Getting to Know Chile

Hello faithful friends and followers. Please forgive the long delay between posts. Like I said before, I didn't have a cable with witch to upload photos and therefore didn't want to blog until I got it. I realize this is ridiculous, but oh well. Now I have a cable and photos and you're getting your next blog.

So the morning after I last wrote I went with the school to La Isla Negra. It was about 1 hour 45 min by van. First we stopped at one of Pablo Neruda's three houses (the others are in Santiago and Valparaiso). He had all three houses built for himself and they were all created to feel very nautical. Pablo Neruda was a serious collector of things. Anything. You name it, he probably collected it. From guitars to bugs, statues to shells, and even a real narwhal tusk! It was wild and beautiful and a really cool experience. They don't let you take pictures inside, however, before I understood this in my broken Spanish I managed to snap one. I think my favorite part was his room where the bed sat facing two walls of windows that looked out of a panoramic view of the shore and ocean. Increíble!

Later we had lunch and went to the beach but it was kind of cold and cloudy, but very crowded, so this was not the highlight of the trip. The next day we walked around the city center, did some shopping, and got to know Santiago better.

Unfortunately, because its been so long I'm having trouble remembering specifics of the next couple of weeks. I'll just give you the overview of what a week at ECELA (my school) is like. Mondays and Tuesdays generally involve food and culture: cooking classes, BBQs, wine tasting, or tours of some part of the city. Wednesdays are a big night to go out in Santiago. Every other Wed they have salsa classes at the same bar I wrote about before and then head to a club. On the other weeks they have 'city tours' which really means 'a chance to go to bars and clubs and drink'. Thursdays tend to be academic: conversation classes, Chilean games, etc. And each Friday they have a going away lunch for everyone to say goodbye to the students who are leaving.

Of course Friday and Saturday nights are big for going out as well. Every Thurs, Fri, and Sat night a citywide group called Pub Crawl Santiago holds a pub crawl mainly for extranjeros (foreigners). Most of the bars and clubs that we go to are in a part of the city called Bellavista. Its a posh, bohemian, expensive neighborhood closer to the city center. They also have a crepe stand that sells probably the best crepes in all of Chile. Delicious!

And while I'm on the subject of food, I'll tell you a little bit about typical Chilean food and drink. The Chileans eat a lot of empanadas and a lot of meat. They also eat a lot of potatoes, rice, corn and other carbs. Don't get me wrong, I love my carbohydrates, but damn I'm sick and tired of Chilean food. Their fruits and vegetables are very good, very sweet and fresh. And the food isn't bad, its just boring as hell. They do eat a lot of pastries which are good, but a girl can only survive so long on pastries :) I hear they've got good fish too but I wouldn't know. The main drink here is pisco sour. Pisco is an alcohol that they make and sell very cheap down here. Mix that with some sour mix, coat the rim of the glass with powdered sugar and you've got yourself a delicious pisco sour. (Chile and Peru actually have a rivalry as to which one Pisco Sour is native to and as far as I can tell I think it actually originated in Peru) The beer is mediocre. The wine though, is definitely worth it. They've got all the normal kinds of wine from many vineyards all over the country. They also produce a kind of wine called Carmenére which is only produced in Chile. Its similar to a Merlot, but they insist it is not a Merlot.

So that kind of sums up the next couple of weeks. I'm going to save Valparaiso, Viña del Mar, and my medical shadowing for another post cause its late and this post is long. So please check back soon. I promise it'll be up sooner than this one was. Much love to all, please feel free to write to me and let me know how you are doing! Besos!