Vacaciones de Primavera (Spring Break)

As promised I have included my pictures from Buenos Aires! But first I want to make a few shout outs to Rory “the anti-chirpse” Davidson for being our wonderful tour guide, to Andrew Crook for being awkward and introducing me to media lunas, Erin Dunk for being fabulous as always and to Andre Boudreaux even though I only got to see him for like a second! Yall made my trip to BA soo unforgettable! Thank you!

A few differences between Chile and Argentina:
1. The people in Argentina are not as friendly. They have this “I’m better than you” air about them that just didn’t appeal to me. I don’t know if it’s specifically a Buenos Aires attitude or all of Argentina.
2. The food in Argentina is more flavorful than in Chile!
3. The people in Buenos Aires are not stuck in the 80s as far as fashion goes. They are more modern.
4. People in Argentina speak slower and clearer than people in Chile. They were so much easier to understand! And now I don’t feel so dumb for struggling to understand Chileans my first few weeks here!
5. I’m really glad I chose to study in a smaller city. Being in Buenos Aires was comparable to New York City. I would have been incredibly overwhelmed if I lived there. Which just goes to show that Viña del Mar was the PERFECT choice for me!




Puente de la Mujer, the bridge made to look like a man and woman dancing tango...its abstract.


Casa Rosada (Pink House) where the president lives!


Obelisco


Trinity friends in Buenos Aires! So magical!


The tomb of Evita in the Recoleta Cementary. It had the most elaborate graves I've ever seen. Not that I spend that much time in cementaries but this one is definitely worth going to.


After my adventure in Buenos Aires I still had a few days of spring break left. So I hopped on a bus to the south of Chile! This is a picture of Volcan Villarrica, the volcano I was supposed to go skiing on! But then it rained and I couldn't. Sad day.


Ojo de Caburgua. It was so incredibly beautiful!


Then I went home to Viña just in time for my 21st birthday!!! This is a picture of my host parents Nancy and Adrián and my good friend Mary Kate (she's another Trinity friend!)

Comida (FOOD)

Y’all are probably all really curious about I’ve been eating down here in Chile. So just to clarify the food here is NOTHING like Mexican food. If you’ve been envisioning me eating tacos and enchiladas and spicy foods you are mistaken (and weird if you’re imagining what I eat….)

For breakfast every morning I have a small bowl of oatmeal, a piece of toast and usually an orange. Occasionally, I also have some freshly squeezed orange juice too! It’s kind of a plain breakfast but I really like because it’s not that different from what I eat for breakfast at home in Texas.
Lunch is by far the biggest and most formal meal of the day. And believe me when I say that lunch is HUGE! My family had to start giving me smaller portions because I never eat all of my meal. We usually start off with a salad of lettuce, pealed tomatoes (I still haven’t asked why they peal tomatoes, but I still think its weird) and maybe some broccoli. They don’t use salad dressing like we do. They use salt, oil and vinegar or lemon juice as salad dressing. Sometime we have soup too or whole artichokes that we dip in mayonnaise. (side note: I hate mayonnaise and skip this part of the meal).If we don't have soup or artichoke then we will eat empanadas of jamon y queso (ham and cheese). Also they’ll give me just a piece of bread to put pebre (basically salsa) on. Then we have the main course, which varies day to day but almost always has potatoes or rice and chicken many times. Pastel de papa, arroz con pollo, ravioli, portono con riendas (I think that’s what it’s called, it’s a bean and noodle soup). The other dishes have names that I’ve forgotten. But you get the idea. And for dessert we eat fruit! I really like having kiwi but oranges and apples are good too. Sometime Nancy and Adrián will have bananas with honey (platanos con miel) but I’m allergic to bananas so I just stare at them longingly while I eat my kiwi.
Dinner is small and informal and not called dinner. We say tomar té (to have tea) which, I think is just precious and wish more people in the states drank tea! So we’ll have tea with sandwiches of ham and cheese and sometimes after going to the feria (farmers market) we’ll have palta (avocado/guacamole). And if they’ve been to the panaderia we’ll have some kind of pastry for dessert! I especially like this pastry called a berlín, that has a cream filling and powdered sugar on top! Delicious!

Since my meals at home are already prepared/paid for I haven’t eaten out since I got here. I only buy ice cream! And let me tell you, Chileans LOVE their helado (ice cream). Even when I first got here in the dead of winter they were nomming on ice creams cones ALL THE TIME. There’s one ice cream place right on the beach that I have become a regular at! It’s soo yummy and the perfect start or end to a stroll along the beach!

