i just went out for empanadas

in the home stretch

2007-12-04T14:42:00.000-05:00

i haven't written anything in ages but millions of things have happened:
machu picchu and hiking the inca trail
pucon, rafting, ziplining for miles in the air
querer-ing alguien
pololoism :)
club de lulu every tuesday
finding that really happy place inside of me
alonso growing SO much
taco, bravissimo, and chorrillana dates
nights in the casa de chueko
choosing between the clouds or a palace...
zoologico
empanada adventures and dancing until sunrise
finding best friends and watching them leave me or leaving them behind

i am so scared to come home but so thankful for these experiences that i know have changed me. my dad (real dad) is coming to chile today and we are going to spend the week together until we go home dec 11, and then i expect to see all of my best friends. but don't get too excited, i'm tan, my hair is a little longer, my spanish is a little better, and my belly is fat with pan and mermelada. i'm already planning my return to chile- i swear.

short story and then i have to go to the airport:
i saw a boy wearing a shirt one day that was red, had a yellow heart that said "CH" in it. now i should have known that CH did not mean chile because chile is abbreviated with CL, but i bought it anyway because i love chile. right so i didn't think anything of it and maryann and i went to take pictures of the plazas in valpo today and i wore the shirt. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE SHIRT MEANS?! it means el chapulin colorado. he was a mexican superhero who dressed as a bee. as i walked down the street, some vendor came up to me and asked me to save him. let's talk about embarrassing. oh well, the shirt means i love chile to me so if i wear it when i come home, don't ask me to save you. because i won't.

i'll write more i swear.
nos vemos mis guachones :)

chilenismo:
chaleco- means chao. any word that has chao in it can mean chao.. idk

feliz cumplefran!

2007-10-22T16:51:00.000-04:00

we finally had the birthday party for fran this saturday night- GREAT SUCCESS! jejeje she was shocked, surprised, and spoiled by all [oh yea except her devil of a mother who only gives gifts of half eaten bags of cornflakes- someone tell me what you do with half a bag of cornflakes]. the baby was locked away in the room for the night and fran was allowed to drink [recuerdate que ella esta breastfeeding]. her friends seem nice enough aunque they made 0 effort to mingle with alyssa, katelyn, and i [with the exception of la guata- a kid named ricardo who had moved to the US before to work as a waiter and go to funk concerts]. it was nice to see her really happy though and i'm glad we [well, mainly manola] were able to do such a small gesture for her.she was the princess of the night and we had salsa golf [ketchup and mayonnaise], doritos [what they call chips], cheetos jejeje, wine with peaches, cakeeee, and everyone was in good spirits. yesterday i went to muelle baron and cerro alegre with cristian and it was a wonderful day to spend an afternoon- outside with two amazing views of valparaíso. it is SO nice to be treated well and with consideration and respect. i only hope i can make sense of what's going on in my head right now.

now something in spanish:
tanta emoción te encuentres cuando te ves que la vida es una hermosura y hay tanta esperanza y amor en el mundo. y mucha más emoción te encuentres cuando te ves cuánto amor tengas a compartir con el mundo. la esperanza no es la convicción de que las cosas saldrán bien, sino la certidumbre de que algo tiene sentido, sin importar el resultado final.

how was that gb?

i'm going to see where being happy takes me. actually it's taking me to peru on thursday night and to machu picchu after that.

and i am currently on the phone with adrienne and i got the wonderful news that on february 11 we are going to the SPICE GIRL REUNION TOUR concert! AAAAAAAAHHHH

chilenismos:
weas- things?

wena naty

2007-10-15T21:58:00.000-04:00

so. my family has talked about a "buena naty" for weeks on end. it's a video of a 14 year old girl in chile fellating a boy in the school and it's infamous here. milotron is trying to send me it along with tracks of his music and the lyrics. i had a breakthrough with camilo this weekend porque i was supposed to be home alone all weekend in the house but he came home when my window was open and the cover to the keyhole on my lock box taken off and we thought perhaps someone could have broken into the house. usually we are both mad awk and just stay silent in the house if we're alone together but for some reason, he expressed actual concern and sat and talked to me just about things that had happened in his day, in his life, etc. for a good while. i la-ed it bad. and now he's talking to me on messenger. that just makes me happy that i can get to know my brother. feliz!

his band is called mutilation because within the death metal community he thinks that's a badass name. and he was telling some story about daddy yankee and death metal i don't know he's just being a riot today. so the lyrics [which are in english, because he says it's more bakan]:

blood and gore
screams of people
and pains come to me

when the ritual
is coming and i'm weak

This is my sickness
This is my sickness
this is my sickness
This is our sickness

the evil open my eyes
destroying my soul
and taking my blood

chaos and fire burn
the walls of kindness
confusing
everyone

when this approaches
you're alone
abduced by everything
the screams in yours ears
the putrefaction
in your body

This is my sickness
This is my sickness
this is my sickness
This is our sickness

beast take me
creature lead me

the evil sickness
and ritual masters
they want death
want me fucking death

it makes me laugh. after this weekend, i just can't emphasize enough how kind chileans are. they welcome you into their homes, and really focus on the finer things in life like family, friends, food, and good conversation- things i feel like we really push aside in the US. i'm reconsidering this semester thing again and maybe i will stay the year...

chilenismos:
wena naty- the act of fellatio

i don't know why i didn't lead a double life before...

2007-10-12T20:30:00.000-04:00

because in chile i feel pretty invincible.

i would say 99% of my actions here are followed with the justification, "well, i mean, i'm in chile..." i might as well be in another stratosphere. i think it's better- it's helping me be a little more open to new experiences, challenges, and unexpected possibilities. and manola is the biggest advocate of aprovechar-ing everything under the sun in chile, which is really helpful. and for some reason, i don't feel ashamed of telling her all of the terribly embarrassing things i do on a daily basis.

as for my second language acquisition, i find that my abilities seem to fluctuate depending on who i am talking with. when i am with my social geo group and marie [the french girl] is there, i start to get overwhelmed with them speaking fast and sometimes tune out or get nervous when i have to talk. when marie isn't there, i am fine- i think the fact that another extranjera is in the group and speaks better than me causes me to be nervous. when i'm with the family, i can pretty much hold a decent conversation except if camilo is around, and then i crash and burn. i can talk to ricardo, conny, apparently favio and cristian as well without floundering too much, but there is this wall that i've hit and i'm not sure how to get over it. and it shouldn't be there considering the paragraph before.

this was a wonderful week full of stories to tell the kids-and the kids might very well be chilean by the end of this semester. jajaja. so now, let me take this to a vote:

-a kind dancing bear that offers a wonderful circle of friends and i mean, great dancing
OR
-a suave little snake with really good teeth and nice eyes but might be a bit flaite [or maybe i just don't understand the full meaning of that word]

heck, i mean, i'm in chile...

chilenismos:
ponciar- to get with more than one person in a night

horses and happy hearts

2007-10-08T17:24:00.000-04:00

amazing colors

zapallar

horse and i in concon

so we went to horcon, concon, and zapallar- three wonderfully gorgeous beaches this past weekend. we rode horses in concon, ate empanadas in horcon, and laid on the beach in zapallar. zapallar is set in the middle of the forest and i want to live there. i don't have too much to say, i'll let the pictures explain, but i am just concentrating on living and living well/happily right now. alyssa and i have been frequenting the beach in front of our house every morning [even though manola tells us it's too cold] and we WILL get tan. and if we don't, oh well, it's incredibly amazing to wake up to that everyday. a lot of exciting things have happened lately and my fingers are crossed for the future. i can't stop feeling excited.

chilenismos:
(these are more so messenger slang things that i didn't get at first)
pera- wait!
listop- ok ok go ahead i'm ready

oh it's coming...

2007-10-02T22:41:00.000-04:00

i put off writing about my travels and our trip to santiago to see the torture camps and take a visual tour of the fallout of the pinochet regime, but you can read kristina's account of it aqui

i think these are the kinds of experiences i'd prefer to tell people about in person so until then, my memories are sealed. in other news, that which was so small but made me so happy today was...

i saw a man with a hose watering flowers.

do you know what that means?

it is spring. i am feliz

chilenismos:
¡Chuta!- you say this when you forget to do something- it's like oh shoot!

what i see everyday

2007-09-29T12:55:00.000-04:00

walking down the calle which is across the street from my house you can see the ocean and the sheraton miramar. everyday when i walk to class i pass this. keep in mind at this point i am high up on the side of a hill overlooking the highway and this is on the other side of the highway.

this is balmaceda the long and semi-uphill road [downhill from this angle] i walk along to class. apartments to the right, calle alvares to the left. and that cute yellow/red building that i want to explore one day.

this is the reloj de flores which is a giant flower clock that means you're heading towards downtown viña del mar.

i think it's cool to walk past the ocean everyday

cachipun gigante is LIFE!

