End of the first semester, Bariloche, Sophia's visit, and Bolivia!

(A little picture preview of my last 2 months)

(Clockwise from top left: My cousins and I from the look-out hill in Bariloche; my friend Sophia and I on a boat tour of the Valparaíso bay; the plane Cari and I took to the Bolivian jungle; Cari and I on our river tour in the jungle; me on our unsuccessful anaconda search; Cari and I in front of the "árbol de piedra" or "rock tree" in the Salt Flats)

Ok, please, please, please forgive me for not writing to you all in 2 months!!! I've ever since my parents left I have been super busy finishing my first semester, moving apartments, and travelling. In fact, I changed apartments at the beginning of July and I feel like I've barely spent any time here! But let me first start where I left off.

I finished my first semester with good grades (they haven't officially come in yet, but I feel very confident) at the end of June. Starting that weekend, I started packing my things up in my old apartment to move. I ended up deciding to move out because all of my international roommates were going to be going back to their respective homes in Europe and New York, and I felt like I was going to miss them too much if I stayed in that same apartment. At the end of my stay, I was also having trouble getting along with my chilean roommates (not to say anything too negative about them). Also, I felt like I needed a change of pace for my second semester, so I moved from the more commercial area of Providencia, to a more tranquil area of El Centro, to a little neighborhood near Bellas Artes that is full of little cafés, restaurants, and museums. The other good thing about my new neighborhood is that I can walk to 2 of my three classes, and I am a lot closer to the metro and other busses to take me around. In my new apartment, I took the place of one of my friends from my program that went home after the first semester, so it was a very easy transition since I already knew the people that lived here and was familiar with the area. I now live with 2 other girls from my program, Rachel (from UC Santa Cruz) and Sophie (from UC Berkeley), a South African guy, Christoff, who works as a Chemical Engineer, and a chilean guy, David, who also works. We all get along really well, and I'm really happy I made the change.

I packed everything up and moved all of my things into my new apartment by July 12th, and that same night, I left on a bus to go down to Bariloche to visit my mom's cousin Mariana and her family until the 20th. To tell you the truth, I don't have too much to say about my

visit, because we didn't do much! It was really cold outside, so we spent our days sleeping in, and hanging around the house during the day in our pajamas playing games, cooking, and watching movies. We did go into town a couple of times, and once we took a skilift type thing to the top of one of Bariloche's many hills and took pictures of all the lakes we could see, which was beautiful! A couple of nights I went out with my cousin Daniela and her friends, but we mostly spent our time at home. It was so nice not to have to worry about anything all week and just be able to relax at homeby the fire while it was raining outside. One thing I can say, though, was that the bus ride there and back was incredibly beautiful. Bariloche is in the lake district of Patagonia, and the landscapes after we got over the snowy mountain pass were breath taking. At the Chile/Argentina border, the bus driver let us all get out and take pictures in the snow. It was really cool because within 20 minutes we were out of the snow and in the forest next to a lake! Here are somepictures from the trip:

After my relaxing week away from Santiago, I came back o

n the bus and arrived really early in the morning on July 21st, where I unpacked all of my stuff and got as organized as possible in my new room, because on the morning of the 22nd, my friend Sophia arrived! She stayed with me for 2 weeks, and we had a blast together. The first dayshe was here, I gave her a little tour of the area and we went to buy tickets to go to Mendoza the next day for the weekend. Mendoza is a little city in Argentina just on the other side of the mountains from Santiago, only about 6 hours on the bus. We had such a great time there! Since it's in the wine country, one of our days was spent on a tour of the vineyards... on bicicles!! It was so fun! We rented bikes and were able to visit 2 places and taste their wines, before it got dark. What was really incredible about that trip was how cheap it was! For our 4-day trip, eating most meals in restaurants (we cooked one night), staying in hostels for 3 nights, transportation, and wine tasting, and a couple souvenirs, we only spent about $90 each! It was pretty incredible.

(Sophia and I on our early morning bus to Mendoza)

We got back from Mendoza that Sunday, and on Monday was my first day of classes for my 2nd semester at the University of Chile. It was really annoying that I had to go to class that week, because Sophia was still here, and all I wanted to do was hang out with her and show her around! It was nice that she ended up getting along really well with my roommates and our friends, because while I was in class she had people to hang out with until I got back, so I didn't feel too guilty leaving her by herself during the day. Her second weekend we went off again to Valparaíso, that beautiful city on the coast that I went to back in April. We stayed the night there this time, so for me, it was really nice to stay longer than just one day and explore different places that I hadn't yet seen. Sophia loved it as well, so it was nice to share that experience together. When we were there, we met up with a couple of my friends, Pablo and Nathan, which was fun because both of them were more familiar with the city than we were, so we were able to see a bunch of cool things that we wouldn't have otherwise. We returned to Santiago on Sunday and we only had 3 days left together before she was going to head back to the States, so we packed our days doing things that we hadn't done yet, like walking up Cerro San Cristobal so she could see Santiago in its entirety, and taking last trips to the cent

ral and artisan markets for last-minute souvenirs. Overall, we had an amazing time together, getting to catch up on old times (since we hadn't really seen eachother since before I left for Santiago), and getting to go visit new places, and just hang out like we used to.

(Sophia and I in Valparaíso)

So, 2 days after Sophia left, I headed out for Bolivia with my friend Cari-Lynne! (Like I said, my life has literally been non-stop since my first semester ended). We flew from Santiago to La Paz on Friday morning, and made it to our hostel, which was actually our friend Pablo's grandmother's place (nice to support family businesses) and that afternoon, we walked down to find a tour company to plan our trip: for Saturday and Sunday, we were going to take a bus to Copacabana, a city right on the edge of Lake Titicaca, and stay the night on the Isla del Sol (the birthplace of the Incas) and then on Sunday head back to La Paz for the night. Monday we were to fly up to the jungle town of Rurrenabaque and take a tour of the Pampas (basically a river tour) until Friday, and that night, take an over-night bus down to Uyuni and visit the biggest salt flat in the world until the next Monday night, and then head back to La Paz for the day and fly back to Santiago on Wednesday. Fewf!! It was going to be a packed trip and it was! Full of extraordinarily rough transportation trips (Bolivia is definitely not known for its paved roads-- there are none!) we had the most fabulous time.

