Chilean home

I'm more than half way through my time in Chile, and though I haven't had time to update a blog with regular posts I do want to share a little bit of the amazing things I've been able to do & see here. So, this is my attempt to bottle up everything I adore about Chile & send it to all my loves at home... Here goes!


I live with a host family! They are really great people, and have a ton of faith that they've poured out on me since day one. I've been learning lots from them, from their openness, generosity, and love for life.

Here's a peak at where I'm living.

the snazzy abode

I knew I'd love the place when I saw the Harry Potter chess set :D

Cutsie little room

Outside my window

LA FAMILIA

Host sister, parents, brother & his wife - aren't they pretty?!

Host parents (left) & uncle

Host mom (Sonia) & sister (Evelyn)

Host brothers/sister/cousin

Initial challenges:

1 - Getting used to the chilean dialect and new vocab. There are tons of "chilenismos" ... words that are particular to Chile ... that I had to learn in order to understand what in the world people were talking about around here ;) Now that I've got it down more or less (though I'm always learning new things), the chilenismos are really fun. Here are some of my favorites, which may only be interesting to those of you who have studied spanish: bacán = cool, pololo/polola = boyfriend/ girlfriend, carrete = party, ¿cachai? = ya know?, fome = lame/boring, pucha = darn!, keke = cake or butt. And they add "poh" on the end of a ton of words for emphasis like "si-poh."  love it.

2 - Transportation. I've never lived in such a big city, so the public transportation (both buses & metro) was tricky at first. With "la micro" (the bus), you have to be able to recognize where you're at in order to get off in the right place. So, in the beginning I was always the silly gringa asking chileans where to get off. Luckily there was always some lovely person to help me out.

3 - The University. A new set of expectations and a whole different way of doing things, like registering for courses, printing, finding books/photocopies, all that good stuff. First couple of weeks = chaotic at times.


4 - Culture shock.  I thought I'd be prepared for this after my India trip but that wasn't the case! It's the strangest thing to settle into a new place, with different customs, comforts, & living among people with different senses of humor, and with SPANISH everywhere! Well, it was a tad uncomfortable for awhile.  I didn't feel super confident, always wanting to make a good impression and say the right things, and I've definitely made a ton of mistakes.  Yet, it's all part of this learning and growing process!


5 - God has been yelling at me: "ERICA! You can't always be in control!"  That one is hard for me to swallow sometimes because control is comfortable for me.  I'm taking a Tango class here, and on multiple occasions my partner has had to remind me that HE is supposed to be leading, not me.  HAH!  Just like with Tango, living here I've had less control over my circumstances than I would like: my food choices, transportation, grades, my schedule and my time in general.  It's been a good lesson, and I'm still learning. 

City Life

Especially throughout the first few weeks, getting to know my new home in this huge city was what occupied my time. During my initial two-week contemporary Chile course, the 34 students in my exchange program and I traveled around to various spots in Santiago to learn about history, culture, and the society in general.  Since then we've been able to use our free time to explore tons more..!

Here are some of the wonders of this fine city:

La Chascona - one of Pablo Neruda's houses (famous Chilean poet)

Plaza de Armas, at the heart of Santiago 

La Moneda - Chile's "White House"

Parque por la Paz (Villa Grimaldi) & Cementerio General 
- We were given a tour of what was a torture camp during the Pinochet dictatorship, a tour which was given by a socialist man who was held and tortured there. It was incredibly fascinating and emotional.

Gravestone of Salvador Allende - Chile's socialist president who died during the military coup in 1973, when Pinochet's dictatorship came to power

Cerro Santa Lucia

At the top! As you can see, the Andes Mountains surround Santiago. I have the pleasure of seeing these everyday :)

Graffiti 

Out & about
-one of my favorite things about studying abroad: meeting new people who bring their own unique experiences, opinions, and ideas, and are willing to share.

Abby, Madeline & me at El Oasis: a Christian group for university students

At a Mexican Restaurant in Bellavista, with la katrina

Carrete

Hiking! At the top of Cerro Pochoco, with our guide dog named Jesus :)

Jazz Bar

Trips!!

Another fantastic part of studying abroad is not needing an excuse to travel every single weekend if you'd like. So, we've been taking advantage! Here are the lovely sites I've traveled to in Chile. :)

Isla Negra - Our first trip outside of Santiago was at the beginning of August, to what my lonely planet guidebook calls a "spectacular setting on a windswept ocean headland"... and yep, that's about right. The main draw to Isla Negra was another one of the homes of Pablo Neruda, which was probably my favorite of his three.

Pomaire - Another weekend in August we traveled to Pomaire, a small town about an hour outside of Santiago.  It's a super cute little place, known for its pottery (especially their three-legged pigs, which brings luck to those who receive it as a gift) and delicious traditional Chilean food.

1/2 kilo empanadas and pastel de choclo, which is like a corn pie, and jugo natural  MMMM so yummy.

Iquique and Pica: the desert - In September, we had our first trip with our study abroad program to the very north of Chile.  We toured two sites that have been declared "Patrimonio de la Humanidad" (World Heritage Sites) by UNESCO, which means they are protected from being altered or destroyed because of their historical/cultural value.  The two sites we visited were Santa Laura and Humberstone, which used to be centers of production of salitre (nitrate).  And, Humberstone is now a ghost town! 
Some of the other awesome things we got to see/do:
-Visited geoglifos de pintados! These are huge illustrations on hillsides that date back to the fourth century AD. 
-Visited Pica, an oasis in the middle of the desert, stayed at a colorful little resort where we picked fresh oranges and grapefruit off trees, and swam in a natural hot spring!
-Became friends with a sea lion on the dock in Iquique.
-Made a stop on our way back to the airport at a small town called La Tirana, where a huge celebration was going on, full of chileans dancing in their traditional clothing.

