Mendoza, Argentina

Luckily, PUCV has Semana Novata, which means we had a week off of classes. Its a welcome week for all the Freshman, and therefore all of the afternoon classes are cancelled and many of the morning ones as well. So, Kate, Erin and Rachel, all friends of mine (all shown in this order), woke up early on Tuesday of Semana Novata and headed to Mendoza, Argentina which is about 7 hours away.

We rode on a double-decker bus which was really fun because the whole drive is full of beautiful views! Practically the whole trip is through the Andes, and coming from flat Indiana, it was really awe-inspiring to see the towering mountains.

Here is one of the most beautiful views that I was able to capture through the window. If I'm not mistaken, I believe that this lake is actually there because it has been damned somewhere to capture the water from the Andes. Mendoza and much of the surrounding area is extremely dry and doesn't receive much rainfall, so they need to collect the extra water so they can use it.

This was the harrowing part of the journey. As you can see, we slowly winded our way up the side of the mountain and it was a bit scarey to look down and see the bus was about a foot from the edge of this gigantic drop off....duly noted in this foto...

Here is our hostel, Puertas del Sol. The owner was a young Argentinian, Hernan, who lives in the hostel and was super kind and helped us book all of the activities we wanted to do in Mendoza. One night he even took us to go buy wine because it was raining. I thought I was going to die because of the way he drove his truck in the wet, slippery streets, but it was kind none-the-less.

One day we took a wine tour through Maipú, which is sort of like a "county" of Mendoza, I believe. We rode bikes along the street and stopped off at the wine museum, did a tasting at Viña del Cerno (right), an artesinal winery that produces about 100,000 bottles a year, a chocolaterie, and a olive oil producer.

At the olive oil factory we were able to taste olives, olive oil on bread and olive oil on bread with sun dried tomatoes. It was delicious. Then at the chocolate factory we tasted chocolate liqueurs, I had Irish Cream and others we shared together were Chocolate, Chocolate with mint, with coffee and with banana. We also got to try four different kinds of chocolate that they make there which was probably my highlight of the day. Then at Vina del Cerno, we did a degustation and I tried a red wine that was a mix of old and new wine and then a dry champagne - both were excellent!

To the left is on top of Cerro de la Gloria, a "hill" in the massive Parque de San Martin. From here is obviously the beautiful view of the Andes and from the other side a great view of Mendoza. If you were to look to the right in the picture, just in front of the Andes, is where we took a horsebackriding excursion at sunset through the pampas. It was by far my favorite part of the trip with such a beautiful view of the Andes and then when we came back we had a traditional asado or BBQ with the gauchos (Argetinian cowboys) and it was the best beef I've ever tasted!

One day Erin and I were walking around saw this cool church that was being renovated so we stopped by and Gabriel popped his head out and asked us if we wanted a tour. We ended up getting a full-blown historical background tour of this church, Iglesia de la Virgen de la Merced. And this statue of the Virgin was found under the rubble of the church after an earthquake and she was fully intacted. Since then, the church has been rebuilt two other times because of earthquaks, hence the display case she's now in.

Mendoza doesn't get much rainfall so after the earthquake that destroyed a lot of the city they made the sidewalks a lot larger - which means tons of wonderful spots for drinking a coffee or wine outside - and put in these little "ditches" along the streets that bring water from the Andes into the city...I think all of us almost fell in them at least once.

Our last day in Mendoza, Kate, Erin and I decided to go to the zoo. We waited about 30 minutes for a bus and then decided to take a cab...we we arrived this sign was up outside "Por un salario digno" - "For a dignified salary". The workers were on strike...so we ate lunch and caught a bus back into town.

All in all, it was a great trip and the one souvenir that I got to take back with me with some leftover pesos, vino blanco!!!

¡Hasta pronto!

Erika

Mi Casa

Bienvenido a mi casa!

Welcome to my house!

This is my "old" room. Rossy, my mamá chilena, thought that the room was looking a bit triste (sad) so she bought a new comforter for the room to brighten it up. What do you think of the new and improved Habitación de Erika?

Rossy is a pretty intense housekeeper, like most Chilean housewifes, everything is always in its place and always clean. I've talked with other students and for the most part, everyone has said that their mothers are always coming in to straighten their rooms after they've headed off to class. Often, I come back home to find my bed remaid and my room tidied up even though it was pretty clean to begin with.

