Vino (Wine)

Degustación- tasting
Corcho- cork

Chile’s wine valley Casa Blanca is (in my opinion) a hidden treasure. Most things that in the states would be super touristy and expensive with signs screaming in your face to go there are much more subtle and even difficult to find here. Tourism in Chile isn’t exactly a priority, especially if you don’t speak Spanish. I like that about this country it makes me feel like an insider when I do find these hidden treasures that most tourists have never heard of and would get lost going to. Which made my experience at the Casas del Bosque vineyard that much more enjoyable.

Saturday morning I met some friends at the bus terminal in Valparaíso to take the 45 minute bus to Casa Blanca (which is about half way between Viña/Valpo and Santiago).The Casablanca Valley has some of the vineyards that have recently grown in popularity here. Once there we hopped in a colectivo (taxi) to take us to the actual vineyard. It was so beautiful and the weather was perfect! We asked for the next tour when we arrived and even did the tour in Spanish (because we are such proactive and eager students!) However, having zero prior knowledge of wine and how it’s made proved to be a bit of a struggle with the vocabulary.
Then came the actual wine tasting! On the table with our wine glasses were other glasses filled with things like vanilla, pepper, bell peppers and mint to compare the smells of the wine with those basic things. There was one vino tinto (red wine) that definitely smelled like pepper but other than that I couldn’t really pick out the smells in the wines….maybe I just need more practice ☺

Other than the awesome wine tour this weekend things have been fairly calm here. The big news is that the Chilean University (La Catolica, the one I was supposed to be attending here) has reached some kind of agreement and started classes Monday. After being in paro (strike) for 4 months it’s about time they settled things! I also found out that on ESPN VIVO I can watch the World Series! Only downside is that the commentary is all in Spanish, kinda takes away from the All American-ness of baseball. BUT STILL I’m able to watch the games!

I LEAVE FOR MACHU PICCHU (the trip I’ve been looking forward to since before I even got here) ON THURSDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can’t contain my excitement. It’s gunna be TOTALLY AWESOME!!!!!

After I get back from Machu Picchu things will get pretty crazy with final papers and exams right around the corner and my travel plans taking up almost every weekend until I go home in December. It’s crazy to think that I’ve been here for about 3 months. Sometimes I think where did the time go? I still haven’t learned anything or seen or done anything?! And other times I think WOW, I’ve learned and grown and seen so much in such a short time. It’s a very strange mix of emotions, especially when you add in the occasional homesickness or feelings of wishing I were staying a year. (Don’t worry I’m not staying a whole year, y’all will see me back in the states in December). So a strange mix of emotions and about a month and half left here is where I stand right now. I hope that made some sense to those of you haven’t studied abroad before, it’s difficult to explain.

Besitos,
Gaby

Futbol (Soccer is the world's favorite sport)

It’s a well-known fact that soccer is the most popular sport pretty much everywhere except the U.S. So being in a Latin American country I have been able to experience first hand the passion these people have for the sport and their team. When I asked my host family why soccer was so popular they simply said it was part of the culture and that it was cheap so anyone can play. Which is so true you don’t need a ton of equipment to play soccer, just a ball and some friends. It’s also one of the reasons many pro futbolistas come from humble beginnings (like in the movie Goal, even though the protagonist is from Mexico its similar in all of Latin America).

In the past week or so I’ve had the opportunity to watch two futbol games at sports bars with some friends in my program. And let me tell you the people watching (or creeping if you will) just at these bars is awesome! And I hope to be able to go to a game live because that would just be madness! The bars are packed wall to wall with fans wearing red or Chile’s team scarves. At one of the bars some of the fans painted their faces like the Chilean flag (yes its ALMOST identical to the Texas flag) and wore crazy hats/wigs.
Everyone started cheering when the players walked on the field and sang along at the top of their lungs when they played the national anthem. In the Chile v. Peru game Chile scored early on and the whole bar went nuts! Everyone jumped out of their chairs and screamed GGGGOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAALLLLL!!! Then they chanted CHI-CHI-CHI LE-LE-LE VIVA CHILE! The excitement was definitely contagious! Chile continued to play really well and won 4-2! It was an awesome game with lots of scoring for a soccer match and the atmosphere really added to the experience.

One observation I have about Latin American futbol teams is that when they get hit they tend to be super dramatic and roll around on the ground a lot waiting for the other team to get penalized or whatever. Its kinda annoying but also really funny to think about making a montage after every game of the players just rolling around on the ground!


Now for a few miscellaneous updates!
1. Second time camping was a total success! The weather was awesome and we hiked to the top of the mountain. From the top on one side you could see the beach and Valparaíso and on the other you could see the Andes and Argentina. Super cool!
2. The strikes are still going on. The police went in and extracted the students that had taken over the school and were living there. But my professors think the kids will just take it over again.
3. My program took us on an historical tour of Santiago and we went to the cemetery where all the presidents are buried and to Villa Grimaldi. Villa Grimaldi was where they tortured people during the Pinochet era. It was comparable to a concentration camp during WWII. As depressing as it was I’m glad we went because I understand a lot more about Chile’s recent history now.
4. Things I miss: my car, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with a tall glass of milk, chick-fil-a, and surprisingly the hot Texas weather (side note: its technically spring but we’ve had a cold front and I’m just dying to get to the beach!).

Besitos,
Gaby

Teletón (my internship)

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this on my blog or only in skype conversations but through my program I am interning/volunteering at a nonprofit in Valparaíso. It’s called Teletón and it is a nonprofit for children with disabilities (con discapacidades). Basically, I go there once a week for a few hours and work in the recrear (to entertain) area where I get to play with the kids and their siblings while they wait for therapy and other appointments. If you know me at all you know that I absolutely love kids and this is the perfect place for me to be working! Some of the kids ask me about the U.S. and others just laugh at my accent or my inability to understand them. Also it’s interesting to talk to their parents about Chile and Teletón.

