Yes, absolutely, thank you." Mari-"Ya." Kelsey-"Thank you so much for lunch, it was delicious." Mari-"Ya." A little later... Mari-"Ya, ok, I'm going now. Take care. Chao!" Though "ya" still figured quite prominently in today's conversation, we actually spoke a little more because we both left the house at the same time to run some errands in different parts of Viña. I feel this is a step in the right direction.

--At lunch on Sunday a tumbler of fresh strawberry juice appeared by my place at the table.

--My friend Sarah and I have determined that the best type of relationship for us to have while in Chile is what we like to call "the micro romance." Te explico. Let me explain. A good lookin' guy gets on the micro, which is inevitably packed with people like so many sardines, preventing actual conversation or contact. He catches your eye, probably stunned by your pasty skin and trying to figure out if you are a gringa or maybe just some fairer-complexioned Chilean descendant of Bernardo O'Higgins. You, in turn, are mesmerized by his brown eyes and mullet with rattail, or his snazzy sailor uniform (yay for port cities). You exchange a few shy gazes until suddenly your stop comes up and you buzz the driver and crawl over ten people to freedom, leaving the good lookin' guy to wonder. Short, sweet, harmless, and entertaining. That's the micro romance.

--The aforementioned Bernardo O'Higgins, considered the father of Chile, was a political and military hero of Chilean independence. He was also the illegitimate son of an Irishman who worked for the Spanish Empire (don't ask me how that happened) and a Chilean noblewoman. So my Celtic heritage has something of an "in" here...however scandalous it may be.

--A week ago on Thursday I went out with a group of friends, invited by my orientation leader, Anaiza, to El Huevo, an infamous nightclub in Valpo (Laurel Strozier knows absolutely nothing about this place, Dr. Mitchell...absolutely nothing). For hours we wandered up and down the four maze-like floors of this place, ears reeling from the blasting music, which ranged from salsa to rock to pop, etc. Worst/best of all was the reggaeton room, which may have actually had sweat sprinklers judging from the disgusting appearances of everyone dancing there (including us). I went to bed at 4:30 (I'll just pretend my parents and grandparents aren't reading this) and THEN got up and made it to my 8:15 class. So there.

--For the past three weeks, my host family has been tip-toeing around the smoking issue. Afraid to offend me with their habit, they practically hang out the window in the kitchen to smoke, then spray copious amounts of air freshener around the apartment. Sometimes they'll sneak a ciggie while I'm in the shower, but I always know because the smoke seeps in through the bathroom window, completely ruining their clever plan.

--One of the guys who works the funicular (the bald, fierce-looking one) finally asked me where I was from one day this week. When I said the States, he seemed surprised: "I thought you were chilena!" Yessss, I had him fooled. This morning I arrived at the funicular at same time as an older woman. Fierce bald man turned to her and said, "This girl's from South Carolina." She got really excited because she had lived in Los Angeles for a time. Er...I explained to her that LA was on the other side of the country from where I lived, but no matter. I had a friend on the funicular. Her name was Teresa, she was on her way to Santiago for a family funeral, she had an extra pair of shoes with her for walking in the city, she had worked at Neiman Marcus in LA and it was such a wonderful time, she loved the United States because they judged you based on what you did with your life and not what you looked like or how you dressed...We chatted for the few minutes it took to descend from the cerro and walk to the corner, then parted ways.

--I successfully got my student pass for the metro today. I had all the documents I needed (including the official letter from PUCV that I spilled coffee on), I didn't have to wait too long, no one laughed at me, etc. In my excitement, I forgot to actually go and add some metro fare to the card, but whatever.

--My Chilean mom has been very concerned that I've taken a couple of cold showers here (not a huge deal to me, but obviously an affront to her) because the gas water heater wasn't turned on, and I didn't know how to do it yet and didn't want to accidentally detonate the apartment. So a couple of nights ago she ordered my brother to take me to the kitchen and teach me how to light the water heater. Patiently and seriously he laid out the steps for me: open the gas valve, light the match, turn the knob to let the gas flow, light the pilot, press and hold the knob for at least 15 seconds, turn to desired heat. "Now you do it and I'll watch," he instructed. I giggled. "Really?" I inquired. "Yes," came the reply. Feeling silly, I dutifully performed the steps--perfectly, I might add. "Good. Now do it again," he said. Really?? Again I completed the task successfully. We went to report my success to Alvaro and Maria Elena, and the hilarious secret was revealed--my host dad can't turn on the water heater by himself. Sometimes he wakes up my brother at five in the morning to do it for him. We all laughed at him, and then I made him come to the kitchen to learn how. He tried it two or three times--no luck. I demonstrated to him that even the newly-arrived gringa could do it. We went through approximately thirty billion matches, instructing and proving our skills (honestly, I was starting to feel a little wasteful...but still highly amused). He sighed in mock despair until he finally gave up, stomping back to his room in mock frustration like a small boy...but this evening Papa Alvaro announced proudly to all of us that he had successfully lighted the water heater this morning, all by himself!