Santa Laura - Salitre production site

Iquique - Teatro Municipal 

Iquique Dock

La Tirana celebration

Valparaíso - Last weekend, Mary and I went to the port city of Valparaíso. It's a city built upon hills, with colorful houses and artistic graffiti everywhere.  It's a popular place to visit in Chile, with amazing views from the hilltops and is also the location of Pablo Neruda's third house, La Sebastiana. We were lucky to run into three really nice chileans around our age, and when we asked for advice about what we should see/do in the city, they offered to show us around. We ended up tagging along with them for a good portion of the day and learned a ton from the guy in the group who seemed to know every historical fact about Valpo. 

La Sebastiana

EL SUR (The South!)

This year Chile celebrated 200 years of independence on the 18th of September: El Bicentenario.  There was sooo much hype leading up to the day, and lots of celebrations before and after... You couldn't walk down the street without seeing the evidence of Chilean pride, with huge flags, decorations, and advertisements in the markets, streets, and homes.  So, to celebrate, seven of us decided to take a six-day vacation to the south of Chile.  We explored Pucón, Villarrica, the beautiful island of Chiloé, Puerto Montt and Puerto Varas.  It was exactly what I needed: a break from the city life and classes (which began at the beginning of August, isn't that supposed to be summer break?! Not here:)), fresh air, lots of laughs, and perfect scenery.  What better way to document parts of our adventure than through photos?

PUCÓN  

After a 10 hour, over-night bus ride from Santiago, we arrived in paradise!  Pucón!  It's quite the adventure-lovers' town, with lots of German influence and an international/touristy feel.  Our hostel was the cutest thing in the world, with the nicest family running it.  It warmed our hearts right from the beginning, and is known for their VEGETARIAN FOOD, which is almost impossible to find in Chile.  Like I said, a slice of heaven.

école, our hostel!

Our plan for Pucón was to climb Volcano Villarrica!  We set everything up when we arrived in Pucón for climbing the next day, getting sized for all the equipment we'd need, then set off for exploring the town.  We went to Lake Caragua, and on the advice of our bus driver we walked in search of a white beach, which apparently led to a path that would bring us to beautiful water falls.  Well, we didn't find said path, but still got to play on the banks of the lake, got chased by some angry sheep, and encountered some interesting hippies playing drums. 

Granola lunch

Lago Caragua

sheep chasing us

On our way back to town, we found the waterfalls: Ojos de Caragua and the "blue lagoon."

The next day, we got up bright & early for our full day of hiking the volcano, got all prepared with our equipment and headed out for the base of the volcano.  Welp, the conditions ended up being a tad rough for hiking, so our hiking guides didn't want to risk it.  Why were the conditions bad?  It was pretty tough to navigate through the snow storm. So, we played in the snow instead!

happy to be in the snow; sad that we can't climb, right mary?

VILLARRICA

Since the volcano was a no-go, we traveled to Villarrica for the day instead.  Villarrica is less touristy but with lots of southern-Chile culture.  We took in the view of the volcanos from the banks of Lake Villarrica, and with no real idea of how we'd fill up our free day, we set off walking around the town.  That's when the fun began.  We went to the municipality building, thinking we'd get more info about the town, hoping to visit a farm that we'd read about in our guide books.  We randomly met a woman there who told us she had a friend who owned a farm, then called him up and told him about us wanting to visit.  She said we could come to her house, leave our big backpacks with her, and be picked up by her farmer friend.  While we were a bit nervous about this (we have been so paranoid about being robbed in Chile.. it's much more common here!), but she seemed so so genuine and sweet, so we thought, why not!  After her friend picked us up, we all piled into the back of his little truck and away we went.  He showed us all around his beautiful farm & philosophized about life (he was quite the deep thinker) & brought us to a Mapuche woman's house where she made cheese!  Pretty much AMAZING.

In the trunk :)

Mapuche women & her cheese

Then, we got to tour a micro brewery!  The owner showed us around and told us all about the process of making the beer... and all on machines that HE built, reallly impressive.  He is Chilean, but his grandparents were from Belgium, and his grandfather had his own micro brewery and passed on the tradition.  

Crater Beer = Delicious

CHILOÉ

After our random/spontaneous day in Villarrica, we traveled to the beautiful island of Chiloé.

We started in Ancud, Chiloé and went to see some penguins!  It's not peak time for penguins, but we did see several and the views on the drive there & from the beach were amazing.

Our taxi drove us right up on the beach, hah

Show us those penguins!

There's one!

San Antonio Fort, Ancud

we thought we'd be blown away by the swift breeze ;)

Next, we traveled to the capital of Chiloé, CASTRO, for the big day: EL BICENTENARIO!

Celebratory Parade 

Cueca Dancers - The Cueca is Chile's national dance

Chilean Pride

After the parade, we visited a church made completely of wood and hopped on a bus to check out a neighboring town, Achao.

 Iglesia San Francisco (Castro)

Rainbow :) Achao.

PUERTO VARAS

On Sunday, our last full vacation day, we explored Puerto Varas, another town with some German heritage. We walked along Lake Llanquihue and around the town, and came across a party/festival type get-together, full of Chilean food and great vibes.

Lake Llanquihue

Cool Museum

On the festival stage - showing some Chile Love ♥

AND, after sleeping in Puerto Montt, we took a 15 HOUR bus ride back to Santiago. Amazing scenery; long ride.  We got back to our chilean homes tired after a great journey, with warm & happy hearts. :)