I love globalization.

Well, not really. But sometimes, it can be nice.



For example: I am currently sitting in Starbucks in Viña, drinking BREWED COFFEE from a paper (not styrofoam) cup. And they are playing Christmas music. And the Christmas music is English.

When I went downstairs to get more coffee (and show Chile just how much of a consumer I can be...), I heard more English-speaking people than I've ever heard in one place, except when there are reunions with all the other gringos here. Baby it's Cold Outside in English + English speakers + coffee = super happy Colleen.

And it's kind of pathetic that it makes me feel like that. That Starbucks feels like home? Kind of low. But at the same time, it makes sense. It makes sense that something familiar is comforting.


As I'm sitting here, a young boy of about 12 walked in and put rosary beads on all of the occupied table. We all ignored them, pretended they weren't there, and waited for him to come back and recollect them. Then he asked for money, and I said no. And I felt that pang that's become part of everyday life here, the one that reminds me I'm refusing to help people even though I could.

Do I really even have the right to feel so comfortable and at home right now, when I know that right outside the door there are billions and billions of people struggling to get by?


A $4 cup of coffee isn't so appealing anymore.

Happy Thanksgiving!

"Turkeys are people, too!"

It is Thanksgiving morning. I'm awake finishing up some things for my essay exam today. And then I'll probably go to the beach. Tonight our study abroad program is having that Thanksgiving dinner I think I mentioned in an earlier post. Kind of a bizarre way to spend Thanksgiving, but I'm not complaining. I have nothing to complain about. And though it's super cliche and reminds me of second grade, I'm going to make a list of what I'm thankful for this year. So that when I start being whiny again, I'll remember.

• I'm thankful I have family members who love me, however far away I wander. And however dysfunctional we all know we can be (immediate and extended included....), I wouldn't trade it for the world. And I'm thankful for the way my family has grown with the addition of new people, whether by birth or marriage, that I now could never imagine my life without.
• I have amazingly wonderful friends who put up with me. My family has to - - my friend s choose to (those crazies). And whether you're back in Andover, have dispersed to various cities from Nashville, or will be sitting at the same dinner table as me in Chile, I appreciate you all. And don't say it nearly enough.
• I'm thankful that I have the opportunity to aprovechar all these incredible experiences. Vanderbilt, Chile, Alternative Spring Break, Ecuador..... All things that I've dreamed of doing, and that are finally happening.
  
• I'm thankful that I've always slept warm and full, regardless of the country I'm in or who is there taking care of me.
  
• I'm lucky to be young and healthy. And even luckier to be realizing this while I'm still young and healthy.
• I'm thankful that in 16 more days, I'll be drinking REAL COFFEE (okay, you can't expect this all to be serious...)
• I'm thankful for Skype. For real. What would I have done without this amazing tool that allowed me to keep in touch with everyone? And now I still get to talk to everyone on Thanksgiving!
  

There's more. I know there is. And these are the types of things that I need to remember; focus on the amazing things I have instead of getting wrapped up in what I'm frustrated with at the moment.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ohh, Chile

That is a sentence I utter frequently. Two words, and they can mean A BILLION things depending on the intonation.

"OHhh, Chile." A loving sigh.
"OHHH CHILE!" Excited to see what's around the corner.
"Ohhhh ho ho ho, Chile..." Slightly disgusted, taken aback
or
"Ohhhhh, Chile...." Minorly exasperated, but mostly amused. Today (this week...) has been a lot of numero cuatro.

Classes are ending, finals are beginning. Okay, mejor dicho: Classes are ending, finals SHOULD be beginning.... Let's do a rundown of my classes:

Historia moderna de chile: Our other two tests have been in-class essays. We have to write either two or three essays, which need to be pretty long and developed. Makes it hard to get an amazing score, since there isn't too much time. Granted, it is open notes, but that almost makes it harder since he KNOWS everything that you could be including. So for this exam, we convinced him (or really we just asked him) to give us the questions beforehand. Thus, tonight I will write all but one of the essays, so I only have to write one in class tomorrow. Wahoo!
Cuentos contemporaneos: Meh, no big surprises here. Still need to turn in my anthology on Monday.
Psicologia de la adolescente: Profesora let me use my dictionary on our final today. SCORE HUGE!!
Historia de la memoria colectiva: Haha I love this story. Okay, so we were supposed to have a test in October. But it never happened. And instead, we got a take-home essay. So we were supposed to have another test tomorrow, but with all the crazy scheduling conflicts between the rotating professors for the class, it was cancelled. So now I have one grade for this class. Hmm... And it's not that great of a grade. BUT AT LEAST I'm done with this class.