--I spent way too much money at a used bookstore near my house today, stocking up on some books by a Chilean author as part of my continuing desperate search for an interesting and feasible thesis topic. But here I made two new Chilean friends, the owner Maria and her husband, who were super nice and chatted with me for a while. This relationship is both helpful for the exchange student and highly dangerous for the enthusiastic--yet flat broke--bibliophile.

--Sometimes there are buskers on the micro. On my way to the beach one day last weekend, a couple of guys got on, cranked up their old-school boombox, and broke in socially-conscious rap: "El pueblo, unido, jamás será vencido!" ("The people, united, will never be defeated!")

--The people who are most worried about you getting a liberal arts degrees in the humanities, other than your grandparents, are Chileans. Every Chilean student I talk to is majoring in some form of engineering. The educational system here seems much more geared to very practical, technical career paths. There is little dabbling in various subjects; paradigms are rigidly structured and tightly scheduled. Also, during the Pinochet years, studying philosophy or sociology or psychology meant you were a subversive communist. Hence, the system was redesigned to exclude those subjects, a phenomenon which may still carry over to some extent today, though that is just speculation on my part. In any case, a typical conversation about my academic aspirations goes something like this: Chilean-"What are you studying?" Kelsey-"Spanish language and literature." Chilean-"No, but in the United States, what are you studying?" Kelsey-"Spanish language and literature." Chilean-"Oh...but...why??"

--Speaking of school, my host family was floored to come home one night this week and find me immersed in studying. "What are you doing? No carrete (the Chilean word for going out with friends)??" they each gasped in turn as they walked by my room (for the record, my uncharacteristic spurt of experiencing the night life has been solely in the name of social networking, aka desperately trying to meet people...and so far it has actually been pretty disappointing). "There must be alterior motives for your studying," joked Alvaro, "Are we expecting a call from your parents or something??" Haha, guys. Nope. This is just your introduction to my REAL life: the thrilling life of a self-described nerd who routinely organizes homework parties with her friends for fun on the weekends...

--I made the mistake of buying some dessert to have on hand when people came over last night for a little get-together: an alfajor is "a traditional cookie that is found in some regions of Spain and in countries of Latin America including South America, Central America and Mexico. Its basic form consists of two round sweet biscuits joined together with dulce de leche or jam and covered with powdered sugar or chocolate." Uh-oh. Keep me away from the panaderia.

--In Chile, there is a tradition of hazing new university freshmen during "la semana de los mechoneos." Basically, it's a really lovely custom where they cut the new students' hair (girls and boys), dress them in old clothes, cover them with paint and/or fish guts, and send them to the streets to beg for money to finance parties. Ah, bonding. Thank God I'm not a Chilean freshman.

--And finally, this is our toaster:


There is so much more. But to truly live my beautiful existence, you would just have to visit me.

Ya.

Solace at La Sebastiana

Nothing soothes the soul like poetry...or the former haunt of a great poet. I indulged in both after a rough week (thanks to Caitlin for equipping me with Viente poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada/Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Desperation and to Pablo Neruda for building a stunningly beautiful house in Valparaiso).

My friend Sarah and I headed to Valparaiso with a vague idea of which direction to walk. After finally locating the ascensor, we discovered that it was closed......so we walked up all of this, and then a little farther...

...occasionally rewarded by murals and other interesting sites...

...until we finally arrived! La Sebastiana, the Valparaiso home of Pablo Neruda, famed Chilean poet, political activist, exile, and Nobel prize winner for Literature.

This is the museum side. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to capture the amazing exterior of the house...but photos abound on the internet and this may not be my last visit... These days Neruda is here only in spirit and this bench.The Pacific Ocean went off the map! There was nowhere to put it. It was so big, messy, and blue that it didn't fit anywhere. That's why they left it in front of my window. (Pablo Neruda)Oh, you're right--there it is! See, you could win a Nobel prize too...El nube (the cloud), Neruda's favorite writing chair.

Because you were dying to know, here is the recipe for Neruda's drink of choice, which he prepared behind his own personal bar: equal parts cognac and champagne with a little cointreau and some drops of orange juice for subtle flavor. Sadly, this information would be the only detail of interest to many of my study abroad compatriots...

It turned out to be a poetic neighborhood. A couple of blocks away we stumbled upon three legends of Chilean literature...albeit in bronze form. Here I am reading with Gabriela Mistral.

