Hello friend. Last week I told you how there wasn’t a lot going in my life so I had to dig for little pieces of treasure to show you. But this week, I have a chest full of all sorts of treasure just for you. It’s so mesmerizing that I have no idea where to begin, what to look at or grab first.
Last week was the first week of classes for my siblings. Alexander started classes at the “U” (Universidad de Chile) taking all kinds of crazy difficult classes within his civil engineering major. I can’t even pronounce half the names of his classes. Anibal and Andrea started their classes across the street at their Colegio, Calasanz. They have the best deal in the whole neighborhood. They wake up in the morning, take a shower, eat a short breakfast and then walk across the street to their school. They literally cross the street and walk through the gate. I wish my commute was that easy. Now that classes have started for me (I’ll get back to that in a minute), I have classes at multiple campuses during the day, so I have to commute a little more than normal… or a lot more than normal. Anyways, at Anibal and Andrea’s school, they just finished a week full of inter-school competition called “Alianzas,” or “Alliances.” They basically divide the school into three teams, A, B and C, and have them compete in a bunch of different activities like putting on a fashion show, putting on a comedy show, singing, dancing, volleyball, relays and cheerleading, among others. I went to a bunch of the activities to see Anibal and Andrea perform. The first night was horrible. I was dying of boredom and embarrassment for the kids. They tried really hard, which is what counts, I suppose, but it was the most horrific show I’ve ever witnessed. One group had not one, not two, but three Michael Jackson imitations within their show, and none of them could dance. My host mom and I were joking about needing to go to the bar to drink. I wasn’t kidding as much as she was. But, she was the one who suggested that for every time we have to cover our eyes, we owe ourselves 2 drinks. We never followed through, but I thought it was a good plan. The second night was the fashion show which was not only fun but very impressive as well. The kids made some very interesting and professional things to wear. The theme of the show was “The Four Seasons,” so they had to make clothes that represented different times of the year. It was fun. Anibal’s team won one and lost one in volleyball, and Andrea’s team won the cheerleading competition, even after they had to replace one of their teammates after she dislocated her knee playing soccer earlier that morning.
Thursday was our last day of the Spanish preparation program, so I had my first exam, which I think went well. It seemed pretty straight-forward so I’m hoping I did everything right. But the best part was what happened after the exam. First, we were lucky enough to see some of the University staff perform the Cueca, which is Chile’s national dance (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvGURVqOmH0 ), and we got a short lesson in doing the steps. It’s not too hard, but I’m guessing we all looked like fools. After that, the two classes met up in a classroom for a party. We had music and cookies and sandwiches and chocolate and wine. Having our professor drink with us was very interesting, but something that’s not too out of the ordinary for here, I think.
Friday we had our orientation for the University. It wasn’t anything too exciting. There were a bunch of people from other universities there. When they called the group from Harvard who was rolling only 4-deep, amateur status compared to our 30, the whole room got quiet. It was pretty funny. Our Cal State group wasn’t too happy that morning after we all received letters from the system notifying us of our 20% tuition increase. That’s 32% this year if my math is right. So much for affordable education, CSU. After that we got to talk to students from each individual major and ask them questions about classes. I talked to the editor of the school’s student magazine and got on board with contributing some stuff to them. I’ve got a 200-word blurb about studying internationally coming out next week. Let me know if you want a collector’s edition ;).
Right now, my class schedule consists of Volleyball, Ethics of Communication, Chilean and Latin American Literature, Chilean Culture, and a Spanish class. Today I had volleyball which was simple enough, and my Ethics class doesn’t start until August 10th. My culture and grammar classes don’t start for another 2 weeks. Awesome.
I was able to get out to the coast for the weekend and explore the very sketchy city Valparaiso and the very touristy and affluent city Viña del Mar. Both are extremely beautiful, but they’ve got their turn-offs, like thieves stealing one of our friend’s fanny packs (they’re stylish here) and chain smoking which begins 20 minutes after waking up. There’s a ton to do and see there, though, and it’s relatively inexpensive for U.S. standards.
Getting there ~ $4
Hostel ~ $12 a night x 2 = $24 lodging
Food ~ varies depending on what you want and how nice you want it, but I bought fresh groceries Sunday morning for our breakfast and we each paid close to $1.25 for fresh toast with butter and hand-made jam, apples and bananas.
Bus to Viña del Mar from Valparaiso ~ less than $0.50
Getting back ~ $4
Basically I spent about $60 for a full-weekend getaway with boat tour, snacking, and home-made mittens included. Bomb.
They’re both port cities, more or less. Puerto Montt is in Valparaiso and there are huge cargo ships as well as navy vessels anchored there. We took a tour of the port on a boat for pretty cheap, which was awesome. In Viña we spent the day on the beach, then we ate hella hot dogs and French fries, and then we got to watch the sunset. Being back on the beach made me miss Humboldt a lot, but it was super fun, we all want to go back.
We met a group of Americans, Canadians and Mexicans on the beach. Our group was debating whether or not they were from Berkeley because they all dressed like they were. Saying “dressed like they were” sounds judgmental. I mean to say that they had Berkeley style. Upon talking to them, we found out that they were from the Maryland, Wisconsin, Canada and Mexico. Not exactly the bay area residents we thought they were, but they were cool either way.
Friday night we went to a club and the dude who works at the hostel we were staying in got us in with a discount. It was a huge basement of this building that looked like a dungeon or a cellar, I don’t even know… but it had three rooms, one with pop music, the second with electronic music, and the third with reggae. Saturday night we saw the band of some of our friend’s play. If you like instrumental post-rock with heavy bass (I think that’s how they described it), then you should check out Santiago’s Joven Abuelo. There’s also another band that, in my opinion, is much better, but I forgot their name.
I basically just napped most of the day yesterday, either on the beach or on the bus on the way back home. There was an amazing blood-orange sunset last night over the beach mountains. I woke up just in time to catch the last bit of it before we entered the light-polluted city.
Today was a little different. I was up at 7 a.m. to make my 8:30 volleyball class. I wasn’t expecting to do much today, but our “profe” had us running drills and passing, it was nuts. Not only that, but he’s assigning readings for us during the semester. They don’t mess around.
Other than that, tomorrow is my first day of cross country practice. I’ve got my fingers crossed that I don’t make myself look like a fool with how out of shape I am. Right now, I need to walk to the Jumbo… the Santiago equivalent of a Wal-Mart with Target quality. I can dig it.
See you soon.
Derek
P.s. Uploading pictures to the blog takes a lot of time and even more space on this page. So, for your convenience, and mine, I’m going to list direct links to some photos. Just paste the links into your browser and see all sorts of mischief I’ve been up to.
Picture of our hostel: http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c346/D-Lisch/DSC_0044.jpg
City of Valparaiso: http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c346/D-Lisch/DSC_0149.jpg
http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c346/D-Lisch/DSC_0168.jpg
Boat Tour: http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c346/D-Lisch/DSC_0234-1.jpg
Viña del Mar by Day: http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c346/D-Lisch/DSC_0311.jpg
By night: http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c346/D-Lisch/DSC_0407.jpg
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