2007-09-26T18:52:00.000-04:00

out of sheer laziness/not wanting to revisit my travel journal, i will put off writing about my trip indefinitely or just put up some pictures and if you really care, you can ask me questions about it/i'll tell people when i'm ready.

so instead i choose to write about that which makes me so incredibly happy every week: social geography. for most people it's just a ridiculous waste of a class and they barely spend time planning [as it probably should be], but for my group it is such a serious thing it's scary. we're assigned such menial tasks like fill out a worksheet lesson plan for a 2 hour span with the kids, and it took us almost 4 hours to do so. granted it's a group of 8 people and chileans [blanket statement...more so my group] operate at a more leisurely pace than americans, but there is no reason it should take that long. aside from that bitching, i should note i enjoy spending so much time with them. in the picture to the left is beto, ivan, marie, marcelo, and pamela. to explain: there's marie, the french student who kissed me today with palta [avocado] from a completo all over her face; pamela, who continuously arrives late but is really sweet; guillermo, the jote [man who stalks/preys upon women-namely me] who thinks it's alright to creep after me at clubs; marcelo, the nicest guy ever who rides the bus with me and walks me home; fabiola, the ed major who can't come work in the school with us; beto, the ayudante who isn't actually in our group but is like a student teacher so he's always there anyway, and iván, the love of my life-well i don't know, perhaps. we have spent a lot of time and energy working together- prepping for our visits to the school, actually working at the school, and then taking the class together on thursdays- so it doesn't feel so much like a class but a really amazing volunteer opportunity similar [but in no way the same as] my time spent at martin house in trenton playing literacy games with jabria and taekwon hah. the class [as i've probably mentioned] will culminate in one final activity that we will do with the class to kind of share our love of valparaiso. but for now, we go to the school every week and play with them/do various other activities.

today i finally took pictures. we played cachipun gigante [pron. kah-chee-poon hee-gone-tay] which to the average foreigner sounds like some really dirty game and "somos hermanos de..." cachipun gigante is cachipun only GIGANNNNTEE. cachipun is actually "rock, paper, scissors" only chileans throw out the cachipun [rock, paper, or scissors] from the side and don't do any of the "rock, paper, scissors says shoot" business like americans. and yes, i stand by the fact that in order to play RPS you must "say shoot." so how do you entertain 30 kids with cachipun for 40 minutes? well you play it full-out gigante style. the class lines up into two teams, then you give station two people/cones/barrels of trash a distance aways and give them the 1,2,3 countdown. they have to run out around the markers and cachipun. whoever loses runs back to their team and whoever wins gets to keep running. they have the option to run past the other marker and then the next person in line from the other team can run out to them, or wherever they meet running, they have to cachipun. [the picture to the right is cachipun and ivan...as you can see, it gets pretty intense] and it continues this way until you cachipun the whole class and someone wins. but before the game there was a rumble. i have a really amazing video of it and the teacher was encouraging it/if not the loudest yeller in the rumble. "somos hermanos de..." is a game where the kids line up in two lines and we yell, "somos hermanos de... nariz" or some body part and they all have to run out and touch that body part with a partner. by the end we made it really complicated like they had to have a pinky finger, back, ankle, heel, and ear touching and it ended up as a semi-wrestling match type deal. the kids are allowed to run wild in these schools and are hardly slaves like american kids. i don't know if that's because it's a really poor school up in playa ancha or that they really just don't practice discipline, but i'm curious to see how we progress this semester.

one more thing... as a term of respect, they call us all tias and tios [aunts and uncles]. i absolutely love it. i'm an aunt to 30+ chilean guaguitas! this is the happiest day of my life!

chilenismos:
cachipun- rock, paper, scissors
sapo- means 1. a frog 2. a female genital organ 3. the men who stand at the bus stops and tell the drivers how long they have to wait there

alpacas, cholitas, and the nobel peace prize

2007-09-24T17:32:00.000-04:00

i owe the longest entry ever to my travels the past however many days, but i am too tired to do so right now. so, just know that:

-i saw the atacama desert, geysers, inca ruins, lagoons, salt flats, the morro where the chileans defeated the advances of the peruvians in arica, lake titicaca, and the presidential palace in la paz
-i saw a petition/rally in la paz for evo morales to be nominated for a nobel peace prize
-i spent 39 of the past 72 hours on buses and in total around 85 hours on various buses/minibuses over the course of the adventure
-my backpack is floating somewhere in between bolivia and chile containing most of my underwear, my camera charger, bathing suit, etc. but i hope it is returned to me
-there was no equinox celebration in tiwanaku, bolivia on 21 september, thus no man in a giant mask dancing-it was actually 22 september
-the women in bolivia who carry the babies on their backs in blankets and wear the traditional skirts with the italian fedora-type hats are called cholitas
-there is a surprising amount of israeli travelers in bolivia and an entire neighborhood of hostels dedicated to them [one of which we stayed in] in la paz
-chicha is a wonderful drink and for that reason i wish it was always 18 september in chile [independence day celebration]
-owen wilson in my opinion is still not a serious actor, despite how wonderful he was in the first 40 minutes of "behind enemy lines" [the only part i have seen so far]
-it is absolutely legitimate to cry during "the parent trap," if for no reason other than the loss of lindsay lohan's innocence
-high altitudes have made my nose bleed everyday
-alpacas and llamas are everywhere, and in bolivia they sell dead baby llamas [and fetuses] on the street
-i'm lucky to have traveled so much, but i am happy to be back at home [but i do miss home home]

chilenismos:
chicha- cooked wine that is made at home and tastes a lot like cider

11 de septiembre y golpe de estado

2007-09-12T10:46:00.000-04:00

while the 11 of september is a recently new wound for us north americans [well obviously specifically US], the 11 of september has been a dated etched in chilean history for 34 years as of yesterday. on 11 september 1973, the golpe de estado, or coup d'état, occurred removing former socialist leader salvador allende from power and initiating the regime of augusto pinochet that lasted until 1990. for those who don't know, pinochet is attributed with a bloody military regime responsible for 3,000+ deaths, 27,000+ jailed, and however many more disappeared persons. our wounds are still fresh from our own 9/11 which only occurred 6 years ago-and we all have our own stories about who we knew or how we were affected or "i knew someone who knew someone," and to us, it is still so painful because it was so recent. and the same goes for 9/11 in chile. one of the greatest human rights abuses in this half century occurred so recently here, and an entire country has the "i know someone who knew someone" burden to walk with everyday-on a scale much larger than ours. and as north americans [again specific to the us] we have the burden of cia involvement [in the coup] and the ensuing resentment by chileans. the us cia was notified two days prior to the coup of the impending actions and as part of project fubelt worked to overthrow socialist allende. i have been reading through these as well as the transcripts of the tapes between pinochet and the other participants in the golpe [this is when they first announce that allende is dead- it's in spanish but you can get the point]:

Carvajal: -Ha salido de La Moneda una cantidad de gente, pero todavía no me han confirmado si entre ellos está Allende. Parece que no. Actualmente se está disparando intensamente, porque se está reduciendo a francotiradores que hay sobre todo en el Ministerio de Obras Públicas. Así es que están actuando los helicópteros y la Infantería... En este momento se acaba de producir un cese del fuego. Espero que ahora se pueda producir la salida de Allende.
Leigh: -Van dos helicópteros más a batir estos edificios. Yo voy a mandar de todas maneras el helicóptero presidencial de inmediato a la Escuela Militar. Me interesa que tú le avises a la Escuela Militar que va a llegar el helicóptero y va a esperar allí hasta las 4, hora en que el Presidente debe tomarlo. Si no llega a las 4, yo ese helicóptero lo retiro y el Presidente queda preso esta noche. “ALLENDE IS DEAD NOW”
Se produce una larga pausa en la transmisión. Por primera vez, Carvajal se comunica simultáneamente con Leigh y Pinochet.
Carvajal: -Gustavo y Augusto, de Patricio. Hay una información del personal de la Escuela de Infantería que está dentro de La Moneda. Por la posibilidad de interferencias, la voy a transmitir en inglés: THEY SAY THAT ALLENDE COMMITTED SUICIDE AND IS DEAD NOW. Díganme si entienden.
Pinochet: -Entendido.
Leigh: -Entendido perfectamente.
Carvajal: -Augusto, respecto al avión para la familia, no tendría urgencia entonces esa medida. Entiendo que no tendría urgencia sacar a la familia inmediatamente.
Pinochet: -Que lo metan en un cajón y lo embarquen en un avión, viejo, junto con la familia. Que el entierro lo hagan en otra parte, en Cuba. Si no, va a haber más pelota p`al entierro. Si ¡éste hasta para morir tuvo problemas!

i think the last lines between carvajal and pinochet are especially interesting because pinochet is telling carvajal that removing the family [from la moneda i would assume?] is not that important because they're just going to put allende in a box and bury him in cuba anyway. castro gave allende the ak-47 he used to commit suicide that day, engraved with the message, "To my good friend Salvador from Fidel, who by different means tries to achieve the same goals."