Chilling with Vicente Huidobro.

And loving on Pablo Neruda.

You can cut all the flowers, but you won't hold back the spring. I wouldn't mind having this in my front yard.

Calle Ferrari.

Painted by PUCV students.

Father Sea, we already know your name...

Our reward after quite a hike and the whimsical fancies of La Sebastiana: yummy sandwiches and REAL COFFEE (a caffe latte...with espresso...no Nescafe here, HA) from Illy!

When the Magic Wears Off

Enter second phase of culture shock.

You know, the one when you feel like everyone's watching as you wander around buildings--lost--trying to find your classes in rooms that even the professors have never seen before, you make a fool of yourself dancing with a pretty-boy Chilean, you slip in the street on some soapy water because for some reason they literally wash the streets here...

When you feel like your Spanish is seriously inadequate even though people compliment it all the time, you are overwhelmed by the crowded micro where you have to get waaay closer to people physically than you ever wanted in order to extract yourself at the correct stop, the taxi driver is creepy, the dog with the really gross eye goo follows you home, you are sleepy all the time...

You wait in line at the Registro Civil to be a good citizen and register your student visa, only to have someone cut in front of you in line before you can do anything, and then leave with your hands covered in sticky black ink from being fingerprinted and your only consolation is a glob of useless lotion and a few tiny paper towels...

You feel conspicuous, like your body is screaming "I'm a gringa!"against your will and the pallor of your Scots-Irish skin is blinding everyone even in this country infused with English and German heritage and European features, and God forbid you take a photo of something interesting in the street because you will instantly identify yourself as a foreigner...

And even though the maid is cooking all kinds of delicious food, and cleaning your room, and hanging out your clothes to dry, and listening to the comforting strains of Juanes at loud volumes, you just feel kind of like crawling in bed and staying there for a while?

That's the second phase of culture shock. Ick.

Biden May Visit Chile

From the Santiago Times in English:

"U.S. Vice-President Joseph Biden is expected to travel to Chile in late March to participate in Progressive Leaders Summit in Viña del Mar from March 27-28. Joining him will be the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Spain’s Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Germany’s Angela Merkel, Uruguay’s Tabaré Vázquez, Argentina’s Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Brazil’s Lula da Silva, and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Zapatero is considered a global pioneer in summit meetings for progressive governments."

I'll have to keep my eyes open and do a little politician stalking! Haha. It seems we are at the center of the world here in Viña/Valpo. A friend of mine claims to have seen Prince Charles yesterday on the street near our university...but then, he is an imaginative sort and there is no telling how much of it he might be making up. For example, I'm relatively certain that he did not actually drink a pisco sour with the monarch as he so vehemently asserted :)

Primer Fin de Semana

A recap of the weekend!

Saturday evening my friend Sarah and I took the metro to Valpo to check out the events being held in celebration of el Dia Internacional de la Mujer (International Women's Day). I think it's really cool that they actually celebrate it here, and that everyone seems to know what it is. Soo, we arrived at la Plaza Sotormayo (a big open space with a monument to Arturo Prat, a Chilean naval hero who I think is actually buried there) to hear some music.


I was hoping to get there in time for Mamma Soul (I thought it was the same band I had seen in San Miguel last summer, but it wasn't) but instead we arrived for the last act of the night...


Palmenia Pizarro, Chilean pop singer and diva extraordinaire, even at roughly 70 years old. Oh, and BIG fan of plastic surgery, if you can't tell from the above publicity photo, haha. She pranced around the stage singing really sappy romantic songs (albeit some with decent rhythms) and even some Mexican ranchera (Sarah and I cracked up when she launched into "Cielito Lindo") while we kicked ourselves for not bringing our cameras. An especially unfortunate fact because her drummer was a dead ringer for Rod Blagojevich, I swear. When we had had enough of her stage crying, we hopped on a micro back to Viña, where we attempted to round up some friends.

As it turned out, we could only rouse Gino, with whom we walked around for a little while before deciding that we were all worn out and could only tolerate a relaxed evening. So we stopped by a little botilleria (ahem, liquor store) and inquired as to their wine selection (we are in Chile, after all, and also highly..er..sophisticated college students). The owner rattled off a list, but we made a unanimous decision when we heard the name "Casillero del Diablo." Devil wine! We know that word! We'll take it! Haha. We pooled about 7 bucks for the wine and carried our find up to Gino's house on Calle Quillota. There we sat around the dining room table, sipping our wine, chowing on bread with marmalade and some yummy cake (in Chile they just say "cake-eh" which I think is really funny), and conversing with Gino's host family: brother Javier, mom Erika, mom's boyfriend Hernan. As we're sitting there, Hernan goes to the kitchen and returns with a bottle of Coke, which he offers to mix with our wine. "Whaaat?" we all say. "Coke with wine??" He makes a sample glass for us to try. It tastes like...really sweet fizzy wine. This is apparently how Chilean make their wine stretch! We thank him for the cultural experience but guard our glasses. Our friend Julian joined us for a while before we all got tired and took taxis home.