So, with all this mind, I go to my grammar class this afternoon where I had to make up an exam that I missed during my Patagonia adventure. (Sidenote: Profe had already decided to not give one of the exams. Again, another take home thing. Much easier. Mejor) So we walk into class, and profe has forgotten the pruebas.... Sarah decides to ask him if we can just have our first quiz count twice, and not even take the second quiz. I giggled a little bit as she did this, thinking "HOW IN THE WORLD WOULD A PROFESSOR AGREE TO THIS?!"

Then I remembered. I'm in Chile. He said yes.



Ohhhhh Chile......












PS!! I just found out that I got into a program in Ecuador this May!!!!!! So as I complain about living in a foreign country... I'm about to do it again!

Bringing a Taste of Home to Chile

Thanksgiving is in three days. Well, less, since Monday is nearly over. And while all of you up north are fussing over pie crust and the weight of your birds, I'm working on my final projects and exams, planning trips to the beach, and winding down here.

Our study abroad program is graciously hosting a Thanksgiving for the gringos on Thursday, and the students were asked to supply the desserts. So what is a New England girl to bake? WHOOPIE PIES, obviously. (Sidenote: I didn't learn these were regional until I went to college in Nashville. SORPRESA!)

However, baking/cooking in Chile has proven to be EXTREMELY difficult, due to the different ingredients, measurements, that whole Celsius things. I've had a few mishaps. Some really gross treats. So my friend Natalie (from New Hampshire-- she knows what's up) and I decided to attempt it anyways.

Issues:
1. They don't have shortening, so we used manteca. Manteca = lard.
2. Finding marshmellow fluff. The only reason I even attempted this desert was because my friend Sarah had found this while we were in La Serena. So I knew it was in the country.
3. Cocoa powder. Just hard to find. We found it, but it was harder than I thought it would be. It was by the hot chocolate mix, in the coffee and tea aisle. OBVIOUSLY...
4. Sugar granules here are HUGE for some reason. Makes some funny textured things.
5. Confectioner's sugar is not sold in boxes. It is sold in little baggies of 100 grams, because no one uses it.
6. Baking soda is only sold at pharmacies, not in the supermarkets. Not even the GIANT Super WalMart-esque markets. Thus, flour comes with baking soda already in it. So you don't get to choose your proportion or anything. Hmm..

First batch was a bit interesting. Kind of bland. Not chocolately. Not sweet. So we adjusted the recipe...

And we made whoopie pies. In Chile. It's stupid to be that proud of, but it kind of is an accomplishment to be able to cook something correctly here.



Also, I bought salad dressing from the store the other day. They only had Thousand Island, but I was in a home mood and splurged. So tonight, I had salad with salad dressing and whoopie pies.


I'd say it was a good day. God bless the USA.

In case you're sick of my writing....

You should check out Sarah's blog at http://reallyinchile.blogspot.com/

Her blog posts are more in depth, especially for Torres del Paine and Punta Arenas. She also has roughly 7 times the number of photos I do.



Cariños

Pictures!

Normally, I'd divide them into the days I spent there. Too hard. Thus, yall get a chunk from Torres del Paine and another chunk from Punta Arenas!!

TORRES DEL PAINE



PUNTA ARENAS

The rest of the journey

Alright. So these are going to be incredibly disorganized blog posts, as opposed to how perfectly I normally try to do it. Oh well. Asi es la vida.

TUESDAY
Tuesday we arrived in Punta Arenas. Seriously, I was barely functioning. Sarah had to save me from walking in front of cars too many times to count. I wish I was kidding. . . . Recuperation would take more than one night, we quickly learned.

We had a great dinner that night, though. We met up with two of the other girls that Sarah knew, and they stayed at the same hostel and stuff.

We also bought HORRIBLE cookies this day. HORRIBLE. They don't have brown sugar here, which means all cookies = bad.

Good news: Felt really proud of myself/ourselves for the most part of this day. Yeah, we might have turned back a day early. But we still did it.

Bed early. I think. Who knows --- it was still light out.

WEDNESDAY
We wandered around the city this morning, to the cemetery (where you'll see the pictures of the awkward-looking trees). We saw some sculptures, and went to a mirador where you can see everything of the city. Beautiful views, everwhere, a la Chile.