so what does 9/11 mean in chile now? depends on who you ask. those opposed to the pinochet regime staged protests in santiago and various other places, those in favor of pinochet might just have been thankfully remembering the day, and as in every society it might have gone unnoticed by others. we thought there would be protests in valpo so we walked to the congress [the official congress was moved to valpo during the end of the pinochet regime] and then to plaza victoria, but didn't find any demonstrations. what we did find was much more moving. in plaza victora, the mothers and families of those disappeared persons during the pinochet regime had set up posters with pictures of the disappeared, news articles about the unborn babies killed, students killed, chilean intelligence members killed, and other atrocities that took place during his reign. finally, there was a picture of the wall in the santiago municipal cemetery that serves as an official memorial to all those disappeared/killed. similar to the memorials in DC, it has all of the names inscribed, as well as allende's name, and a quote from Raul Zurita above it saying, "todo mi amor está aquí y se ha quedado: pegado a las rocas, al mar, y a las montañas," meaning, "all of my love is here and here it has remained, settled in the rocks, the ocean, and the mountains." this quote brought me back to isla negra and remembering neruda's grave overlooking the ocean [while in no way comparable], and i think it's just a beautiful quote to give rest and remembrance to those slain in the country they loved so dearly.

oh yea, and i'll be completely unreachable for the next two weeks as i travel around so until then, love and peace- send me emails!!

chilenismos:
la raja- means fantastic. like you would wish someone la raja

they even loved Grease in chile

2007-09-10T09:30:00.000-04:00

on saturday night, alyssa and i went with the family to camilo's high school celebration of fiestas patrias. i guess it was equivalent to a battle of the classes, only much more embarrassing for the seniors [at least i would think so]. each class within the senior class had a stand set-up to raise money by selling food or services like mote con huesillo [a skinned peach with some kind of juice and little wheat seeds], choripan [a hotdog in a hard roll], completos [hotdog+palta, mayonaisse, tomatoes], beer [which was weird to see at a high school function-but since they're 18 they can drink], empanadas, gypsy palm reading type things, and wine. camilo's class was selling beer and somehow they didn't make the most money. each class then presented dances they had worked on for God knows how long. there were tango-ers, salsa-ers, twist-ers, charleston-ers, and after we left folclorico dancers [cueca]. camilo's class did the North American twist [in english, as opposed to the spanish twist which i did not know existed] and they were dressed as Grease kids more or less. he had on a black leather jacket, white shirt, and these stupid tight jeans he likes to wear. his partner was his ex-girlfriend nathideth or narideth or some variation of nazareth+meredith which was awkward especially since he kicked her leg while they were dancing and they ran off holding hands at the end of the dance. if i was fran, i would have cut a bitch. but instead she just seemed to be giggling the whole time. even sergio [monse's ex] and olga [fran's mom] came. and all of the high schoolers loved baby alonso.
we went out with dani on saturday night to meet up with monse, camilo, fran, and sebastian [monse's ex boyfriend from before the three year massacre of sergio with whom she would love to get back together] to dance. nothing especially memorable to comment on except for when camilo sent his friend over [quite slyly] to ask alyssa to dance. she said no like they he was flaite [creepy] and he shot camilo the finger. that was pretty jerky of him because i can just imagine him saying to go get the gringa.

chilenismos:
estar chino/chinito- this is a bit racist but this means [literally translated] to be chinese and they use it when a person is so drunk that they look chinese because they can't open their eyes
la dura?!- means "seriously?!" or "truth?!"

cabeza de pollo

2007-09-08T12:38:00.000-04:00

it's been a long week. and i bought the most beautiful boots ever. they're black and chilean and hot fire.

la universidad técnica federico santa maría, a huge engineering school in valpo, staged a walkout this week to protest the quality of education at their school and the dispersement of funds between their school here in valpo and their sister school in santiago. but literally the school was canceled indefinitely because they all agreed to walk out-how proactive is that? annnnnd as i was taking the micro past the school i watched the students being tear gassed outside. which is really no different than last week when there were huge protests in valpo and santiago by the workers and students and they whipped out the hoses and fired the protesters down with water. protesting seems to be a more effective way of getting your point across here in chile, but the manner in which it's received/police reaction definitely scares me a little bit. as a result of this strike, the santa maría boys were out in full swing this week. well at least thursday night..

found out my history professor lives on my street because i saw him taking his son out for a walk. got to experience the chilean healthcare system yesterday [where i got a handshake and a kiss] and i have only good things to say. went to an asado [barbecue] with kako [ricardo], cony, kote, and all of their awesome friends [who are also studying english] and ate hotdogs and pebre [more or less salsa-the only remotely mexican-seeming thing in chile]. it was really cute because we went to kako and cony's house after and since it was after 4am it was pretty much guaranteed we were going to have a hard time finding a colectivo [and if we take a micro we have to walk all throughout recreo to get to our house] kako's friends pancho, benjamin, and juan pablo [jp] waited with us and told us they were our protectors until we found one. ahhh i love them all- good people.

now i have to study for a test in the history of modern chile and a quiz in pre-colombian art in text and images this week. my teachers are cramming things in because next week is fiestas patrias [independence day on the 18th] but the festivities will last all week so the majority of my classes have been canceled. this week i will start working in the school on wednesdays with my social geography group [who i have been spending a lot of time with-and guillermo is literally STALKING ME AHHHHH] and i think it should be good because we are getting along really well. marcelo even started taking the micro with me and walked me home on thursday since we live around the block from one another.

this thursday, at 11pm, i embark on my wonderful independence week excursion with maryann, alli, and zach. since the 18th is the big fiesta day, we want to be in chile to celebrate, but since we have a such a long break, we've decided to travel as much as we possibly can. this is more or less the itinerary:
sept 13-sept 14: 22 hour bus ride to calama [northern chile] at 11pm
sept 15: busride [a short one] to san pedro de atacama [the atacama desert]
sept 15-sept 17: spend time in the atacama desert
sept 17-sept 18: busride from 9:30pm-7:30am or so to arica [the northernmost part of chile]
sept 18-sept 23: spend time in arica for a bit and then cross the border into peru [hopefully] and take a bus to la paz to spend time in bolivia
sept 23-sept 24: busride from 8:30am for 26 hours until the 24th from arica-back home

it will be a lot of busriding but the transporation costs are ridiculously cheap and we're going to hit up three countries over our 11-day trip. i'm really stoked and i bet we will all smell horrible.

finally, alyssa and i invited fran [baby-mama] shopping with us yesterday and i was trying to make mental notes of what she liked because next month is her birthday. anddd her horrible mother has never thrown her a birthday party in her life so we are going to plan a surprise party and she started to open up a bit [i think] and i bought her a donut from dunkin donuts because she's never had one before, but anyway i really just am looking forward to this birthday party. fran's so cute. tonight camilo is dancing at his school and i can't wait to go and take pictures and embarrass the shit out of him like he does to me at dinner [i'm not bitter].

EDIT: after talking to kako and his friends, they decided that if i had a chilean name, it would be isidora/isadora, maria ignacia/ignacio, or catalina. anyone feeling anything else?

chilenismos:
calientasopa- means cocktease because you spend the time heating up the soup and then you don't eat it [or so says kako]
volado- means high
cabeza de pollo- means someone who forgets things a lot, and then i told manola what chickenhead meant in english and that she can't call me a cabeza de pollo jajaja
cuica/cuica- a person of high class that you can distinguish from everyone else by appearance

gRiNgA 4 LyFe

2007-09-03T20:15:00.000-04:00

the worst part about being a gringa is getting attention. the best part about being a gringa is getting attention. however, it is really frustrating having people come up to you and try and practice their english. granted when americans are together they many times tend to speak in english, but still some attention is unwanted.

the reason i say this is because today on the micro ride to valpo alyssa and i sat down and immediately some creeper began to talk to us. it started innocent- asking if we were from the US and progressed into a "well- i'm- going- to- hand- you- my- cellphone- so- you- can- enter- your- number" type situation. he was 52 and a chemical engineer who was also a student [?] at santa maria, the technical institute, so it was just horribly tacky and shameless. his then showed us his money, credit card, carnet, and student id- not sure what he was trying to prove. we ignored him but unfortunately 3 hours later or so when we went to go home on the micro he also got on, and started POKING ME IN THE BACK. then he started loudly saying our names. we were completely ignoring him and avoiding any eye contact. katie was also on the micro and as we tried to ignore him, he pursued her. alyssa and i kept shifting down the bus [we stood on the ride home] to avoid him and katie was the first to get off. creepy man got off next [which was lucky because we were afraid we were going to have to get off at a different stop to divert him]. we were at home safe and sound, until katie told me that he was downstairs ringing her doorbell. he must have watched her get off the bus and later walked to her house. he came back another time after that.

i'd like to think i'm pretty cautious about these types of situations and don't really like to engage in random conversations with old men, but this was just ridiculous. i wish i could just blend in.

chilenismos:
chueco- means bow-legged or crooked and in this case is used to refer to a boy with a crooked smile
jote- means a shameless man who preys on women, especially in clubs

foul moods and foggy days

2007-09-02T14:45:00.000-04:00

if you're going to have a kilo of anything, i guess pino is better than nothing. the empanada at left was filled with pino [a mixture of ground beef, onions, an olive or two, a hard boiled egg] and a whole drumstick of chicken. unbelievable.