Rossy also spends a lot of time in the kitchen preparing meals for the family (above). We usually have a really light breakfast of coffee or tea (coffee for me!!) with bread and/or crackers with cheese or butter or jam and maybe yogurt or fruit. We usually eat it in here:

This room also doubles as Rossy's "classroom" because she tutors kids after school and on the weekends. Then lunch is always really big and served around 2:30 of 3 but some people wait as long as 4 or 5, this is more on the weekends, though. We usually have some kind of meat and some other side dish and then a salad afterwards and always tea or coffee, to help with digestion - again, coffee for me, I need a pick me up after all the food! Everything is always served on seperate dishes so there's no mixing of tastes and when we have our hot drinks its always got a little saucer under it! I love it! We eat in here in the dining area on the weekends:

Then anywhere from 6 to 8 is "once" which is the snack and always with tea or you could have coffee too. Sometimes we have scrambled eggs on bread with tea or just a snack or we go out to coffee and maybe have a "media luna" (literally "half moon", but its a sweet baby croissant). Lots of people go out for once too for special occasions, like birthdays. You usually get a meal deal kind of thing with your hot beverage, bread, a sandwhich and a slice of desert.

Then dinner can be anywhere from 9 to 12 and we usually have the leftovers from lunch or sometimes something even smaller and always a "agua de hierba" which we would call tea but here they always specify between tea - the dark, traditional kind, and herbal "water" or tea like chamomile. If guests come over then they would be seated in our "Sala de estar" which is directly across from the dining area shown here:

Well, I hope you enjoyed the tour!

Besitos!

Carretes

Carrete is a word that one learns quickly here in Chile because it is de suma-importancia (very important) because it means FIESTA! And let me tell you fiestas abound here! The nightlife is super bien here because its lively, they have good music and everyone dances - chicos, chicas, viejas, viejos...TODOS (guys, girls, older people...EVERYONE!)! The music is amazing, and they play all the best of latin, american (especially the 80s) and reggae music. I've decided that this is why American bars are so boring because its hard to come by good music...anyway...

....here are a couple of photos from a birthday carrete for the girl pictured here in the white shirt, Sarah, who turned 21 last Friday.

She decided on Karaoke (ka-r-a-o-ke in spanish) at a bar called Alcazaba. First of all the night here begins around 10:30-11pm for those who wish to get Happy Hour (don't prononce the "h" if you want to say it in spanish) drinks which are usually 2 for 1 until midnight. Normally, the chileans go to someone's house before heading out because it's cheaper to drink beforehand than drink the majority of your beverages at the bar - this is called the "preparty" is the pre. Normally around 1-1:30am is when the party picks up and the people start dancing, in our case this is when the karoaking started.

We quickly discovered that karoake in Chile is NOT like it is in the US where you go and laugh a lot at people singing stupid songs and are usually shocked into laughing again when someone actually sings well. Here in Chile, the people like to sing romantic songs and are actually pretty good at singing, and I guess they don't really like to make fools of themselves. Well, we decided to have Erin, one of my friends from California, sing Shania Twain's "Man, I feel like a woman." Classic American girls night out song, right?

So, while Erin is sang, myself and the other girls danced and sang "back up." The Chileans found this very amusing. And although only one of us was seriously hampered by a few too many piscos, the rest of us were very sober. However, I think that the Chileans assumed that we were all borrachas. Nevertheless, it was amusing and afterwards we found out that our pictures were taken and they put them on a site that has pictures from all the carretes around Chile (and of course you can pay to buy them.).

Hope you find them amusing, I did....ciao!

¡Viva la pop culture de America!

Every time I travel, I'm amazed by the impact the US has on other countries, and I don't mean politically or economically (I don't really pay tons of attention to that stuff...yet...). What I'm refering to is the pop culture! Here's an example:

Homer Simpson immortalized in a sand sculpture, complete with a mini beer keg and in mid-burp, I'm assuming, knowing him...

Unfortunely, the artist was unable to portray the wiggly lip movement that makes me laugh so hard when Homer burps on TV...alas...we can't get everything...