Lake Titicaca was so incredibly beautiful I didn't want to leave after just the weekend. On Isla del Sol, we hiked up the Inca stairs to our hostel, which was really hard because of the high altitude (12,500 feet above sea level!!) -

- we felt really light headed, and felt almost constant headaches becasue ot it, but the gorgeous landscapes made it all worth it.

(Lake Titicaca from la Isla del Sol)

We got back to La Paz and re-packed our bags for the jungle! We were all set to leave on Monday afternoon, but when we got to the airport our flight had been cancelled because the

runway in Rurrenabaque was wet, and since it's made out of dirt, our plane wouldn't be able to land! So we had to wait for it to dry, luckily only until Tuesday morning. We arrived to the jungle and immediately were picked up for our tour! We took the roughest jeep ride I've ever been on (not that I've been on a lot of jeep rides in my life) because the road was really dusty, and had all these huge rocks that made us bounce and jerk all around. By the time we finally got to the river, we looked tan since we were covered in dirt. It was pretty gross. It was so hot up there!! It was a nice change from the cold winter of Santiago and the high altitudes of La Paz. I got to wear t-shirts and tank tops and flip-flops the whole time! On the tour we saw so many animals:

tons of alligators, birds (especially birds of paradise), pink dolphins (yes! they were pink colored), and we even went fishing for piranhas! I didn't catch one, but Cari-Lynne did! We also went on a trek searching for anacondas, but we had no luck in finding one. (Picture: Our view

from the front of the boat, and the piranha that Cari caught.)

After another terrible 3 hour jeep ride back to the city, we stayed one night in an amazing hostel before leaving back to La Paz to catch our night bus to Uyuni, to visit the salt flats. We had an extreme temperature change here, going from the humidity of the jungle to the dry, freezing wind of the salt flats, but they were incredible. I had seen some of the flats from the Chilean side in San Pedro de Atacama when I went with my parents, but these ones seemed so much more massive!! In Chile, there were always mountains that seemed really close by, but the ones in Bolivia seemed to go on for ever. Just white ground and blue, cloudless skies. The

ground was crunchy and there were piles of salt everywhere. There was even a market of handicrafts made out of salt! It was pretty cool. We also visited the geysers around there, waking up again at 5

in the morning to negative 15ºC weather (like we did in Atacama) to see the geysers and the hot springs in the area. We didn't go swimming this time, though, because we had forgotten our swimming suits (not to mention it was negative degrees ouside!!) That day we also visited some beautiful lagoons set between colored mountains and saw plenty of flamingoes. It was a good trip in Uyuni, just freezing cold at night! (Picture: Cari and I on the Salt Flat!)

Getting back to La Paz we spent our last day picking up some last-minute gifts (I definitely got a lot of holiday shopping done!) and in the afternoon we were able to see our friend Pablo who had just gotten back home from Santiago. It was nice to see him in his home town.

Picasa, the website I use to make photoalbums for you all to see hasn't let me upload any more pictures because I've used too much space! So here a link to the album I made on Facebook from Bolivia so you all can see some more pictures:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2400948&id=3627260&l=3140b3e204

The next day, Wednesday we took an afternoon flight back to Santiago, which took a really long time since the plane had to stop in 2 other cities in the north of Chile on the way to pick people up and do customs and stuff, but we got back safely around 7pm, and I got home to a lot of happy roommates, which was nice, who had made me some dinner for my homecoming.

Now I've had 2 full weeks of my school routine since I've been back. I'm taking a Midieval Spanish Literature class, a Chilean history class, and an international film class. On the side, I am still teaching English with the teacher I worked with last semester once a week. To keep busy, since school hasn't been too challenging, I've also started working at a home for infants (0-2 years) that are either orphans, or have been taken away from their families by the government for neglect reasons, and I've also started working at a preschool! So I'm definitely getting in my baby and little kid fix this semester =). I will be putting up pictures of those kiddies soon so you can see how cute they are.

Well I hope everyone is enjoying the last months of summer, as we're still trying to get through the winter down here! I'm just looking forward to spending some quality time in Santiago and taking a break from all this travelling! I'm exhausted!

Again, I hope this post wasn't too painfully long for you to read, I really will try to keep you updated more often! Hoping to talk to you all soon!

Un beso,

Amara

Trips to Chiloé, Easter Island, San Pedro de Atacama, and La Serena!

Hola everyone!!! I can't believe how long it has been since I last wrote a blog post, but after reading this, I'm sure you'll see why! I had been unbeliveably busy with taking a short trip to the south of Chile and my parents coming to visit for my birthday that until now, I really haven't had a chance to sit down and write to everyone at home! This will be a pretty long post, since I have a lot to catch you all up on, so I just hope you don't get too bored reading! At least you'll have a lot of pictures to look at =)

  

This weekend was literally the first one in 4 weeks that I have stayed in Santiago. May 21 is a national Chilean holiday that celebrates one of its epic battles during the War of the Pacific (1879-1883) where Chile almost doubled its land mass by taking control over Bolivia's coastal region and the bottom third of Peru (an area rich in nitrates - a mineral good for fertilizer). So because we had a long weekend, my friend Tessa (the one I went to Valparaíso with) and I decided to take advantage of it and take a trip down to Chiloé, a large island in the lake district of the south of Chile. 

 

(Chiloé, if you can see -- I know the image is small-- is where the bold letters are below Santiago in the Lake District)

We left on Wednesday night for a long 17-hour bus trip south and arrived at about 11am on Thursday morning to Castro, Chiloé's capital. We walked to the hostel that we had booked (luckily only about 2 blocks from the bus station) and got settled before taking a little walking tour of the city to get lunch and orient ourselves in a new place. It was raining when we arrived,  but luckily we came prepared with rainboots, raincoats, and umbrellas, so we didn't get too wet walking around. We ate lunch at a restaurant with views of the water that surround Castro, and then walked around the street fair for a bit and got a feel for what the neighborhoods were like around our hostel. We went grocery shopping to make a simple dinner in the hostel (we made a very cheap, but delicious chicken soup), and went to bed early, so we could wake up and go to Chiloé's national park on Friday.