we spent yesterday at pomaire, a city chock-full of artesans and then traveled to Isla Negra, Pablo Neruda's third and most-beloved home. pomaire had stands filled with 24709748 ceramic pigs, colorful pots and vases, and other regalones. they were really beautiful but there's no way i could fit anything in my suitcase so i opted for some tiny items.
isla negra. hm perhaps it was the weather or perhaps it was a foul mood induced by a bad phone call, bad movie [a wind that shakes the barley], and bad situation the night before but it just felt rushed, overrated, and stupidly poetic [the house and the tour]. ugh i'm such a crankpot hoy. on the tour the guide told this story about neruda sitting in his study watching the ocean when he saw a piece of wood floating in the water. so he ran outside, waited for it to wash ashore and then had it crafted into his desk. among neruda's various collections he had musical instruments. alyssa asked if he had ever dabbled in music and the tour guide said that his hands were only capable of writing and making love. i can't decide if i'm enraged by how ridiculous that all sounds or whether i'm just jealous he's so freaking cool.
other things making me upset:
alonso needs a vaccine. it costs 250,000 pesos [roughly $500] and our family can't pay for it because manola gave up selling silver for the time being to help fran take care of the baby. camilo is in school and doesn't have a job, monse has a job [don't know exactly when she works] but i'm pretty sure she must blow her money on going out. fran isn't working, nor are fran's parents paying for her to live in our house or offering to help. manola has bought the baby all of his clothes, as well as the toys, food, bottles, etc. but can't afford a crib for the baby. fran's mom sees the baby once a week, her dad lives in santiago and just sent the mom an email saying he doesn't care about the kids anymore and won't give them any money, and the only person who helps in fran's family is her generous aunt who gives alonso strollers and clothes. manola's ex-husband was supposed to give the family money for school but just quit his job and went "missing" aka is hiding out. perhaps because chilean society is more open to talking about problems [and so incredibly pro- therapy] it's discussed at so many meals. but a veces it makes me feel really uncomfortable because i would love to offer money, but it's not my place nor my duty to do so. tengo muchas preocupaciones sobre la familia y de mi vida propia, y todas con soluciones que no puedo imaginarse al tiro.

chilenismos:
me cago de miedo- i know i wrote me cago de hambre the other day but me cago literally means i am sh*tting myself of something. so these two phrases mean i'm sh*tting myself with fear and i'm so freaking hungry.
bolsero- means moocher

highlights of the week

2007-08-31T14:43:00.000-04:00

-salsa dancing lessons: doug gave me the low-down on lessons and when i thought some really flaite guy was coming to dance with me, saved me and told me hector was a friend of his and i was safe. maryann totally kicked my ass at it but i will learn in time and i sat next to the salsa instructor on the micro the other night. gb you're my idol- this is for you jajajaja
-disturbia: ricardo and i went to the movies on wednesday night because his friend works there and we got in for free. i almost peed my pants it was so scary and i realized translations don't really do justice to american jokes/modismos. but that bastard colectivo driver took 1 mil for the ride and didn't even give me change- i probably should have said something
-huevo: connie you dirty girl! ricardo, connie and some of their other friends went to huevo with maribeth and i and we were supposed to go to pagano after, but we never made it there. some dude on the roof gave maribeth and i beginner's salsa lessons, ricardo is a FABULOUS dancer, guillermo from my social geography class was there and imed me when he got home to tell me i looked good [flaite!!!], and ricardo finally told me what happened last week during that really embarrassing night. oh yea and maribeth punching 2 people [you ugly american!] just kidding
-what happened last week: so after our wonderful rum and coke session at caco's house, we were walking to pagano but my shoes kept falling off so he traded shoes with me. but then [as he recounts] some bums tried to sell us drugs and rob us on the way there. i guess he must have fended them off for us (?) when we got to the door the bouncer said he wasn't going to let us in but conceded and then i fell asleep in a corner for 3 hours. but every so often i would wake up and dance [jajajaja] we went home to his house and i passed out in his bed. hey you only live once.

i should also explain that chileans use nicknames that often make no sense. alyssa's intercambio parnter mariajose [yes one name] goes by "kote" while ricardo goes by "caco" or "kako" and constanza goes by "connie." but monse's friend mariajose goes by "jo" (pronounced like ho) and her other friend [i dont know her real name] is called "copa." then fran is really named francisca daniela but goes by "tatina" at home.

my name is brittany but you can call me "britt" if you like.

chilenismos:
pesao- basically just a word that emphasizes the action more [not to be confused with...]
pesado- [which is pronounced pesao] and means whatever the opposite of nice is--mean or crotchety??...like today i was talking about my cousin pumping hot fudge on the floor of the icecream store i used to work at and monse said "pesaoooo."
pinchar- to make out yeeaaaa!
pieza- bedroom (it took me a long time to figure this one out)
buena onda- basically used to refer to a person like "ella es buena onda"- she's good people more or less

valor de familia

2007-08-29T13:24:00.000-04:00

i guess to me, the strangest part of my international experience is living in the middle of someone else's family/life. you don't know their history, you are only a vagrant at the dinner table for a short time, someone who might not affect the family/family dynamic in anyway, but the family/family dynamic forever affects you. yesterday i borrowed alyssa's skype to call my mom. she was at the beach with my grandparents and a lot of my aunts and uncles and i spoke with all of them. the other day i got to talk to my two youngest sisters on the phone. and i also got to speak with meagan and lauren using skype as well. i am going through some strange whirlwind of emotions, where i am: 1. so happy to be in chile- excited to learn all that i can and wanting to stay forever, 2. bored with slow days and no homework, 3. angry that all of my friends are at school and i'm not, 4. displaced, and i'm not sure how to resolve it- maybe it's just a bad week. i really had been considering staying here in chile for a year [and i guess i haven't totally ruled it out yet], but seeing this picture of fran, alonso, and camilo makes me miss my own family more. and maybe that's the beauty of the latin american lifestyle- they value family time and a little bit of that rubs off on you. to me, it feels like being a kid who has had a babysitter for years and then realizes that their parents have been paying that person to spend time with him/her. maybe i'm just being a debbie downer, but it's a weird feeling knowing you can never truly fit into a place and when you go back you where you came from you might not fit in as much either. i love both of my families- i can't imagine leaving here not knowing how big alonso is or seeing them everyday or even going a single day without speaking spanish, but at the same time i don't like the idea that life is going on without me and i'm not there to see it. it's a selfish little conflicted puzzle i have myself in the middle of with no real answers. i love chile, i can't leave, but how long can i stay?

chilenismos:
pucha!! [online they spell it puxxxxxxxxa! a lot] means like ughh!! or some other phrase that expresses disgust or frustration
chucha!! [also could be chuxxxxxa!] means i'm worried! or oy! or ahhh!

why men named pablo are amazing...

2007-08-26T19:02:00.000-04:00

i think this weekend confirmed for me that if given the opportunity to co-habitate with any historical figure [besides the already chosen Theodore Roosevelt], i without a doubt would have picked pablo neruda. kahn's spanish lit class deepened my love for neruda but coming to chile and actually seeing 2/3 of his houses so far makes me want to worship the man for the rest of my life. unfortunately my camera was not working yesterday when we visited la sebastiana [his house in valpo] nor could we take pictures inside the house, but it was just breathtaking. huge windows were on each of the 5 floors of la sebastiana overlooking cerro florida and the mar, with a full view of all of the colors and intimacies that make valparaíso so wonderfully eccentric and unique. neruda had a penchant for collecting strange nick-nacky things like colored wine glasses simply because he believed, "wine tasted better in colored glasses," or a horse from a merry-go-round because, "so often men lose their inner child," or nautical/shell themed items because he was, "a sailor at heart who preferred to be on dry land." his houses were constructed to emphasize the beauty of the mar, and to me, emphasize the beauty of life and it's strange ironies. on a door that led to a heliport ["to the stars"] he had a large framed photo of walt whitman. when asked if the man in the photo was his father, neruda said, "well... yes" [meaning it in a larger poetic sense]. that kills me. i was in heaven to just breathe in the same air that neruda once breathed, and i hope to visit la sebastiana again.

we have a tour guide named pablo as well who is a high school history professor and led us on a tour of the open air museum of valparaíso yesterday. this museum [while i did not snag any pics] was impressionable but the mighty winds of valpo kinda detracted from what could have been an awesome art exposition viewing day. but anyway, the museum is a series of 20 graffiti/murals scattered throughout valpo touching on political and social issues, as well as just the simplicities that make valpo what it is- like a mural of just pan [bread]. following the tour we went to the fería [fair] on pedro montt where i found really cool coconut earrings and a bracelet with the new and old popes on it- sacrilege eh? no me importa.

today we took a tour of valparaíso's cerros [hills], alegre and concepción. we were able to view the colors and monumental constructions in valpo, as well as just the simple graffiti that makes the streets so different. personally, i found the most amazing work to be that around the art building. pablo is such a smart smart man with so much to offer us about the history and culture of the area, but i get the impression that most of the group just doesn't care. that urks me big time.