On Sunday I slept in, and woke up to a beautiful sunny day. Inquiring about my evening, my Chilean parents promptly laughed at me when I told them we had seen Palmenia Pizarro in concert. Apparently she is sort of a notorious figure, and was almost forced to leave Chile and live in Mexico due to some very public indiscretions (not sure exactly what they were). Maria Elena worked on lunch all morning (although Alvaro had promised to wait on us hand and foot for International Women's Day, what a liar, haha) and her efforts paid off spectacularly: spinach fetuccine with fresh homemade pesto, a salad of sliced tomatoes and onions (typical Chilean dish), sliced avocados, and of course, bread! We had a great time eating and talking together (I got into a political discussion with Alvaro) and afterwards I sipped a tiny cup of coffee and had a big bowl of orange and vanilla ice cream while I talked on Skype with my mom, dad, and Cait.

Later in the afternoon I met up with my partners in crime, Sarah and Gino, and we went exploring for a bit in Valpo. We ended up finding Ascensor Polanco, which you have to enter through an underground tunnel and which takes you up to a tower with a view of the city. We ventured up into the neighborhood Cerro Polanco, climbing all the way to the top of a KILLER hill in hopes of finding a Mapuche village...

But mostly all we found were dogs and kittens, some pretty flowers and interesting houses, and a pack of little kids who threw pebbles and dirt clods at us and called us gringos. Hm. After quick stops at a couple of stores in Valpo we went back to Viña in search of something to eat. It was a challenge since most things close early on Sunday and no one much is out and about. But we did find a pretty tasty Chinese restaurant (staffed by all Chileans, of course) where we ordered dientes de dragon (dragon's teeth), which we were disappointed to discover were not actually dragon parts but rather bean sprouts. After dinner we headed home to rest up for the first day of classes...

Which started early for me. I booked it down the cerro (the elevator was closed at this early hour) to catch a micro to downtown Valpo and headed to my first clase, The Latin American Short Story. The professor, Adolfo de Nordenflycht Bresky, seemed nice enough and I like the sound of what we'll be studying. Also, the evaluations seem like they'll be way manageable--two take-home exams and a final five-page paper. It's funny because here in Chile the first few clases are basically like a preview of the course--many people are still moving around and trying out different courses until they make their final decisions at the end of the month. Very different system than what I'm used to! After class I went with my friend Erin to Jumbo to shop for school supplies, then took the micro back to Viña.

When I got home, our nana Mari was at the apartment cooking and cleaning. We greeted one another and I got to work reading the news, checking email, etc. Around 1:30 she popped into my room and asked what I wanted for lunch. She led me into the kitchen and showed me a smorgasbord of options that she had just finished cooking: tuna cakes, roasted potatoes, a tortilla of spinach and carrots, rice, stuffed peppers...I asked for a little taste of the first three options. Next thing I know she has brought me a tray with two tuna cakes, large piles of spinach and potatoes, a bowl of sliced tomatoes, and bread. Wow. I ate my delicious lunch and then took a short nap before heading out to my last two classes of the day.

After wandering around the building for a while I finally spotted a large crowd of gringos, which meant I had found my Grammar class. We waited and looked around for the prof, but all we saw was a young-looking guy with serious sideburns, black-framed glasses, sneakers, and a black hoodie chilling on a bench. Oh, turns out that was our prof, Pedro! And he was as cool as he looked. The class is going to look at advanced grammar concepts as well as the linguistic differences among dialects of Spanish-speaking countries, with a focus on Chilean Spanish. Very cool! He was also super laidback: "Yeah, I don't really take attendance, although it is important for you to be here. Oh, and if you're, say, 15 minutes late, you're not going to make me cry!" Ha.

Español Comunicacional was equally cool. I love my prof, Luciano Flores, and I get to hang out with him three days a week! The class will focus on improving our conversational skills and confidence speaking, with a base of Chilean culture--art, music, history, human rights, food, wine, economics, etc. In just a bit I will leave for my Traditional Dances class, which sounds promising! Until later.

Ascensor Polanco.Noisy kittens on the rooftop. A guy standing nearby found it hilarious that we took so many pictures, but they were cute, dangit.Artist's lair in Cerro Polanco.View of the port from the torre.The Three Musketeers.