In addition to going to Teletón once a week, I also have an internship class where I read articles and such about disabilities and discrimination and integration of people with disabilities and write essays. And all these readings are in Spanish! Sometimes its very difficult to understand medical journals in Spanish because let’s be real, I wouldn’t completely understand them in English either. But it’s definitely a challenge that I welcome with open arms! I don’t read about one specific type of disability, I’m learning about physical, mental and psychological disabilities and how they affect people in Chile. Which is fascinating to learn about because it is very different from the United States in this area.

Unfortunately I’m not allowed to take pictures inside Teletón but if you speak Spanish (or have a lot of time to google translate everything) you can find them on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/teletonchile) and Twitter @Teleton!

In other news I’m going camping again with my mountain sports class this weekend and have tentative plans to go to Mendoza, Argentina the weekend after! I also just finished midterms, yay!
Besitos,
Gaby

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

Business in the front/Party in the back....?

Do you love the 80s???? Like really really love the 80s???
If you said yes then you should most definitely make your way down to Chile, because they are stuck in the 80s as far as fashion goes!!

For men the mullet is the ONLY acceptable haircut here (insert barfing noises). I am not kidding. This is not a joke. Mullets are everywhere I go and I always want to take pictures but I’m too scared they’ll notice and ask me questions, or worse break my camera!!! But anyway, if the regular old mullet is too tame for you I’ve seen a mullet that makes all the other mullets look…well almost normal. I am talking about the infamous dread/mullet combo!!!!!!!!! That’s right business in the front, dreads in the back. It involves super short hair in the front and dreads that don’t quite reach your butt in the back. I almost vommed everywhere when I first saw this ‘do’ so now when I see regular old mullets I am relieved.
Men’s fashion is mostly high top sneakers with your choice of either acid wash jeans OR white jeans. Then on top they have the lovely crew neck sweatshirts or northface looking jackets (side note: If you wear actual northface here it is very VERY obvious that you are a foreigner).

Now for the ladies the hair is not so extreme. Many Chilean women just have very long hair, but unfortunately it’s not 80s voluminous hair with a whole can of hairspray in it. They also wear the crew neck sweatshirts along with scarves that mostly have floral patterns on them. They wear this under their leather jackets! The girls either wear acid wash skinny jeans/jeggings or leggings as pants. But these are not just your regular everyday black leggings (how boring would that be?!) these are patterned leggings. Usually floral patterns once again. For shoes the girls also wear the high top sneaks OR ankle boots that more often than not have heels. Why you would wear boots with heels when you walk on uneven sidewalks all day, I do not know! But they do!

So there you go! A lovely description of Chilean fashion. I REALLY hope that the 80s make a come back in the states so that all my friends born after the 80s can witness this glorious sight!
Besitos,
Gaby

La Huelga (Strike)

Before I tell all of you about my first week of school I feel like I should explain why the Chileans students are protesting. That way all of you gringos (whiteys) will understand why my first week of school was so absurd.

The college students all over Chile are protesting the price of education here. Basically what has happened is the education system has become a way for the government to make money, making the price of education very expensive (much like in the U.S. let’s be real, it’s RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE). But unlike in the U.S. they don’t give out scholarships for every little thing to help the families pay. So that being said the low/middle class are unable to pay for college without taking out an obscene amount of loans, which take years and years to pay back. (Hmmm doesn’t all of this sound familiar). Now the biggest difference is that if you do not go to college and instead get a job directly after high school you are pretty much stuck with that low paying job for the rest of your life. There’s really no way to move up the corporate ladder here. Which means that if you have a minimum wage job you can’t pay for your kids education so they have to get low paying jobs and can’t pay for their kids education etc. etc. It’s a vicious cycle.
So when you hear this you think to yourself “wow, no wonder these students are protesting! They want to be able to better themselves and their future children!” Well yes and no. Because then you hear that not only do they want lower prices on education, they want FREE education. And that is a huge problem because there is no possible way to have free colleges. Now not all of the students are this extreme in what they are asking for (only the communist ones, according to my host dad).
Hopefully that cleared up a few things about what is happening down here. (Side note: Before I continue I want everyone to know that I AM SAFE and AM BEING CAREFUL).

Okay so First Week of School, I was signed up for 20 classes (not 20 credits, TWENTY CLASSES) so obviously I skipped out on quite a few. Monday-Wednesday classes went as scheduled mostly in the locations we were told (some were moved last minute, Oh you silly Chileans always keeping us on our toes!) Then Thursday there were huge violent protests at our school (Like tear gas and water cannons violent), so to keep all the extranjeros (foreigners) safe our classes were moved to a completely different location for the time being. It was nice that they wanted us to be safe, but it kinda sucks not knowing what bus to take/how long it will take to get to school. Luckily, I figured it out and Monday I will know where to go (and to bring a sandwich for lunch because this location does NOT have a microwave. I learned that only after Nancy packed me a lunch that needed to be heated up.)
Overall I think my classes shouldn’t be too difficult. Except for the fact that they are college level courses taught only in Spanish and some of my professors speak incredibly fast and have illegible handwriting. AWESOME. NOT. Despite that and the strikes I am hopeful that I will find a way to become friends with real Chileans. Maybe I can get them to do my homework for me since they will be bored to tears what with the whole no classes thing going on.

Besitos,
Gaby

Below are some pictures of my school building Casa Central