On Friday, still raining, we left at 9 after a nice breakfast at the hostal to go to the natioal park on the otherside of the island, about 45 minutes on a bus, and we stayed until about 1pm. The park office gave us a map of some different trails that we could do, and because it was cold and raining, we decided to take the shortest trail through a forest, and then another fairly short one to the beach. I was so happy that we had brought our rainboots because the trails got so muddy! The walk through the forest was pretty cool (and we actually stayed pretty dry because of all the trees) because there were a lot of interesting plants to look at. We didn't see any of the animals that our map said lived in the forest, but we assumed that they were all hiding from the rain. Our second walk to the beach was really nice becasue it had finally stopped raining (just in time!). To get there we had to walk through a really flooded part of the trail (basically like a swamp!) but seeing the Pacific Ocean was definitely a nice reward. We felt a little silly being so bundled up at the beach but it was so cold!! That afternoon, after almost missing a bus back to Castro, we had some left over soup for lunch and decided to take a nice nap since we were still really tired from the bus trip and all of our walking, and we wanted to be rested for our last day. When we were eating lunch, a young couple from Chicago, Rita and Dan, who were traveling in the south of Chile arrived to stay, and in the evening after our nap, they invited us to rent a car with them to take a driving tour of the island. Since Tessa and I weren't completely sure of our plans, we decided to take them up on their offer and go with them. And boy was it fun! My Bolivian friend Pablo, who I had met in Santiago and who happened to be staying in the same hostal we were also joined us for our road trip and it ended up being a really good decision. It wasn't as rainy on Saturday and we drove around to a bunch of smaller towns that we definitely would not have been able to see otherwise, and we got to try Chiloé's "curanto," the typical dish of shell fish and different meats all cooked together in a huge pot (very interesting, to say the least). We drove around until 5pm, where we were able to change our clothes and get ready for our bus trip back up to Santiago, where my parents were to be waiting for me!

Here are the pictures of our rainy trip to Chiloé. Over all it was a beautiful trip, although rainy, and I'm really glad I got to see it.

Sunday, May 24th, we arrived back to Santiago at about 10am, and while on the city bus back to my apartment, I got a call from my mom to let me know that she and Nancy had arrived! So after I dropped my bags off at home, I walked to their hotel, which was conveniently about 5 blocks away, and we got to hang out and catch up for a little bit. I took them out to lunch to one of my favorite restaurants, a Peruvian one that's located in el centro, and gave them a little walking tour of the area. Monday through Thursday were filled with continued city tours in between my classes, and early Friday morning, we left for Easter Island!! or Rapa Nui in its native name. 

Our trip to Rapa Nui was one of my top trips in my book, although I have to say it was really way too short. It was so beautiful and we learned so much about the history of the culture, that I would love to go back and just enjoy being there. A little background information: Rapa Nui was "discovered" by the Dutch on an Easter Sunday in the 17oos (hence the name) and is famous for the colossal moai statues (those giant heads you see in magazines -- which actually include bodies too, normally). All the moai that stand today have been reconstructed to be that way, as they were all found destroyed by the European settlers. According to Rapa Nui tradition, they moai were supposed to represent the ancestors of the people, who were belived to bring good things (rain for the crops, fish close to the shore, etc). The statues were considered to be live parts of the families that lived there, and became alive with the placement of the eyes (made of white coral and obsidian) -- only one reconstructed statue has the eyes placed with it today. As centuries went on, many moai were destroyed with inter-tribal wars, because it was more insulting in the culture to destory the ancestors of the people rather than killing the actual people. Even later, as resources began to deplinish, the people started to lose faith in the powers of the moai, and tribes began to destroy them themselves. There are still tons of moai that are left destroyed, and after seeing so many of the reconstructions, it's pretty sad to see them laying on their faces! 

Our 4 days on the island were spent mostly with tours of the different archeological sites, and just hanging out at our wonderful hotel with the owner, Sharon. We got to see a couple of the traditional dance shows, and try the typical dish of meat, potatoes, and other vegetables cooked underground in banana leaves on volcanic rocks. I think my favorite thing that we saw there was the volcanic quarry where the moai were made because it was pretty incredible to see grassy hillsides with these huge statues popping out left and right (unfortunately my camera had run out of batteries when we saw that part, so I will have to share those pictures with you when my mom sends me hers). One of the funny things about our trip was our "adventures" with Marcos, who was this middle-aged chilean man that Nancy had met on the plane. After the first day, when he saw us walking through the island's only town, Hanga Roa, he basically followed us around through the 4 days that we were there. What was funny was that it seemed that just when we would let out a sigh of relive for getting a break from the guy, he would just pop up out of nowhere and invite himself to have coffee with us, or lunch, or what have you. I can safely say that all three of us were pretty happy to hear that Marcos had enjoyed himself so much on the island that he extended his stay for the rest of the week, so he wasn't on our return flight. 

Here are most of the pictures from the trip (I will add more when I get them!)

When we returned to Santiago, I had 2 days to go to class, when we left for another trip on the next Friday: to the desert of San Pedro de Atacama, in the north of Chile. A big change in scenery from the tropical climate of Rapa Nui! Again, we had about 3 full days of tours of the area, which is pretty incredible in its landscapes and intense weather extremes. My mother, having not done sufficient research in desert climates, was convinced that it was going to be hot the entire time we were there, so both she and Nancy had only packed fairly small backpacks with light-weight clothes, and left their heavy winter attire back in Santiago, which was a very bad idea! At night it was freezing, and we had one tour to the geysers of the mountains, that left at 5 in the morning for us to experience negative 14 degrees Celcius (0 degrees Ferenheight!!!) I have never been colder in my life!! During our trip, we saw some of the most beautiful land scapes and sunsets that I've ever seen, and we saw the salt flats where populations of flamigos live! We even had some run-ins with some spitting llamas, and Nancy and I went swimming in the hot springs near the geysers, where we experienced extreme temperature changes!! I swear, we got in to boiling water, and we would move a millimeter and be in cold water, move another and get scorched again! It was pretty trippy, as we were both expecting some consistent hot-tub temperature water. The one thing that we didn't really have time to do, but I wish we had, was go sandboarding! Since there are tons of areas with sand dunes, sandboarding is a popular activity for visitors. We got to see a couple of groups enjoying themselves on the dunes, and it looked like so much fun! 