pablo told us a bit about the cemetery that you can see from cerro concepción, which turned out to be a bit of a disaster zone. during a terremoto in the near recent past, the ground moved and the tombs of the dead fell onto the living in the houses/people around the area killing them. ironic eh? speaking of terremotos, we had a rather jolting one this morning, which i did wake up for. so to end, one of my favorite works by neruda.

chilenismos:
un gallo mató a un cabro porque se comió su color- i don't know how or why it means this but, "a man stole another man's wife" someone tell me if i have this one wrong!!
cascara- cherry picker!

que vergüenza

2007-08-24T14:03:00.000-04:00

what is this weird carnival music playing in/around my house? anyone else have that?

yesterday i had classes all day and for my social geography class we went to cerro concepción. we went to la casa de lukas [lukas being Renzo Pecchenino, an italian artist/cartoonist who lived in valpo and had a weekly tv show about his drawings of valpo] which was really beautiful and saw his original drawings inside the house. i got to see marcelo [jajaja] and the rest of my group, but for the life of me i cannot understand the french girl's spanish. i want to go back to the cerro when i have more time to explore. i think i'm pretty good at navigating viña so my mission is to learn valpo in all my free time.

a bunch of people went out for amanda's birthday last night, but my intercambio partner ricarddooooo wanted me to go out with him. i met him at the cathedral in valpo and we walked to his house up near cerro mariposa. he lives with connie [danielle's partner] and she was trying to do homework but we conned her into drinking. they are two of the sweetest people i have ever met in my life [i mean look at him he's such a lil cutie!!] and the conversation was a beautifully jumbled mix of spanish and english. me hacen feliz!!! we stayed in the house and messed around for awhile and then decided to go out to pagano. and that's where it ends. because i don't remember the rest of the night. but from what i'm told- que vergüenza!! i hate myself right now. i heart ricardo. i owe him big time for a pretty amazing/cut short night.

i totally just deleted the rest of this post on accident but it was about how chileans do not know what cupcakes are.

another timeeeee blah!

nancy where the hell are you?

2007-08-22T22:14:00.000-04:00

--we haven't spoken in weeks. love you girl.

on the topic of hygiene:
the people of chile are very well manicured and huele bien [smell nice]. a bunch of people have been asking me if i feel clean. absolutely! while the costs of electricity, water, and heat are very high here, i am still able to shower everyday, and no uncle brian- i don't pee in a hole in the ground. chileans are very conscientious of their usage of electricity, heat, water, etc. so showers are shorter, there is no central heating, and until the sun don't shine no mo', we don't use lights.

but you are bound to find a tv on at all times. why? because the national tv channel [dieciseis what what!] is basically the most amazing, and most dramatic channel ever- full of wonderful chilean and colombian teleseries. but i'll save that discussion for another day.

to combat the frigid chilean winter [which pales in comparison to the nj winter], we each have a calefacción, or basically a room heater. my spiffy lil calefacción is a propane tank hooked up to some grills. but i'm not complaining- we get along well. i leave it on for 20 minutes, it's warms the room, and then i keep the door shut. i also sleep with my boyfriend, a "bolsita," as manola likes to call it, which is filled with semillas which i guess are little herbal seeds that smell wonderful and heat nicely in the microwave. manola bought us these herbals bolsitas because she has this morbid fear that if we had hot water bottles, they would open in the middle of the night and scald our chests. i prefer the bolsita anyway.

so if i don't go to the bathroom in a hole in the ground where do i go, you ask? well, chile has fully functioning plumbing. but we do generally dispose of our papel higenico in a garbage can, rather than flush it. this is usually fine, but occasionally bathrooms have one giant roll of paper located when you walk into the bathroom, not individual rolls for the stalls, so if you don't look carefully enough- you will be in a sore situation. they also don't replace the toilet paper too often, so if you're not carrying tissues, it poses a problem. however the perfected shake-and-dry method is always an option, but not one i personally enjoy. in bars/clubs at night, usually there is a bathroom attendant outside selling a few squares of toilet paper for 100 pesos or so [20 cents], but i've started carrying toilet paper in my pocket when i go out. but today, i shamefully admit that i forgot, and used a receipt from Jumbo instead. it is what it is.

and in celebration of nothing but general chilean flojo-ness, all history classes from 10am-11:30am next week have been canceled. so not only do i only have class 2 days a week, but i don't even have half of my classes next week. this slow-paced way of life makes me gorda, cansada, y floja. but very very feliz.

chilenismos:
no me weí [pron. no me waaaaay] means f*ck off or don't start with me
puta la wea! [pron. poo-tah la way-yah] means damn it!
guacho [pron. wah-cho] means bastard (like illegitimate scum)

i think i fell in love with the 8th world wonder

2007-08-20T21:24:00.000-04:00

yea yea yea yea yeaaaaaaaa! kimberly locke rocks! not!

so i went to reñaca yesterday with eliah, maryann, and maribeth. reñaca is the northern area of viña and the usable beaches in the area. apparently later in the season reñaca is completely locura with tourists, and the are is filled with empanada shops, burger kings, taco stands, mcdonald's, clubs and shops to appeal to the vacationers passing through. it's a beautiful area- the beaches are super clean and inviting and the buildings have gorgeous stacked terraces, but i am not looking forward to the rush that the summer will bring in a month or two. it was warm enough to just wear a hoodie so we romped around on the beach collecting sea glass and the most perfect shells i have ever seen in my life. it was picturesque. i told eliah that i wish i could bottle the combination of summer scents- sunscreen, sun [yea sun has a smell what now!?], and salt water, and he told me to just sniff a bottle of sunscreen ha.

i should have talked earlier about soccer, but i guess i just forgot. walter finschi, a chilean playboy from la católica, runs soccer weekly. alyssa has been going the past 2 weeks, but i only started this week, and i really want to keep going. it's a rather diverse group of french, german, mexican, japanese, and american students- and so spanish is the uniting factor. my directional words in spanish are shaky, but saturday turned out to be the perfect day as we spent the afternoon at "el sporting club" playing the most amazing game on earth. el sporting club is a massive horse racing complex with various soccer fields in the middle and a beautiful stadium style seating area/viewing house [i don't know how to describe it] overlooking the track. from el sporting club you can see rows and rows of chilean houses located on the hill- i need to take a picture- it's unreal. there was a ditch on the side of the field that i fell into at least 3 times, but i didn't care. riding home on the micro i just felt completely satisfied and content.

my computer is defunct and all downloaded chat programs do not work, so skype, aim, msn, trillian, you name 'em- they don't work. i'm going to be a meebo ho from now on, but i'll deal. iTunes, word, and mozilla still work, so i think i'll survive for awhile. if you ever need to call to have your computer fixed, remember 1-800 numbers are free. it's not the worst thing in the world.

and finally, I AM GOING TO MACHU PICCHU. so S my D, B!!! granted it took a lot of prodding and poking from alyssa and manola, but i finally caved. my dad was like, "why are you even asking? i'd go!" and my mom, on friday night was like, "peru? you're not going" and on sunday was like, "omg go!" which means she clearly did not remember friday. so, i am going. i'm going! i'm going!!! JAJAJAJA! today maribeth, alyssa, ann, sara and i booked tickets to walk the inca trail for 4 days and flights to peru, so ahhh machu picchu! this means, after seeing machu picchu, that i will have seen 2/7 of the new 7 wonders of the world [chichen itza was the other this summer]. so naturally, now my life mission must be to visit all 7. i should also throw in here that i needed to apply for an ISIC [international student id card] and my picture wasn't sufficient, so i used a picture of maribeth, and they told me it didn't really look like me, but then 5 minutes later maribeth made an ISIC card and they didn't say anything. what kind of crime is that? who cares- MACHU PICCHU!

i was so excited i forgot chilenismos. i never know if these are actually chilenismos, but they're words that i learn, so to me, they are chilenismos. bite it.
chilenismos:
chupete- means pacifier
chupón- means hickey
negrero- user!! or you could just say huevón

mamas mamas chilenas

2007-08-19T11:35:00.000-04:00

to start, i have the most amazing friends in the world and i'm so glad i got to see your beautiful faces on webcam haha!! <3333

yesterday, my brother camilo went to santiago for the announcement of the plans for the current president [José Antonio Gómez] of the party Partido Radical Socialdemócrata to run for reelection. Immediately following his announcement, he learned that his mother Cecilia Urrutia Concha had passed away [falleció] from cancer. que mala suerte. camilo [to the left ft. with dani/nena] explained to me a little about the ideals of the party and it was pretty impressive as he rattled off their mission/principles [libertad, igualdad, solidaridad, participación y bienestar], endeavors the party had worked on recently, and famous politicians over the years of that party. it's a smaller party and only received about 4% of the vote in the 2005 presidential election, but the party has been gaining a lot of notoriety with younger chileans for its focus on bettering the public education system. essentially, the way that it's set up now is a form of municipalización, or each district handles the education system in their area. but the wealth gap is huge in chile and the poorer areas get the shaft. camilo told me about "the march of the penguins" [they are called penguins becaus all chilean students wear uniforms] which took place last june [2006] and was the largest student organized protest in chile. they were marching for things like free transportation to school, lower prices for college entrance exams, and overall higher standards. i'm still reading, but what i do know is that since then, students up until grade 8 ride the micro for free and all other students [with the use of a student card] have discounted fares. i hope my social geo class touches on all of this, and i'm geeked to learn more.