We had one penguin tour canceled on us this day. We were going to go to a sanctuary-type place, where they roam free. But the weather was too bad, so we ended up getting rescheduled for a different place. It was probably for the better, quite honestly. The first one had more hiking. I didn't really have the ganas to hike.

ALSO! On this day, Sarah scored some AMAZING stuffed penguins!! Look for them in the pictures!

THURSDAY
Today, we took a ferry to Porvenir, which is one of the most accessible cities of Tierra del Fuego, the largest island in South America. Sarah played with a little kid on this boat ride. He was from TdF, which makes him a FUEGINO!!! Baha, funny word to say!

Porvenir is a tiny town. Nothing was open. We had 2 hours there, and it was PLENTY (read: too much). But all of the people there were SO NICE. Well, in the entire southern part of Chile. They said hello. They drove slowly. They let you cross. Kind of the opposite of the rest of Chile...

Ate an awkward lunch on the boat. Bread and cheese. Ohh, Chile. But we had good conversations on the 2 hr boat ride back. It was cool to think hard again, in a way other than linguistically.

At 9:20 pm, the sun was stil up. And I realized that I really didn't want to go back to school EVER.

FRIDAY
We went to Isla Magdalena this day. Another penguin reservation. Billions of penguins (legit 100,000). SO CLOSE TO THEM!! Insane.

We also met some cool people from the US. The husband was working in the south on a NASA mission. Cool beans.

Worth getting up at 5:30 for.

SATURDAY
This day, we did a tour of the southernmost cities. Puerto Hambre, Fuerte Bulnes. Cool stuff!!

Also, we killed 2 1/2 hours in a cafe before our 1 am flight.


Oh traveling. I'm amazed at how comfortable I've become traveling. Even though it makes me feel nomadic.

Videos from the Bottom of the World

(I mean, I guess the bottom of the world would be Antarctica. But this is as close as I'll EVER GET)

W stands for WE DID IT.

So NOW I´m in Punta Arenas (check out a map... last REAL city on the continent, pretty cool!)
I survived Torres del Paine. Barely. Man, was that an adventure WAYY out of my league. I´m going to try to do a rough post of what I did. I just tried to load my pictures at this Internet Cafe, but it didn´t work out so well. So I´ll edit it once I get back to Viña.

FRIDAY
Friday was when we arrived in Puerto Natales, like my other blog post said. You know, when all our equipment got laughed at? And we rented a ton of stuff, including boots, which turned out to be a HUGE MISTAKE. More on that later...
Sarah and I also started noticing the crazy hours of daylight in the south during their "summer." The sun rises before 5:30, and doesn´t set until after 9:30.

SATURDAY
The day of my last post. The last breakfast. We made our way to Torres del Paine. On our way there, we stopped at a small cafeteria. As the winds whipped around us, I staretd to realize just how crazy we are for attempting this...

We arrived at the park, grabbed another transfer after paying the entrance, and went to our first campsite. It took us a while to set up our tent. And we forgot a few crucial stakes (oops). Thankfully, the park ranger who ran the campsite set us straight.

We also learned on this lovely Saturday that we essentially needed to scale a mountain to reach the first mirador (lookout). Feel free to refer back to my post on La Campana to remind yourselves about how I feel about mountains...

So we climbed for hours, carrying a smaller backpack (we left our heavier stuff in tent at the bottom). We also got lost on the wrong side of a river, and ended up losing nearly an hour as we attempted to go back to a point where the river was crossable. That was sweet.

After a few hours, we realized that we were going to run out of daylight (I mean, it might set LATE, but the sun does set). It didn´t seem worth it to risk going on when we didn´t know how the sun would set around the mountains. We also didn´t have flashlights (Note: ALWAYS BRING FLASHLIGHTS CAMPING). After we made the decision to turn back, we tried to cook some soup using our little camping stove. Sarah sat on top of a table, using her body to block the wind. Ahh, the wind! I´ve honestly never seen wind as crazy as it is here, especially in TdP. One man estimated 110 kph to me, roughly 70 mph gusts. Apparently, 100 mph isn´t uncommon in the summer (we´re nearly in the summer here).

Anyways, we gave up cooking and made our way back to our campsite, and cooked inside our tent (Note: NEVER COOK INSIDE A TENT). We really had no other choice, though. All the wind blew our any flame that we attempted to use to heat up water. Also, we had huge issues with our rental shoes. They legitimitely started bruising our feet, making that first mountain adventure uncomfortable. Horribly uncomfortable, downright painful.