Another 3 days of class in Santiago, and we shoot off again on our last trip together to La Serena, a coastal city about 6 bus hours north of Santiago. We stayed only 2 days (one night) since I wanted to get back to Santiago for my birthday, which was on Sunday. It was actually a really nice trip and we were able to see a lot in the time we had! We left at midnight on Thursday night, and arrived, very sleepily, at 6 in the morning on Friday. Luckily, they had a room ready for us when we arrived at our hotel, and we were able to sleep for a couple of hours before starting our adventures. When we finally got ourselved together, we called a tour company to see if we could some how get a tour of the Elqui Valley (most of them had left earlier that morning), and luckily, an hour later we got picked up by Jorge, our guide, and went off to see the valley. It was beautiful! We got to tour a Pisco factory (Chile and Peru's signature alcohol) and we ate lunch at a  restaurant that cooks all of its dishes in solar-powered ovens, which was really cool to see. That night we went up to an observatory to look at some stars and constellations, which was really intersting (we saw Saturn and its rings!!)  and we learned about new constellations that I have never heard of before since they are in the southern hemisphere. It was so beautiful to see so many stars! 

On Saturday, we went with Jorge again on a full day tour of the wildlife off the coast of La Serena. We took a boat tour with 15 people in total, and we saw so many animals! We saw penguins, dolphins, humpbacked wales, sea otters, sea lions, and about 5 different types of sea birds!! I felt so lucky, too, because we got to see all the animals that were listed at the beginning, even the whales who don't swim to the surface very often! It was definitley a fun day. When we got back to the main part of town, we had to kill about 4 hours before we had to head over to the bus station to go back to Santiago, so we sat a café and hung out there until it was time to go. I'm sorry to say that I don't have any pictures of La Serena because my camera was completely maxed out of space and I did't have any time to upload pictures to my computer before hand, but I'll get some from my mom soon!

Eventhough I woke up on a bus on my birthday, I had a really nice day. We got back to my parents' hotel and got to sleep for a couple of hours as we did when we arrived to La Serena. When we woke up, I opened some presents, and got some surprises from people at home! To those who sent something down with my parents, thank you so much! It really helped make my birthday special being so far away from home. Unfortunately, the rain in Santiago started that day, and it hasn't really stopped since. But we managed! We walked a little and had lunch nearby, and then returned to hang out some more before dinner. It was my kind of day, being really lazy and just haning out with my parents on their last day in Chile. We went out to dinner later, where I had my first Cosmopolitain with some sushi (yummy!) and then when I got back to my apartment that night, my roommates threw me a little bit of a party and had gotten a cake and stuff, so I got to celebrate a with them a little, too. My mom and Nancy left on Monday afternoon, after I got to hang out with them for a couple of hours, and Now I'm almost back into my normal routine. It was really nice for my parents to come at the half-way point of my year abroad, and the trips we went on were unforgettable. We had amazing guides on all three trips (Karen in Rapa Nui, Alex in the desert, and Jorge in La Serena) that were so helpful in teaching us about the areas!

I finish my semester this week (on Thrusday to be exact) and I have about a month of freedom before my next set of classes start! After a terrifying in-class dissertation (I had to speak in Spanish for 15 mintues in front of my whole class!!) in my Theater class last Thrusday, I have one more test this week before I'm done. For my Neruda class, we have one more essay to turn in on Tuesday, and a 2-minute oral final on Thursday, too, so I will be done with those classes for good by Thrusday. In other news, my friend, Sophia, from high school has decided to come visit me at the end of July for 2 whole weeks! I'm so excited, too, because I wasn't expecting any of my friend to be able to come visit me at all, so it should be really fun. In August I have plans to go to one last big trip to Bolivia with my friend Cari-Lynne from my program, and after that, I have no idea how I will be speding the rest of my time here. Most of my friends in my program are leaving sometime in mid-July, which will be sad, but I know my next 6 months will fly by, just as the first 6 months have (it's kinda freaky for me to think about how fast things have gone). 

Well I hope this post hasn't been too painful for you to read (I know it was a long one) and I hope to be more regular with my updates in the future!

Fieldtrip to the El Teniente Mine

Hey everyone! This will be a very short update as I don't have much to say about this fieldtrip. Actually, I have to say that I was a little disappointed in it. 

Today, my EAP program took us on a mandatory fieldtrip to the El Teniente Copper Mine in Rancagua, about 2 hours away from Santiago. We we had to meet at 8am sharp at our central campus and we were out there all day (Till 7pm!) The one thing that I loved about it was that we got to wear miner's clothing (the helmet with head lamp, a reflective jacket, a tool belt, and huge boots) which was kinda fun.

However, our guide was terrible. He didn't speak loudly enough, he didn't wait for the group to catch up when we moved on to another part of the mine, and he didn't make sure that he had all of our attention. It was really disappointing for me because this man had lived on the mine as a child, and I feel like I could have learned so much more from his experience than I did. 

Although I missed a lot of information, some of the things I did learn from the trip were that Chile is the world's number one copper exporter (the US is next in line) and it makes up a major part of its economic success. At this particular mine, El Teniente, there are hundreds of thousands of meters of tunnels running through the mountains and they will bring many more years of copper exports to Chile. This mine is the most technologically advanced in Latin America, and is extremely successful. There have been a few major accidents with many fatalities, but there has recently been updated safety measures to prevent future accidents.The mine runs for 24 hours a day and 365 days of the year, never stopping, to prevent cave-ins and also to keep the tunnels clean and clear for the workers and the copper. However, I'm a little bummed that I missed how copper is actually mined from the rocks (we did get to see a huge rock grinder at one point) and processed into the mineral that we use today. 

At El Teniente, there is an old worker's camp, Sewell, where hundreds of workers and their huge families (up to 21 kids!!!) lived while working in the mines. It is currently unoccupied, but there is now a museum there and a cafeteria where workers and tourists eat lunch. 

Here are some of the pictures and a video of the rock grinder that I took on the trip today, with my friends and I in the cool equiptment, and some of the scenery that we saw there.

Hope you enjoyed those! Meanwhile, back in Santiago, the weather is getting increasingly colder as winter continues to approach. School is going well, I have a paper and a test coming up in the next few weeks, so I will be studying a lot, but other than that, things are great! Hope everyone is well and enjoying some lovely spring weather!!

Love, Amara

Daniela's birthday in Buenos Aires!

Hey-O!!