Okay dearest readers I’ve done enough procrastinating in the form of blogging/skyping/cleaning/eating and should probably write my paper that’s due the day after I get back from BUENOS AIRES!! Did I mention that I’m spending my Chilean spring break in BUENOS AIRES!?!?!?! I’m so excited I can hardly stand it! So obviously my new post will be all glorious pictures from my wonderful spring break!

Besitos,
Gaby

CAMPING (yes this is what you think it is)

A Vocabulary Lesson:
Colchoneta- pad you put under your sleeping bag (which I did not have and my professor told me "vas a morir de frío"luckily my tent mates shared theirs)
Saco de dormir- sleeping bag
Carpa-tent
Cocinilla-little mini camping stove top

For those of you who I haven’t talked to in a million years this will be news to you, I am in a Mountain Sports class (deporte de montaña). Yes, I know I’m not the most outdoorsy or athletic person. But trust me, this is the best decision of my life. Our first excursion a few weeks ago was to go rock climbing and rapelling. I’ve been rock climbing before…you know like on a dinky little rock wall at summer camp. This was a real rock on a mountain. I was kinda scared but at the same time I was thinking to myself I just went rock climbing in Chile!!!! Wahooo!!!!!

Anyway, our second excursion this past weekend was a camping trip to Cerro Roble. So in true Gaby fashion I waited till the day before to buy all my supplies with my group at the Lider (Chilean Walmart). I’m so excited because this is the first time I’ve been camping in twenty years! Friday comes around and I’m so excited (I hope you are now singing Rebecca Black’s Friday in your head). We take the metro and a bus ride to get to the bottom of the Cerro. Once we arrive our professors inform us that there is a 90% chance of rain that night…why are we here if it’s going to rain??? I’m still not really sure about the answer to that question. But I’ve learned that I’m never in control here and to just go with the flow.

We start up the mountain and it’s beautiful and I’m having a great time hiking up the cerro. When it starts to get dark I get to use my linterna frontal (basically the forehead flashlight you wear like a miner). It’s so awesome and I look really cool AND I’m putting those hiking boots to good use! We finally reach the campgrounds, which have cow pies all over (I’m not sure why the cows are in the mountains but whatever). After kicking the cow pies out of the way we pitch our tent! After the tent is set up we cook the most delicious soup and PB&J sandwiches I’ve ever had. Seriously. It was amazing. Then it was time to go to bed before the rain started and we got soaked.
I’m at the point where I’m almost asleep when I hear the rain start. Great, now I’ll never fall asleep because I’m too nervous that the rain will soak through the tent. I try to calm down and sleep but then I hear the ferocious winds blowing. Oh dear, our tent is going to blow away! I keep trying to sleep but now I’m freezing and scared our tent is about to get blown off the mountain. And then it happens, I feel freezing cold water on my arm that’s not good. So I readjust and keep trying to sleep and keep failing.
Finally morning comes and our professor is walking from tent to tent giving important instructions. He comes to ours and says (in Spanish of course) “don’t get out of your tent it’s still dark out and there is snow on the ground.” SNOW?!?! No wonder I was so cold!!! I now don’t feel like such a big baby for being cold and unable to sleep all night. But now what? I’m not hiking in the snow to come back and sleep another night in this tent that is covered in snow/rain. Luckily I didn’t have to because our professors informed us that it was too dangerous to go hiking and that we would just go back. Which of course meant hiking down the slippery snow and mud covered cerro.
It was still snowing when we began hiking back down, which made it difficult and we moved at a very slow pace. Good thing because the mud was super inconvenient. But then we get to where the stream is and its like a rainforest on this portion of the mountain! Green leafy trees everywhere and water! And not that much mud. We keep walking and make it back to the bus that takes us to the metro station. Then I finally get home!!!! And it’s a beautiful sunny day in Viña when I arrive. I then spend the rest of the day/night sleeping (only after I showered and ate a real meal).

And that is the story of my very first camping experience! I feel like after this, the next excursion and my trip to Machu Picchu will be a piece of cake! And good news I didn’t get sick! And even though this whole story probably makes it sound like its was awful (and the weather was awful) I still had a wonderful time! We were all tired but happy because otherwise we would have started panicking about the snow and such. Well anyway, I hope yall enjoyed this adventurous story as much as I enjoyed living it!
Till next time
Besitos
Gaby