last night alyssa, nena, camilo, and i went out with manola and a bunch of the other ISA moms [ben's, kristina's, stephanie's, scarlett's] to this folclórico bar [a place that specializes in traditional music/dance] called guachaca [wa-ch-kah]. they had been raving about these drinks called terremoto [means earthquake] and navegado [means navigated]. a terremoto is white wine with pineapple icecream and navegado is red wine [served hot] with cinnamon and orange. ehh a mi no me gusta. but to make mom happy, i kept drinking ughh. manola is a total milf and spent the night cueca-ing [traditional chilean dance with scarves] with the other ISA moms. they pretty much all got happy and it was a good time had by all. the subject of this post is inspired by a commercial for banco de chile in which they sing "vamos vamos chilenos" and i like "mamas mamas chilenas" better. scarlett's mom was driving us home and then our mom said, "hey pull over we want to eat churrascos," well it was more like, "CHURRASCITOS!!! ALLA!!!" and so we ate drunk grease-truck food with mom. ha my mission is to do that with my mom at home. ben, let me tell you- your mom is a fiery lil sprite and a vicious dancer. and of course there were really drunk metro workers who had to be 45 and kept coming over to try and dance with us so the moms had them kicked out of the bar.

when scarlett's mom finally dropped us off at home, we saw a gang of nazis hanging out on the corner. so we waited to get out of the car. as we got out of the car and looked up the hill where our apartment is located, we saw about 20 more skinheads walking down the hill. it can only be described as the scariest/most disgusting moment of my life and so we hurried into the house and watched them from the dining room window. i had to turn off my flash for this picture and we were legit scared that they would see us, but wow chilean skinheads/nazis/punks AHHH. so it was a very memorable night and i am so lucky to be here.

chilenismos:
la caña- means hang over
hacha- literally means axe but they say hacha and make an axe with their hand at their nose/forehead to signify that they have a hang over [like a splitting headache]

salud!

2007-08-18T11:52:00.000-04:00

some [general] observations:
-it is not uncommon/taboo to come to the dinner table with hickies all over your face/neck/ elsewhere without trying to hide them. yesterday two members of our family had matching hickies alongside their mouths and brought them to dinner as special guests . i noticed them and just stayed hush hush but alyssa says, "que pasa con la cara?" thinking something had happened during handball [milotron is on a team]. i hit her but manola said that we can ask whatever we want at the dinner table.
-PDAs are common because most people live at home until they're married. walking along the beach i'm pretty much bound to see 23589752837 couples getting nasty. le sigh.
-chileans have a mean sweet tooth. granted items like chips are sold here, but they are sold with an accompanying packet of ketchup to dip your chips into. candy bars are sold everywhere, dulce de leche [well, manjar] accompanies most pastries, and chileans eat the most amazing jelly/mermelada.
-after you sneeze [un estornudo] it is not customary to say "bless you" or "salud" or algo asi, the sneeze just goes unacknowledged. i think i'll ask manola why.

we finally received our chilean ID cards!! i'll never pass for chilena, but at least now i have a card to verify that i live in chile.

this week in my social geography class, we were put into groups and assigned our day of the week to work in the chilean schools. i will be working on wednesdays in a group of 5 chilenos and 1 girl from france. we have to work on projects the entire semester in this group, so this will be an awesome opportunity to hopefully become more comfortable speaking spanish. our homework is to learn as much as we can about each person of the group/think of one thing that helps us remember them. this thursday we are taking a tour of cerro concepción and over the course of the semester we will becoming familiar with valparaíso [history, landscape, etc] in order to be able to teach the school kids about where they are living. aside from the teachers [approx. 4] who lack organization and continuously pass leadership around, i think this class will be great.

my parents sent me a package which came here this week with a bunch of mix cds [and explanations for why they chose each song- that is so my dad], chewy bars, those packets of iced tea you put in water bottles, skittles, people magazine en español, various cosmetics unavailable in chile, and the best thing- the family portrait [it looks blurry here] we had taken before i left. aaah love!

some words i'm having difficulty with:
perdóname, disculpame, permiso, lo siento
why? because i don't understand the situational usage of them.
por ejemplo: if i want to pass between two people standing close i say, "permiso." the same goes for if i want to excuse myself from the table. but, if i bump into someone, do i also say permiso? someone explain this to me.

chilenismos:
harto- means too much
paco/paquita- means male/female cop

ebria

2007-08-15T21:38:00.000-04:00

oh the decisions people make when they are in ebria. not me personally, hah of course. went to el huevo last night- there was a rage against the machine cover band, apparently armada [navy] men, and a billion other people. met a guy named felipe who told me that he hated america and thought alyssa looked like his ex-polola. look, if someone comes up to you in a "will f*ck for fun" shirt, immediately turn away, no questions asked.

so- ricardo. we finally went out today. not to a movie, but to a cafe in valpo. he called the house probably 4 times today and my family was pretty much convinced that he was going to be super flaite [this will be my chilenismo of the day] or super obsessed. but, he was un poquito bajo, longish skater hair, and his english is perfect. so basically it was a hit.

i need to break this bad habit of going out because i'll never do anything but dance and sleep while i'm here. which i suppose isn't a bad thing either.

chilenismos:
flaite [flighty] means flacuchento, lansa, antisocial, indecente, traficante, engrupio or basically creepy
patas de lana means legs of yarn or someone who is spastic

curse you sausalito

2007-08-13T23:25:00.001-04:00

if anyone has a class there, i highly suggest just shooting yourself in the foot because it's a lost cause. took a colectivo all the way up the hill, found out i was nowhere near where i needed to be, and just came back to plaza viña 800 pesos later without going to hombres y juegos.

ricardo (my intercambio partner) called once this morning to ask me to the movies on wednesday since it's a holiday, twice this afternoon to ask me my home phone number, and once tonight to ask me to a birthday party/out to huevo for tomorrow night and tell me that we should have gone for coffee. whoaaa ricky ten paciencia hombre! we'll see how this all pans out.

i love putting super before every adjective like the chileans.

so skiing in the andes, trip to mendoza, or none of the aforementioned for this weekend?

chilenismos:
que te vayas super bien! means hope it all goes well (basically)
conferencia de prenza- means... well blow job

negritas

2007-08-12T13:57:00.000-04:00

went to muelle vergara yesterday with ann and maribeth- was searching for febreeze but bought negritas and a coin purse instead. met a gringa completing an internship in chile as an english speaking tour guide at a wine vineyard. basically i want her job. she told us about bike and booze tours of vineyards, which are a must.

let's talk about negritas for a second. graham crackers with icing in the middle covered in chocolate. muerte. alyssa you have spawned a bad bad addiction.

chilenismos:
mino/mina- means boy or girl
porotos- means beans

you got to be hillikusssssss

2007-08-11T16:23:00.000-04:00

i am a walking breast feeding magnet.

yesterday afternoon i went to the mall to see the sales that manola kept talking about at paris and ripley's, and on my colectivo ride home, i saw one of the most vile things ever. on monday or tuesday night when we were watching "alguien te mira" our family teleseries, fran just whipped out a boob and started breast feeding alonso. in my colectivo ride home, i was sitting in the backseat all the way to the left when an approx. 14 year-old boy, grandma, mom of maybe 23, and toddler [girl] that had to be 3 got into the car. the little girl was standing in between the mom's legs during the ride holding a bag of teddy grahams. she started talking to me in spanish and i just told her she was pretty and continued to mind my own business. then her mom hands the crackers to the grandma on her right, pulls the toddler's head down, and pulls out a fresh teat for the child to suckle. now i don't know much about breastfeeding or chilean customs, but isn't it mala educación to expose thy breast in public? not only that, but what if the car had stopped short? the child could have choked. additionally, if the kid had teeth, could talk, and was capable of eating teddy grahams, was that necessary? i just feel bad for the poor brother sitting in the front seat.

last night was OMG amazing. I LOVE MY CHILEAN FAMILY!!!!!! after onces [basically tea time/our dinner] and "alguien te mira" [piedad married el asesino, julian uggggh!] we decided to carretear. went to journal to meet up with scarlett and her sister mariela, and then took a micro to valpo to go to huevo. huevo, the 5 story dance club was pretty packed put at least we didn't have to wait on a super fila when we got there at 1am. fran can't drink and apparently chilean girls love drinking massive bottles of beer so i chugged down some piscolas and then we went to the reggaeton floor [because dani loves it]. the course of the night was pretty much perfect and fran saved me a few times so i decided that i love her. monse is freaking hilarious and SERGIO showed up with his new polola and all hell broke loose. mariela started dancing around the polola and sergio was dancing with his hood up [like as if that was going to keep us from seeing him]. sometime during the night: we saw renzo [katelyn's superlindo brother], there was an incubus tribute band which chileans LOVED [wtf?], some dude named paolo pretty much made me pee my pants with his english, and we ended up at another roadside meat stand. this time we ate churrasco, which is kinda like cheesesteak [minus the cheese] with palta, tomatoes, mayonnaise, and then we put aji and mustard on them. and then the colectivo ride home consisted of monse and dani gracing us with their beautiful english and talking about how they love fran but know that camilo, as the true male he is, will soon move on to another woman. que triste because fran is superdulce. i should mention we didn't come home until 6:30 this morning.

dude, i am here to stay.

chilenismos:
carretear- is the verb to party but you can also go to a carrete
carne- the chilean ID card

oiga payaso!