After weeks of anticipation I finally made it to Buenos Aires to visit the family! On April 24th, it was my cousin Daniela's 20th birthday, so I thought it would be fun to take a trip over there to celebrate with them. It was a very interesting trip becasue a lot of the normal rutines in traveling were missing. For example, since it was only a 2 hour flight, I didn't have to spend days worrying about layovers and security issues and spending more than 24 hours traveling. The good news was that since it was such a short trip on the plane, I was able to spend 6 days there (I missed my Thursday classes). The timing couldn't have been more perfect, either. I had just had a couple of papers due in my classes and I talked to my teachers and found out that I wouldn't be missing much information in class (I did have to do some class work early and email it to my Theater teacher, but other than that I had no work to turn in), so I had absolutely nothing to worry about over the whole trip. It was really nice.

So I left my apartment on Wednesday the 22nd at the crack of dawn (my flight was at 7:30, but the shuttle company came to pick me up at 4:20am to take me to the airport).  After a nice nap on the plane, I arrived in Buenos Aires at about 10:30 where my tío Nicolás was waiting for me to pick me up.  He drove me to tío Juan José's house, where Daniela is living while she studies kinesiology at the University of Buenos Aires, and where I stayed for the six days. Nico stayed for a delicious lunch of milanesas a la neopolitana (a steak milanesa with tomato and cheese on top) and then went to work. I took a little nap after lunch while I was waiting for my cousins Julieta and Federico to come after school and when they got there, we took a pilgramage to Flamingo, my favorite ice cream store. Without any question, I got my favorite flavor in the world : Súper Dulce de Leche, which is dulce de leche flavor, with realy dulce de leche swirls in it. MMM my mouth is watering just thinking about how good it is. That night, Nico, his wife Maricota, Juli and Fede came back for a delicious dinner of Chinese food.

This trip to Buenos Aires was a little different than usual, also because I was able to leave the house to explore more of the city instead of just hanging around at home (which I love). On Thrusday, Daniela took me to class with her (taking a bus and the subway.. almost an hour!), and before we walked around El Centro, looking at the shops and we got coffee at a café near her school. When we got home, we decided to make a cake for her birthday breakfast, but the oven was on a lot higher than we had thought, and it burned after 20 minutes! We were able to save most of it by scraping off the carbon, and it was actually pretty good with dulce de leche!

On Friday, Daniela's birthday, Juan Jo and I woke up early to make her a nice breakfast. He had gone to get some delicious pasteries, we had the burned cake, and I woke up and made some buttermilk panckakes for her, which we ate with dulce de leche, of course. Later, Daniela and I went to pick up her mom, my tía Mariana (Nico's sister), from the bus station because she had come for her birthday on an 18 hour bus trip from Bariloche (on the other side of the country near Chile and Argentina's Lake District in the mountains). We spent the rest of the day getting ready for Daniela's birthday party she was going to have that night, we made pizza dough, cleaned up, and showered at got ready. The family came back for dinner, and her friends came over, and we all hung out in Juan Jo's back house eating pizza and cake, until we got on the bus to go to a kareoke/dance club where we stayed till 6 in the morning! It was really fun getting to know all of Dani's friends and dancing all night long. 

After sleeping in on Saturday, we took another trip out of the house to Recoleta, so Dani could show me the Cemetary. I thought it would be cool to see the one in Buenos Aires after seeing the one in Santiago, but by the time we got there (we were on the bus for about an hour and a half) the sun had already gone down, and it was closed. So instead, we went to a little street fair they had in the park, and then went to get a drink at one of the bar/cafés there. We got home around 9pm to see Daniela's dad's car in front of Juan Jo's house! Tío Gabriel had come with Dani's sisters and brother all the way from Bariloche (15 hours!) to surprise her! It was such a nice surprise, because I thought that I wasn't going to be able to see them until I took a trip to Bariloche myself. 

Sunday was my favorite day by far. We went to tío Nico's house for a barbeque (asado) and it was so much fun! Daniela's other aunts, uncles, and grandma (from her dad's side) came, and it was a really nice afternoon filled with really good food and company.

Monday was my last day, I had an evening flight, but I got up at 5:30 in the morning to say good bye to Gabi and the kids, as they had to go back to Bariloche. Daniela and I went back to bed for a little bit after they left, and spent our last day together. We went to her English class, which was interesting for me to watch, and later we went back home to have one last ice cream at Flamingo with Fede, who had come to say bye to me after school. Nico, Mariana, Daniela and I left for the airport around 4pm, and as usual, it was very hard to leave. I left them at the very last minute so I could make it to board on time, but I really wasn't ready to leave. Throughout the entire weekend, I really felt my aunt Inés' absence, since it was the first time that I had been back since she passed away last year. I was happy to see Juan José in good spirits, but especially when spending some lazy time at home, and when we went to the asado, I was really missing her. 

I am really looking forward to taking another trip out there soon, even though I'm still not sure when that will be. 

Meanwhile, back in Santiago, fall has arrived with full force. All of a sudden, when I got back from Buenos Aires, it was freezing! They still haven't turned the heating on in my apartment building, so I have been wearing double layers of pajamas to bed at night, and my days of wearing flip flops to school are definitely over. It's been so cold for the past week, that I am actually terrified about when winter comes in full force. I think I'm going to have to buy a really good winter coat before that time comes. 

I stayed home this weekend, so I spent some fun days with my roommates, going to an amusment park one day, and we had an asado yesterday (Sunday) to welcome my roommate, Damien's (one of the French guys) brother visiting. 

Here are some pictures from our weekend:

Well, I'll keep you updated on any future trips I take, or any other fun things I do in Santiago, but right now I'm getting really excited for the end of the month when my mom and Nancy come to visit for my birthday! But before they come, I will be finishing up my EAP class (which is only 8 weeks long) and a couple of papers. I will be really sad to miss my grandma's big 80th birthday party and the rest of the May birthdays, because family parties are my favorite. Sending my love up from South America, Schoenbergs!

Love, Amara

The start of my internship, Villa Grimaldi and Isla Negra!

Hello again!

I have had an extremely long week that has actually gone by extremely fast! 

But warning: In this post I will be writing about a lot of things I learned on a fieldtrip to Villa Grimaldi (Pinochet's main torture center during his regime) which may be just as hard to read as they are to write about. I am going to write about it at the very end for those who prefer not to know about some of the awful things that Pinochet did to the prisoners. 