I've also noticed that ALL the music here on the radio is American, but incidentally, its all the best music we have of the 70s, 80s, and 90s! They never place any of the crappy new music that's all redone and you don't really have to be a good singer to pull off. They've also adopted a lot of our words like "el mall", "shopping" and "rentar". Most of the movies are American and they usually have subtitles instead of dubbing them. I think this is because the dubbing is normally done in Spain Spanish and not Chilean and they don't really like that accent so they just listen to the English and read the spanish. This is also the same with TV shows, although they don't have the current seasons of any of them.

Although there are tons of American influences here they can't seem to get over the shock of seeing gringos (north americans) in person. Every time I'm walking down the street, I'm very aware that I look different and they notice it and stare. I just keep walking but it is a weird feeling! Even though I get lots of stares, they're definitely not hostile at all, on the contrary, they are very friendly and always help me out when I need directions or such.

Well, tomorrow starts the third week here and I'm well enough to head into the week and all the classes with excitement. I get to attend classes and see which ones interest me the most and then take those - what a nice system! So, I'm planning on taking grammar, history, literature and some other class that pertains to chilean life or culture. We'll see how it goes!

¡Hasta pronto!

Amigdalitis

This is the amazing view that I've been about to see when I've gone to the beach a couple of time. Obviously its hard to tell from a photo how beautiful this view is but trust me, its gorgeous! You can see all of the surrounding cities that really could all be one because they are so close. From this picture, I'm sitting in Viña del Mar, where I live, and you can see the horizon of Valparaíso, where I study, and then to turn to the right would be Reñaca and Concón, which are too smaller cities. Which you can see from this picture.

The wealth kind of trickles upwards here. There is a definite change in ambiance from Valparaíso, where the dogs walk around randomly, to Concón, where I saw some beautiful, newly built homes that are all in different styles such as Mexican, Spanish, Super Modern etc.

On Saturday, I was enjoying this lovely view and sunbathing, although this time with SPF 30 since I was a little crispy, when my sore throat from the night before, worsened and I decided to go home to sleep off what would inevitably become my first cold. I seems to be the case that all the newness of travelling and stress and going out, after two months of living at home and going to bed at 10pm, that a cold is inevitable to build up immunities. Unfortunately the next day I couldn't really swallow because my throat was so swollen. I spent the day in bed and then went to the doctor about the time my first class of Chilean Literature was starting and found out I have tonsilitis and need an antibiotic and even received a note that says I have to stay in bed for 3 to 4 days....however, I'm happy to report that I was able to swallow down a large breakfast today, Tuesday, without pain!

I've also learned some super important vocab such as:

tragar - to swallow

alto líquidos - lots of fluids

amigdalitis - tonsillitis

faringe - pharynx

hinchado - swollen

resfriarse - to catch cold

la gripe - the flu

seguro - insurance

Well, thanks for the comments and I hope that you all are doing well and as soon as I make it out of the house I plan on taking lots more pictures!

Chiao!

Erika

Counterclockwise

Yes...its true...I know that you all were wondering about this and it was the thing you wanted to know the most and I'm here to tell you that its true. Counterclockwise is the way the toilet flushes. Although this has been a shocker, I must say that its probably been the easiest one to recover from thus far in my visit to Valpo-Viña, Chile. There are constant reminders that I'm not in the U.S. anymore, Toto.


You know you're in Chile when:


1. You throw your toilet paper in the trash not the toilet.

2. Your shower is facilating between hot and cold.

3. The bus driver starts to drive away while your standing in the open door.

4. They have special clips on chairs and tables in restaurants for your purse so they don't get stolen.

5. You see any and every color on houses - including neon green.

6. You get soda water in a little glass when you go to a cafe or ice cream parler.

7. It costs $950 pesos for a coffee.

8. You eat dinner around 11pm, go to the bar at 1am and leave around 5am.

9. Mangy dogs wander around the streets everywhere.

10. You can't talk on your cell phone in the street because someone might steal it from you mid-sentence.

11. Your host mom tidies up the house - including your room - every day and puts things away for you, like a hotel.

12. You greet everyone with a kiss on the left cheek.

Well, thats the craziest stuff that's happened thus far to me. Its been an interesting few first days and so far I really like it here. This week is orientation week and we'll be choosing classes, activities we'd like to be involved in and learning about life at the university and in Chile. There are a huge number of exchange students at PUCV, and the program is extremely well-developed and organized (a big change from Angers, France). Hopefully, pictures will be coming soon (I haven't had the courage yet to take it with me for fear of it being stolen) and of course more updates are too come!
Chiao,
E