2007-08-10T12:22:00.000-04:00

yesterday i had 4 classes and only two were pretty fome. in the urban and regional history of valparaíso, i had a professor who set the class up perfectly. described the acquisition of cities by the spaniards, as well as the typical manner in which they were set up for the entire period (and we're all taking notes furiously about the usual plazas, hills, etc.) and then his last sentence is "yea, well valparaíso is nothing like that" (well in spanish of course). AH! i'm so geeked for this class. modern history of chile has one teacher on thursdays, a different teacher on tuesdays so that should be interesting. precolombian text and art focused a lot of the class on mesoamerica and the next few classes are on the maya so i'm no stranger to that. and finally, social geography: action and solidarity! the class was filled with chilean engineering majors, and a few gringos, but consists of one month of learning about the chilean education system/how to work in a group, the next month of field work/executing a project in chilean schools, and then assessing the schools/students. since the first month will be group work/games, i think this will be really great practice for my spanish. we also will be spending some time getting to know the area and history of valparaíso so that we can teach the kids how to get around the town, as well as why they should take pride in where they live. this will probably end up helping me more than them. in addition to my classes, i signed up to do english open doors, and since i will basically have mondays, wednesdays, and fridays mostly free, i hope to work a lot with this program.

yesterday it snowed in santiago for the first time in 9 years. we're about 1.5 hours away from santiago, but it is still mighhhhtty cold here [photo from BBC]. i can't wait for the warmer weather in a month or so (hopefully)!

so dani (or nena, whatever you should call her) loves reggaeton and there's a song that says, "oiga payaso" and it's basically the phrase that makes my life right now. it means "listen clown" and there are just some people that need to be slapped and told that, en serio. i'm done done done with it. not to mention we met a clown last night... alli, maryann, and i decided to go out in viña relatively early (nothing really gets going here until 12am but we started at 10:30ish), but it was still an awesome night. had some pisco + sprite in a bar whose name i forget at the moment but they played lots of linkin park, SOaD, and nickelback. in spite of the music, it was a good time and then we left to walk over the bridge by the casino to a karaoke bar [rufino i think]. there was a clown there as well as a magician and awesome mango flavored pisco sours! they gave us those breadsticks that when we were kids we dipped in cheese, but with ketchup+mayonnaise, and as disgusting as that is, we loved them. aaaaah the magician blew my mind, but only because i was un poco alegre. walked back to plaza de viña speaking terrible spanish and found a street vendor selling completos. i had never had one before, so last night we decided to go all out. some comments on a completo: the bun is like 10 in long whereas the hotdog must be like only 6 inches. this causes a lot of frustration once the hotdog has been eaten but there are remaining condiments on the bread. the combination of mayonnaise, tomatoes, and palta with a hotdog is enough to make someone gag, but with ketchup and mustard on it, it only gets more disgustingly better. finally, i think i could only eat it after drinking [kim- very similar to the hotdogs at that stand at GW where the man put the special GW sauce of like broccoli or something on it]. to the right is a foto of maria's completo at los domenicos, but you get the idea.

one of my teachers said that latinos are "más poetas que filósofos." i'm thinking on it.

chilenismos:
concha- usually means shell, but here means vagina
copete- means alcoholic drink
payaso- means clown
zapallo- means calabaza or pumpkin, but chilean pumpkins are different

sexsisexno

2007-08-08T16:47:00.000-04:00

this morning there was an earthquake here that ranked a 5.1 on the Richter Scale, which wikipedia notes as:

Moderate	5.0-5.9	Can cause major damage to poorly constructed buildings over small regions. At most slight damage to well-designed buildings.	800 per year

how was my first earthquake experience? apparently, i slept through it. and when i finally did wake up, it was raining. i have no class today because of "claustro plano" which is a giant meeting of all of the professors, but tomorrow i have 4 classes- go figure. i decided to leave the house real quickly to go into town and find an atm or casa de cambios, and 5 minutes into my trip i get a phone call "where are you?!" from manola. got some more plata, bought gum, and returned to the house for lunch.

yesterday camilo was playing handball and fell on the court and hit his head. he came home and kept vomiting [i have to assume maybe he had a concussion, but he never went to the doctor]. so today he was home from school and so we all ate together. since i don't have any family pics yet, you can indulge yourselves in their fotologs which they all showed me today:
http://www.fotolog.com/_milotron_ this is camilo's [his jersey was photographed on my bed]
http://www.fotolog.com/alonso_js this is alonso's [that camilo made for him]
http://www.fotolog.com/tatina_ this is fran's

take note of how they use the letter K all the time and it's all spelled like how they speak. ricardo called me and he sounds super lindo! haha broma! but his english was perfect and i think we're meeting tomorrow.

chilenismos:
plata [plah-ta] means money (literally means silver) but can be used like "no tengo plata huevon)
palta [pall-ta] means avocado
estar frito! [self-explan] means to be in trouble like "estoy frita!" i'm in deep shit

vale la pena? ojalá!

2007-08-07T19:39:00.000-04:00

last night thinking got the best of me and today was a rough morning. we quickly ate breakfast and left for the allegedly non-denominational memorial service for Michaela in Casa Central at 10am. it was actually a very nice service led by 2 catholic priests with a speech by someone from the US embassy, and her father, stepmother, and uncle were in attendance. "Pobrecita, fatigada con tempestad, sin consuelo; he aquí que yo cimentaré tus piedras sobre carbunclo, y sobre zafiros te fundaré" [Isaías 54: 12]. RIP Michaela, te extraño mucho chica

after the service went to the ISA office to put my lovely lunch of lentils in the refrigerator and left for what i figured would be the tail-end of my class on the modern history of chile. i jumped on a micro headed for paseo valle and it was quite an experience. all of the poles were covered in purple leather with white accents and the gear shifter thing [all cars are manual here] was wearing leather chaps. the front of the bus had flashing lights and bandannas of eagles. basically it was a strip joint turned biker joint of a bus. then a bunch of gypsy-like people came on and started singing and playing the guitar. what a freaking circus. once i hauled some serious ass to the castle in which history is located, i found out that it had been canceled for today. chose to skip the class from yesterday on the colonization of chile for an art class called "america latina en textos e imagenes" and i think it was a fine choice. turns out that every class we'll be watching a spanish language film with accompanying literary works. the teacher tried to put on the dvd but there was too much air coming into the room [because there's space in between the roof and the walls] and so it said "chequear flujo de aire" and crapped out. today we watched part of "el dorado" on a tiny tv and halfway through, the teacher turned on the english subtitles. how insulting. i should also mention that i had to use the bathroom halfway through the movie so i got up to leave and my shoe fell off as i was walking through the door and so i fell out the door. basically, i won't be making chilean friends anytime soon.

went back to the ISA, watched b.o.c. buy a 1,400 empanada [they usually cost 500 for like 3], walked around the market/valpo, and found out that my intercambio partner was selected. basically i talk with my partner in english for 30 minutes and then in spanish for 30 minutes. i specifically requested a boy, and i got one! his name is ricardo garcia and i hope he's as suave as his name suggests. alyssa, danielle, and i then went to an aeroboxing class offered at school and tried miserably to follow along to spanish punching directions, dance moves, etc. it was a spectacle and there were probably 7 or more boys in the class which surprised me. no social stigma to be a male aerobics aficionado.

finally, alyssa and i decided to finally engage in the art of depilación [waxing]. figuring that 1. chilean waxers have probably seen way worse than me 2. i'm in chile and i do what i want 3. who the hell cares; i decided to let them have at me. so, i went into the back room and made some small talk, and see a stove with a woman stirring 2 pots of wax. she slaps the wax on me with a stick, fans me with a chinese-style fan, physically slaps the wax with her hand a couple times, and then rips the wax right off of me. NO MUSLIN STRIPS. i can't even describe the amount of pain i was in but i think it consisted of me hysterically laughing/screaming, "que pena! ay ay ay!" and the man sitting outside waiting for his wife to have her hair dyed kept looking at alyssa with terror. and it all only cost 5,000 pesos [$10 US]. finally, in a mix of glory/shame, alyssa and i rode the micro home and waddled up to our beloved recreo.