Now that you've been warned, I can tell you about the happy parts of my week! After much long-waited anticipation I finally started my internship with English Opens Doors! I am working at a school called Liceo Víctor Jara (named after a folk musician who was killed during Pinochet's military government -- all of the kids uniforms have little guitars on them!), in the comuna of La Pintana, one of the poorest areas of Santiago. Luckily, there is a bus that goes straight all the way to La Pintana t

hat leaves about a block away from my house, so it's pretty easy to get there! Especially because the bus drops me off about a block away from the school. However, it does take me about an hour and a half in the morning traffic, especially because there is a lot of road construction going on over there right now. Even after the first day, and the fact that I have to start leaving the house at about 6:30 in the morning to get there by 8am, I know that working in that school is going to be an incredible experience. 

I will be working there every Wednesday from 8am until 3:15 when the kids get out (for the whole school day) for the rest of the semester. I work with 7th and 8th graders (ages 12-15), with a really nice teacher named Aracelly. When I arrived on my first day, I introduced myself and the students all stood up at their chairs and greeted me by yelling, "Good morning, Miss!" The teacher had a class of 7th graders that were learning about means of transportation. In that class, I helped with pronounciat

ion of the words and walked around the room to help them with class work. The kids in this class were very sweet, and they seemed to be excited about me being there to help them. 

After that class, Aracelly and I had a period off, in which we got to know eachother a little bit, and she taught me how to use the SmartBoard (a very high-tech screen that is connected to a computer that is controlled by touch. It also has special electronic pens so the kids and teachers can write on it. It's so cool!) I also helped her grade a family-tree project that the kids had done the week before, by checking for spelling errors and making sure they had actually done the work (some of the trees were blank). 

8th graders came in next, in a block period for 2 hours (separated by a break for recess). This group was a little bit harder to handle. I had to confiscate cell phones and music players, and it was pretty much impossible to keep them quiet. It was chaotic! They were learning about how to talk about their favorite musicians, so they made lists of all their favorite musical groups (which I had to help a lot with pronounciation and spelling of a lot of American groups), and then they classified them into English and Spanish singers. Their big project will be to make a magazine with information about

 their favorite singer (in English of course). 

The next group after our lunch break was also 8th graders, doing the same project about their favorite singers. Since it was the end of the day, it was even harder to keep the class under control. Aracelly continuously yelled at them, had to repeat her instructions, and I had to separate kids to keep them from bothering eachother, and I even had to stay with them alone while Aracelly went to talk to another teacher. It was so hard to keep an eye on everyone during that time, but luckily they were all supposed to be doing individual work, so I just had to walk around and check their sentences and spelling, and stuff like that.

At the end of the day, Aracelly had 3 girls from the first class walk me to the bus stop and make sure I got on the bus, to make sure I got on safe. And when I finally got home at 6pm I was so exhausted that I completely passed out and slept for about 2 hours! Over all my first day went really well, and I am really looking forward to continue working with the kids. Unfortunately, I'm a little scared to bring my camera to the school, so it will be a little while before I can put some pictures up of my classroom (I think I may invest in a disposable camera in a couple of weeks).

(Now I'm going to skip over my fieldtrip on Friday and tell you about my trip to Isla Negra). [Picture: Me, Jessie, and Marie right after we got off the bus in Isla Negra.] On Saturday (April 18th), I woke up early to make it to the bus terminal by 10am to meet up with one of my classmates, Jessie, from my Pablo Neruda class to visit Isla Negra, where Neruda had his favorite house. My class is taking a school-sponsored field trip to see the house next weekend, but since both Jessie and I will be traveling, we decided to go together on our own to see the house. Jessie is from Chicago and is studying here through the Syracuse University. I met up with her and two of her friends (Robin and Marie) from her program (one of which is also in the Neruda class), and the four of us bought round trip bus tickets for our day trip. 

We arrived to Isla Negra at around 12:30 and headed straight to good ol' Pablo's house which was actually really close to where the bus had dropped us off. In my opinion, this house was way cooler than his house in Valparaíso, and I could definitely see why it was his favorite. Unfortunately, it wasn't allowed to take pictures inside his house, so you'll have to deal with the pictures I took on the outside. Pablo Neruda loved the ocean, and each room in his house was designed like it was in a ship: rounded celings, small doors, and lots of ship and ocean memorabilia! A lot of his collections are found in this house too: the collection of figureheads (the statues of women placed at the front of ships), his collections of bottles, bugs, pipes, masks, shells, ships in bottles... He had so many! This house was so beautiful, it was made out of stone, and had huge windows in almost every room that looked out onto the ocean. Neruda loved Isla Negra so much he is even buried right outside his house with his third wife, Matilde.

We ate lunch in the museum's café, where we all enjoyed some kind of seafood (shrimp for an appetizer, and I had salmon with rice) and then we walked down to the beach: Neruda's back yard. The weather was sunny, but still breezy, and over all we had a lovely day. Although we only spent our time around Neruda's house and didn't see much more of Isla Negra, we had a really nice time away from the busy city life of Santiago. 

Next Wednesday, I am finally going to Buenos Aires to visit the family! It's my cousin Daniela's 20th birthday, and I'm going over for 5 days to visit and celebrate with them. It should be a very fun trip!

Here's some pictures I took at Isla Negra:

Ok, here comes the hard part: my visit to Villa Grimaldi. For those that would rather not know about the ugly history of Chile's military regime, now would be the time to stop reading. On Friday (April 17th), I had signed up for our mandatory fieldtrip to Villa Grimaldi, Pinochet's main torture and detainment camp during the years 1974-78, and to the Central Cemetary where over 5 million chileans are buried. 

First, I thought I'd give some background history of Chile's Military Government (known in Spanish as "el golpe militar" or just "el golpe"). From 1970 to 1973, Salvador Allende was the president of a Socialist government in Chile, in which a significant land reform had given over half of Chile's land to the workers. But on September 11th, 1973, General Augusto Pinochet (with US support) attacked La Moneda (Santiago's White House) and took over the government by force. On that day, Allende was found having committed suicide. Pinochet remained in power unil voters put an end to his regime in 1990. Throughout his 17 years in power, thousands of people went "missing" and thousands more were tortured for information about opponents to the regime. What was interesting about Pinochet's military government, was that it was different from many other Latinamerican military governments at the time because most of the tortured survived. As I will explain more later, our guide, Don Pedro, explained that after being tortured, prisoners were released back into society almost like "zombies" which was an intense fear factor to those who opposed Pinochet's government.