So we passed out in our mummy sleeping bags, trepidatiously awaiting the next morning....

SUNDAY

We cooked in our tent again. Oatmeal. Deliciuos.

Then we took a shuttle to another lake (by the way, we realized there was a cheating way to hike the W by using all the park transportation available, which would allow you to set up tent, put your ridiculous backpacks in there, and then walk around a bit more free. The hikes were still intense, but it was SO MUCH EASIER without 15-18 kilos of gear each). On this shuttle, it started snownig like CRAZY. Sarah grew up in FL, then moved to GA, and now goes to school in Nashville. I think it was quite an experience for her... I, however, was PUMPED.

The shuttle let us off at a lake, where we would take a catamaran later that day to our next campsite. So we hid our backpacks behind a shed, and went on a hike to Salto Grande and Mirador Los Cuernos. Salto Grande is a crazy waterfall in the park, and Los Cuernos are some of the more famous mountains there, that kind of look like horns. The waterfall was absolutely INCREDIBLE. And the walk to the mirador was beautiful. It had cleared up by now, and was sunny (they say that the south of Chile gets all four seasons in one day. It is not a lie). However, RIGHT when we got to the mirador, those blizzard-like conditions kicked back into high gear. Kind of disappointing, incredibly ironic. We also got incredibly close to these animals called guanaco, which are a type of Chilean deer. This hike was not in vain.

We awlked back to thelake, where we now had 4 hours to wait until the catamaran. The winds were still fierce, so we decided to cook in the bathroom (Note: TdP had the BEST PUBLIC BATHROOMS I´ve seen in Chile). After a super classy lunch of soup and instant coffee, we decided to brave the weather and wait for the boat. And it was worth it. The catamaran had free coffee. Life is good.

We set up camp on the other side of the lake MUCH FASTER this time, since it was snowing again. Snow in Torres del Paine doesn´t actuallly fall down, I´ve learned. Oh no. Since the winds are so intense, it legitimitely blows 100% horizontally. Weirdest thing Ivé ever seen, and us New Englanders know crazy weather.

That night, Sarah and I made fantastic lentils in our camp stove. Delicious. We also met up with some people she knew from her theater class, traveling in a group of 6. The world is TOO SMALL. We all camped there that night (this time, under a blanket of snow... thank God for our rental tent).

MONDAY

We had decided that we were going to leave that night, and cut our trip short by a day. We defintiely kind of felt like we were quitting, but the weather was SO crazy, and our clothes not entirely appropriate (I don´t have a jacket in Chile...), and we were seriously in so much pain from the rental boots that it didn´t make sense to stay. It seemed dangerous, quite honestly, to be hiking around just the two of us when we were so far less than 100%. My ankles are still awkwardly bruised and deformed, almost a week later.

This morning, we cooked in a shower room. Keeping it classy and interesting.

Began the hike. AMAZING VIEWS. Our destination was Glacier Grey. We got there after about 3.5 hrs of trekking. And getting to see it, there was a moment of "It was worth it. This is why I came."

Sarah also convinced once of the kids from the group of 6 we met up with to use his hiking stick and fish a piece of ice out of the lake. And he did. And we licked it.

I repeat---- we licked a piece of the glacier.

The hike back was maybe the most painful thing I´ve ever done (Note: Earlier this day, I stubbed my foot HARD into an awkward rock wall, and I´m pretty sure my toe is broken. Not pretty. BUT DONT WORRY--- it´s just a toe!! And the baby one. Expendable).

Got back to campsite. Tore our tent down. Made coffee. Went back. Fell asleep.

My time is abuot to run out at this Internet cafe, and I dont want to pay more! Ill finish updating and add pictures in a few days!

Besos,
C

W Stands for WE ARE CRAZY.

I'm sitting in my hostel right now in Puerto Natales. We arrived yesterday morning around six in Punta Arenas, the last truly habitated city in South America before Antarctica, and took a three-hour bus up here.

In about ten minutes, another bus is coming to pick up me and my friend Sarah. And we're going to Torres del Paine National Park to hike around and camp for about four days, three nights. GAH!!

And thinking we were prepared (okay, I thought we were prepared) with this sweet tent we bought for 7 mil from Lider (AKA $14 from WalMart) and some fun socks, we quickly learned otherwise once we got here. Apparently it snows a lot of the nights. Or rains. Or is just FREEZING

After renting maybe $60 of camping equipment, and packing our bags, we're ready!



I think.