more chilenismos:
chuco [chew-koh] means mullet, which many chileans sport
pechugas [pe-chew-gahs] means breasts
frutilla [fruit-ee-ya] means strawberry

colonization, precios bajos, and yasser arafat

2007-08-06T19:19:00.001-04:00

so as usual, my chilean day began at around 10am when i finally decided to come out from under the 6 blankets on my twin sized bed and eat breakfast. i took my técito, pancito, and platanito [everything is in the diminutive] and sat around watching old scrubs episodes with spanish subtitles. i finally left the wonderful abode of 213 arturo prat [a la izquierda] after a lunch of meat sauce [with carrots] and spaghetti for my first history class of the week: la colonización de chile. kind of awkward being the only gringa in the class, so i opted for the back of the room. i told the prof i would need to leave early to meet with the ISA group in a mini conference type deal about Michaela and he said it was fine, but i somehow managed to be the spectacle of the class when i went to leave. the class will consist of a quiz, face to face oral exam, and one presentation in front of the class. for all of these reasons, i'm pretty sure i won't be taking this class. the course description said that it would be about the actual colonization of the indigenous peoples of chile, however the professor said he wanted to change the course to cover why the chileans were an easy people to colonize. i'm pretty sure he even said "todavía, chile es en pañales," which means, "chile is still in diapers." i didn't catch where he was from. i'm interested in the subject material but we'll see what happens.

went to the conference about Michaela, finally got to see AF and MA. shared our favorite memories of Michaela and parted ways. tough cookies they are. by the end of the meeting it was too late to scramble to sausalito for my phys ed class "hombres y los juegos" so i took la micro [the bus] to the reloj de flores [a giant flower clock] in viña and instead of walking home started to walk into town to just meander around. ran into maribeth, ann, and b.o.c. and decided to go shopping. bought some playing cards [naipes] and found a tiny shoemaker's shop which was literally shouting my name. since chile is the land of grunge and emo apparel, i decided to buy a pair of converse sneakers [in green por supuesto] for only 5,900 pesos. that translates to approximately $12 US. the prices here are incredibly low for food, shoes, most electronics, clothing, and public transportation. the public transportation system consists of la micro [buses that drive at approx. 100mph and have no mercy] or colectivo [taxi with a fixed route that operates like a bus picking up passengers along the way] and costs around 400 pesos [less than $1US] everytime. however peanut butter, popcorn, makeup, facial cleansers, and sunscreen are horribly expensive. last week i bought what i call a "yasser arafat" scarf because it is checkered for only 2,000 pesos or $4US. the chileans wear them here and in my opinion look absolutely badass/bandito-like. the shoemaker, Raimone was insanely nice and said "you're from new jersey? you see story fall? señor bin laben [sic] bad man, but señor bush go bang bang!" i plan to go back and visit raimone sometime in the future to see what other fine goods he has to offer.

chilenismos for today:
andante [an-dan-teh] means someone you are going on dates with
pololo/polola [po-low-low/po-low-la] means boyfriend or girlfriend
novio/novia [self-explanatory] means fiancé/fiancée
banano [banana with an o] means fanny pack, which pretty much all chilenos wear

drawing on a suggestion from nancy...

2007-08-05T18:37:00.000-04:00

i have decided to start a blog to chronicle my Chilean adventures. i'm already three weeks into my travels as of this upcoming tuesday (well i flew out of the states on a tuesday) so i realize this is past due, but better late than never. up until recently, my experience has been absolutely enthralling, uplifting, and breathtaking, but as of yesterday, we [the ISA group] have been dealing with some pretty heavy news.

the most recent event has been the loss of one of our fellow ISA group members, Michaela Farnum. she went hiking in La Campana (a foothill of the Andes) with some others in the group and apparently fell 15 meters to her death. we had been told early yesterday that she had gone missing and received word shortly after sleigh riding on the sandy dunes of Con Con that she had been found. i don't think anyone could have been prepared for the ensuing news, but then again no one ever expects news like this:
http://www.mercuriovalpo.cl
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003822288_dige05m.html

i think my first reaction was immediate denial. i had texted Michaela the night before to see if she wanted to go out- because i didn't know she had gone missing in the first place. this entire situation makes me extremely on edge because i keep thinking about how hard it must be for her parents who were thousands of miles away and probably weren't even aware of her plans to go hiking. i've been talking to my parents pretty much every 3 days or so, but somehow it doesn't feel like enough. i also became enraged at this situation because there is no fast way for me to get in contact with people at home- aside from emails/IMs (which can be ignored) and a lot of days it can be frustrating when you really just want to talk to someone from home and there is no way to get in touch. but at the same time, i am totally enjoying this adventure that is all my own.

this week i am supposed to begin my full schedule of classes but monday and tuesday are going to be hectic with meetings with the director of the entire ISA program and a mass on tuesday. the way the classes at "la catolica" (pontifical catholic university of valparaiso) work are that we can take whatever classes we want until august 31st and then we have to decide on a permanent schedule for the semester. so for now, i am signed up for 10 classes (phys ed, various history, literature, social geography, and art) that i can attend as many times as i want within the one month period and then decided which i want to keep. i am most looking forward to the phys ed (hombres y los juegos), social geography (where we work in local chilean schools with children), and history classes (modern history of chile and regional history of valparaiso) but i know that the most spanish i'll learn will be in my house and out at night.

living with a host family is the most interesting/awkward experience i have ever encountered in my life. my family includes:
baby alonso (25 days old today!)
fran [the mom of alonso] who will be 20 in october
camilo [the dad of alonso] who is 18/senior in high school at the same school that Augusto Pinochet and Salvador Allende attended
monse [short for monserrat] a theater student in Valpo with a possessive ex-boyfriend
daniela [la nena] who is 19 and a boarder from Calama
manola [my host mom] a sassy little sprite with dyed blond hair and at least 3 inch heels everyday
alyssa [the other gringa] from PA and my saving grace

sometimes i feel like i'm living in the middle of some strange chilean telenovela, especially when the ex-boyfriend of monse [sergio] calls the house and manola has to tell him to stop screaming obsessively about her. i went out for icecream with fran, sergio, manola, and alonso to this AMAZING icecream store [bravissimo] in the mall last week and all seemed well with sergio until they told me that manola offered him one of their old cellphones when he broke his but he refused to take it because "monse had used it to call other men and that broke his heart." en serio, que pena! haha it's so incredibly melodramatic and i love every minute of it. strangely enough, sergio stayed over the other night and monse was no where to be found. considering monse and manola share a room, as do fran, camilo, and alonso; i'm not sure where sergio stayed.

alyssa and i have walked in on fran breastfeeding which was an experience in itself, and we are both convinced that camilo whispers about us at the dinner table but we can't figure out what he's saying because he speaks in rapid slang. however, his lack of conformity/hatred towards institutions is rather amusing and much to the disdain of his family he has refused to baptize alonso and told us in front of fran that he doesn't believe in marriage. but nena thinks he will come around. i'm not so sure, he seems pretty rebellious being as he walks around the house screaming iron maiden and american curse words- probably with little knowledge of what they mean. last night he came into my room and had me and manola smell his new chocolate scented rolling papers and then went out to party. apparently parenthood takes a backseat to social life around here. manola has a mountain of patience that americans just don't have.

yesterday after we left the dunes/tried to recompose ourselves, alyssa, nena, and i went to the mall [marina aruaco] which is quite possibly the biggest shopping complex i have ever seen in my life. i'm pretty sure it could eat garden state plaza mall for breakfast. i think it's 5 stories with a barbie station in the middle where little midget children come to be made up in satanic pink outfits with sparkles everywhere. it's too bad i don't have a work visa because without a doubt, i would want to work there. i should interject and mention that today is el dia de los niños which is a holiday similar to mother's or father's day, where you play in the park, eat cake, and receive gifts (if you're a kid). alonso received wipes, a mobile, an elephant that lights up, and a blanket that says "all-star kid." listening to my family attempt to speak english is really cute, and i can only hope they feel the same way about my spanish-speaking skills. after my encounters with the mall and the giant supermarkets named for their size [jumbo, lider, etc.] i have come to deduce that the area of chile in which i live is not all that different from anywhere in the u.s. the food is similar to things i have eaten at home [very european], the area is as commercial if not more than areas in the u.s., the people have very european features [pale, light eyes, light hair- due in part to it being a port city], and the only differences are really the hours of meals and the language.

i think i'm slowly overcoming the language barrier and everyday it becomes easier to speak/understand. so to end this session, i'll leave you with some chilenismos that i love:

-fome [pronounced like pho-meh] means lame or boring used like que fome! [how lame] or that professors was muy fome [very boring]
-bacán [bah-kahn] means cool
-po [poh] means pues or well and is basically a filler added to the end of pretty much every third word like sipo, nopo, yapo, etc.
-huevón [way-own] means jerk/other more explicit words or dude depending on the intention
-guagua [wa-wa] means baby
-guata [wa-tah] means belly
-taco [self-explanatory] means high heel, traffic jam, and the wonderful meat filled food that we all love. this word generally invokes a lot of confusion for me, but i'm working on it.