The day started at 9:30am at our Campus Oriente, where the EAP office was and where our ILP classes were held. We met with Don Pedro Alejandro Matta, one of the survivors of Villa Grimaldi at age 22, who was later exiled to the United States for the remainder of Pinochet's regime.  Villa Grimaldi was only one of hundreds of detention centers that were built throughout Chile, and has been turned into a National Park because after the first few years of Pinochet's regime, the military destroyed all of the buildings in effort to destroy all evidence that the detention center had even exsisted. In the classroom, Don Pedro had a scaled model of Villa Grimaldi, which was helpful to look at before we went to the actual one, becasue he was able to give us a basis for the day and we were able to get an idea of what it looked like when it was used as a torture center. All that remains today are small, tiled, mosaic plaques that mark the placement of buildings. He explained the use of each building, and the types of torture that were executed there (which were all pretty greusome). The worst types of torture that I found were the types in which members of the military would make the prisoners watch and/or listen to their family members of loved ones being tortured (for example, husbands would be forced to watch their wives be raped). See the photo album for more information, as I tried to explain and translate each picture. 

After about a 2 hour lecture, my group (about 15 people) took a bus to the actual site of Villa Grimaldi for a tour. We walked around to all of the main places that Don Pedro had explained in his lecture and we were given more information about life in the camp. He even shared some tearful and personal stories. We learned that most prisoners that went through Villa Grimaldi, who were all kept blind-folded through out their stay,  stayed between 10 and 15 days before being released back into society. When released, most were so badly injured, like Don Pedro, that it was an extremely long and painful recovery period. Don Pedro told us that when he was released, he could barely walk. He was not able to bend his knees for months after his release becasue of the way he was tortured. He also told us that becasue he was so preocupied about his legs, it wasn't until he could walk normally that he noticed that his shoulder was also badly injured due to the way he had been tied up for the duration of his stay at the Villa (with his hands behind his back). 

What made me sick was the fact that a lot of the prisoners weren't even guilty of anything. They were just taken away from their daily lives and tortured for information about friends and family members that were suspected to be contrary to the new government. The tower that you can see in the album (on the model scale) was re-constructed and we had the oppertunity to go inside to see some extremely tiny cells that had doors that slid upwards, barely big enough to crawl into. Prisoners rarely survived being in the tower, as they were brought up there between torture sessions. If you come to Chile, I highly recommend going to Villa Grimaldi, but I would also suggest having a guide to take you around.

After the tour, we all piled onto the bus again to make our way over to El Cementerio Central (the central cemetary) where over 5 million chileans are buried, (just about as many as are living!) with more being buried every day (in fact, there was a funeral going on when we arrived). It was very impressive, and enormous! It seemed as if you could walk on forever. The most interesting thing I found about the cemetary in general, is that it matches Chile in general, in terms of its classism. Chilean society is extremely classist, and by walking through the cemetary, this became very notable. At the very front of the cemetary, near the entrance, the tombs were impressive. Huge houses, almost, held entire families, clearly of the highest class, and there were roads and paths that lead to even more areas of other huge tombs. Among the high-class tombs was the tomb of Salvador Allende's family (which was pretty ironic, if you ask me, since he was extremely socialist, and probably would have hated to be affiliated with members of the upper class). It was enormous (please see the album). As of today, only Salvador and one of his daughters are buried there, but there is space for the rest of his family for when that time comes. 

As we walked futher, we came accross the upper-middle class tombs, which were not as big as the ones of the highest class, but still very impressive constructions. We continued walking, and came across the lower-middle class tombs, which resembled apartments (just like what living upper class chileans reside in). And as we walked a little further, we got to the lower class part of the cemetary. It was such an abrubt change that it surprised me! This area was definitely the most popular, as I could see graves going on for what seemed like miles! These were the most colorful ones, that were covered in flowers and messages from family members, and most were covered by some kind of cloth roof. I saw some family members visiting and watering the plants around their loved-one's graves.

At the very end of the Cemetary, Don Pedro took us to see the graves of a lot of the people that died under Pinochet's regime. A lot of the graves were marked S.N., or "sin nombre" (no name) for those that were not able to be identified. Also, behind those was a long wall full of graves for those people that died within the first few years of the military government. One of the more interesting ones that was there was the grave of Víctor Jara, the folk singer that my English Opens Doors school is named after. He became famous for singing a lot of polical songs, which is why he was targeted by the military. Víctor Jara was captured and brought tothe National Stadium, which is now called "el Estadio Víctor Jara", where he was tortured and killed. While he was tortured, the miltants broke his hands, and then threw a guitar at him and,  mockingly, asked him to sing for them. He was killed shortly after that. 

Lastly, we saw a huge plaque that had a lot of names of the pepole that disappeared during the military regime. Don Pedro made some closing statements and then bid us good-bye, and we took the bus back to the center of Santiago. Over all, I loved the fieldtrip. I learned so much and I am really happy that it is mandatory. Pinochet's military regime was so important in Chile's history, that it's hard to live here day to day and not hear something about it. It's interesting that in some history musems here, the years 1973 to 1990 are completely left out because no one knows how the military should be portrayed. It was an extremely meaningful and tearful day, and I am very pleased with the experience. 

If you were brave enough to read this section of my blog, I really hope you learned something valuable, and I hope it wasn't too intense to read. You can now look forward to reading about my trip to Buenos Aires next!

Hasta luego!

Amara

Valparaíso, a city after my own heart

Hola todos!

Since I last wrote, I've been contiuing to settle into my schedule, which has been a little bit difficult because I have yet to start my internship with English Opens Doors. My classes have been going well, and I have my first couple of papers of the semester due in the next 2 weeks, so my school work has been building up a little bit outside of class.  

This past weekend, Easter weekend, I went on a little day trip outside of Santiago to Valparaíso (Valpo, for short), one of the bigger coastal cities about an hour and a half away from 

Santiago's center. It was a really nice day! I went with a friend from my EAP program, Tessa, and we really enjoyed ourselves. 