Random Thought

Today, I was eating lunch upstairs (potatoes and I found barbecue sauce---SCORE!). Fabiola was cutting onions, and her eyes were watering something fierce. And I said, "Don't worry. It happens to me, too."

And for some reason, I needed that today. I needed reassurance that, despite whatever negative experiences and emotions I've been having recently (and trust me, there have been PLENTY), I can find at least one thing in common with every other person I meet. Just one thing. That's all I need.

Chile seems less full of strangers now.

Another whirlweend weekend...

So this said whirlwind weekend actually took place last weekend, but I was too lazy to upload pictures and fill people in. Oops. Well, my excuse is that my camera doesn't have a zoom button, so I was waiting for other people to load their pictures so I could steal some of the better ones. But I think we were all being a bit lazy on the picture side....

Anyway. It was another travel-though-the-night trip, starting on Thursday and getting back to Viña on Tuesday morning. Thursday, though, I had been kind of sick, and for a while wondered if I'd even make the trip at all. THEN! After Juegos Mapuches, I started feeling better . . . woohoo!! So we got on an 23:15 bus and headed out of Viña, towards the north. We got to La Serena at about 5 in the morning, but took another bus at 6 a little futher east to the small, sleepy town of Vicuña.


FRIDAY

We had barely slept the night before, and I still wasn't feeling 100%. Regardless, I really wanted to go explore the city (instead of slowing down, like a normal sick person), to see the museums and things that the 3-block down had to offer (it was a 4x8 grid. Tiny!). The main sight of the town is Gabriela Mistral's house. So that was our first stop, and it was..... CLOSED. GAH!!! We came to this teeny town for essentially nothing! Oh, the irony...

After that, we went back to our creaky hostel (might be the sketchiest hostel I've stayed in yet. But at $10 a night, I guess I can't complain? I will anyway), and got the rest of the group, and went to tour the Capel Pisco Factory. Funny sidenote: we somehow ended up on the same tour of a bunch of retirees. Then, we went out to lunch. I got sick again. The flu is no fun, especially not when you're in crazy dry heat and you're traveling, and supposed to be enjoying yourself. But I finally gave in, and went back to the hostel where I slept for about 3 hours straight.

That night, we went to the Mamalluca Observatory. This area of Chile is known for exceptionally starry skies, skies that did not disappoint. This observatory is located on a hill maybe 20 minutes outside of Vicuña. We were treated to a short presentation that made me feel insignificantly small, and THEN we got to use their telescopes! We say Jupiter and its three moons, and then we zoomed in on our moon, and were able to see all the craters and things. At the end of this photo slideshow are some of the photos that were taken (courtesy of Sarah) through the telescope. All in all, a good day!




SATURDAY

Saturday was a cool day, mostly because of how we chose it. We knew that we had exhausted the city of Vicuna, and wanted to go a little further west into Pisco Elqui. So we legitimitely just looked on a map, and said "THAT ONE!" and went to Monte Grande for the day. It's the home of Gabriela Mistral's first house, her burial site, and.... that's it. It's amazing, though, to see the hills. It stil never ceases to amaze me, and I hope it never does. To see these HUGE dry hills, covered with cacti, but irrigated by man to create small fertile patches... I don't understand how they do it.
Saturday afternoon, we headed back to La Serena, and explored the Japanese Garden there. We also went down to the beach for a little bit, a HUGE long sandy beach :)




SUNDAY

Sunday was nothing short of amazing. We booked an excursion through our hostel to go visit Humboldt penguins! The Humboldt current is a bizarre current along South America that brings with it exceptionally cold water in comparison to the rest of the ocean's temperature. THUS! Pinguinos!

It's hard to see the little penguins in my pictures (they're about 20 inches tall), but they exist. I promise. We also saw sea lions (lobos marinos) and dolphins (delfines). Matthew would have LOVED IT! There are also some videos below of those two creatures, which shows how close we were able to get in our little boat.









MONDAY

Monday, we hung around La Serena a bit more, and explore the artesanias there. I bought a llama wool sweater. No big deal. We went to some of the museums and churches the city has to offer. La Serena is cool, because it's the second oldest city in Chile (after Santiago), and has kept with the colonial tradition. All of the buildings look like they would have in the 1600s. No skyscrapers here! One of my friend's host sister lives in La Serena, and she took us to a lookout in Coquimbo (one town over). We had a lot of time left over, so we went back to our hostel and did some homework (lame). Got back on a bus, got back to Vina around 7:30, wrote a paper, and went to classes!