(Picture: Tessa and I with the bay in the background) On Saturday morning, we hopped on a bus at 8:20 in the morning and arrived in Valpo around 10am, and my first impression was that the city felt like San Francisco. It was even foggy when we arrived! There were tons of hills with colorful houses, cable cars, a bay, I felt right at home. The first thing Tessa and I decided to do was go see one of Pablo Neruda's 3 houses which have all been converted into museums for the public (I thought it would be fun since I'm taking that poetry class). Neruda's Valparaíso house is called "La Sebastiana," named after the Spanish builder who designed it. It is 4 stories tall, and has huge windows on every floor that look out towards the water. Absolutely beautiful! It was a good first stop for our day.

Next we took a little bus down to another area of Valparaíso to take a ride on one of the many  "ascensores" or elevators that transport people up and down the many hills. In our case, we took a trip down the hill to sea level to find some lunch. We walked around for a bit and ended up stopping for a hamburger and a hotdog  (Chilean style, with tons of avocado) and then walking around near the port. We decided to try and find a market that our waitress had told us about, but after about 45 minutes of walking (she said it should have only taken 20) we decided to take Valpo's version of the metro, which was above ground, back to the main port. 

(Picture: the boat we took around the bay!) 

When we got there, we decided to take a little boat ride for about $2 around the bay, which was really fun! We got some great views of the city from the water, and we ended up talking to a couple of chilean architecture students who studied at one of the universities in Valpo. They gave us a recommendation to visit the Mercado Central, which everyone said was very dangerous for tourists, and to take a specific elevator to get "una de las vistas más hermosas de la ciudad" (one of the most beautiful views of the city). When we got off the boat we decided to take their advice and go to the market, against the recommendation of my guide book and a couple of locals (saying it was infamous for petty theft). We ended up being perfectly safe, and the main market was actually pretty cool, but a lot of it seemed to be closed for the Easter holiday. In the fish part of it, we walked by and saw a few buckets of crabs for sale that were STILL MOVING! I guess you can't get much fresher than that! I didn't take any pictures of those though, for fear of being robbed. 

The last thing we did was take the elevator that the students had recommended, that was very close to the market, and they were right: the view was absolutely breath-taking. We walked around up there for a bit, becasue there was a couple of artisan stands where we bought some souvenirs (I bought a magnet for the fridge and a watercolor of the city). We stopped to have some tea and hot chocolate, becasue it was getting colder out with the sun set, and we headed back to the bus terminal. 

We had such a nice day over all. The sun even came out for most of the day after lunch, and it even ended up getting a little hot! The one thing that I could not get enough of in Valparaíso was the grafiti and murals that covered most of the buildings. The art was so colorful and unique that it gave the city such an interesting vibe, I can't wait to go back. I hope to stay for more than one day next time I go because I feel like there is so much more to see!

Here are some pictures I took about the grafiti:

Valpo's art

and here are some other pictures of Valparaíso from through out the day:

Valparaíso

Coming soon: pictures of my apartment and roommates!

Hope to hear from you all soon!

Love, Amara

The start of school and a trekking trip in the Andes!

Hola!!

Since Friday, I have officially been in South America for 2 months and Santiago is finally starting to feel like my home. This past week I finally finalized my schedule of classes (I decided to take the poetry class about Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral, and the History of Latin American Theater class) which has been a big sigh of relief because I can finally settle into a routine. I really love my schedule because I only have class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, leaving Monday, Wedesday, and Friday free to do my internship, homework, and traveling! 

Last week, with the start of school came start-of-school activities such as a big trip to the beach, Cartagua, with almos the entire Universidad de Chile. It was crazy! At about ten in the morning, my friends and I met at the main campus to catch a bus to take us to the beach. By the time we got there, it was so crowded that it was hard to find a good place to sit and enjoy the beautiful day.

Last weekend (the 21-22nd), I went on a trekking trip with about 20 other students with our EAP program. We left early Saturday morning to get to our campsite in the foothills of the Andes and after lunch we set off on a hard, 3 hour hike up hill to a glacier! The struggle to make it up to the top where the glacier was was totally worth it because when we got up there, we were able to see big chunks of the glacier break off into the surrounding lagoon! It was so awesome! The sound was so loud, and we could here it starting to crack before pieces of it actually broke off. 

The hike back seemed just as hard going down hill as the hike up to the glacier because it started to get dark, making the uneven trail really hard to see. There were a few small rivers we had to cross on the way, and I definitly misstepped a couple of times, soaking my feet in freezing water! Only having my regular tennis shoes was also not the best on this hike. The big, loose rocks and uneven path along the way killed my ankles and feet making it really hard to continue walking to camp. It was really dark by the time we got to camp, and getting really cold! We ate a dinner of raviolis and went to bed almost immediately after that, being so exhausted after a 6 hour hike. I had bought a really cheap sleeping bag (about $10 at the local grocery store) before I went to Brazil, and I learned why it was so cheap! I was so cold that night in the tent, even though I had put on extra layers, that I could barely sleep! Next time I go camping I am definitley going to borrow a better sleeping bag to fight off the cold of the mountains.

The next morning, we got up and ate a very chilean breakfast of yogurt and cookies, and set off again on a down-hill hike to a small town where we stopped for lunch. The down hill hike on the similar uneven, rocky path, did not do anything to help my ankles, and they were hurting so bad by the time we got to the bottom that I opted to stay behind on the last hike to a different lagoon with my friend, Sonya, who had hurt her knee. The afternoon was spent very lazily while we waited for the rest of the group to come back, which was nice after such a hard day! When the group retuned around 5, they recovered a little bit and we bussed back to Santiago by 7:30pm.

Over all, I'm really glad I went on the trip. The sights were so beautiful and I feel so lucky to have witnessed such a cool phenomenon as the glacier breaking! I'm a little bummed that I had to sit the last hike out, but now I know that I need to be a little bit more equipped in the foot wear department for my next hike. 

Trekking Trip to El Morado

In other news, last Wednesday one more girl moved into our apartment! Her name is Cyndi, and she is from Orange County, CA, but goes to Pace University in New York. Here in Santiago, she goes to the same Universidad del Pacifico as my 2 Spanish roommates, and she is really nice. I was a little worried that having another Californian in the house because I thought it would make me not speak as much Spanish, but becasue Cyndi is Mexican and Dominican, she is already used to speaking Spanish all the time at home, so Spanish is still the only language that is spoken in our place! 

Things are continuing to settle in, and within the next few weeks, I have a couple of trips to look forward to: one with my roommates to the mountains agian, and then one for easter break!

Catch up with you all later!

Amara