Beaches and Plastic Surgery

So one place that everyone recommends and everyone in Santiago visits is Valparaiso. The city is about a two hour bus ride from Stgo and is known for its colorful houses, Bohemian nightlife, and the beaches at Viña del Mar. ECELA organizes trips out there every couple of weeks but we figured it'd be cheaper to go on our own. So six friend and I bought bus tickets to Valparaiso (for like $13) booked a hostel and headed out there for the weekend.

We left early on Sat morning and arrived in Valparaiso about 10:30. We checked into our hostel, El Rincón Marino, which was really nice for the $17 a night that we paid (which also included breakfast). We then went to find food and a beach. However, it was fairly cold and cloudy and the beach idea got less and less appealing. So instead, we decided to walk around the city and go to the lookout point on the other side of town. We walked for a couple of hours, seeing the sights, drinking coffee, and finally arrived at the lookout point. Valpo has a lot of big hills, and although there is a gondola up the hill we decided to climb it. At the top are a bunch of touristy kiosks and tourists, but it was nice. The view over the harbor and the city were really nice and the sun started to come out.

Since the sun started to make an appearance we decided to keep walking to the beach and we spent the late afternoon there. The water at the Chilean beaches, however, is cold as (insert expletive here) so there was not a lot of swimming involved. We then walked home and stopped at a restaurant for dinner. At dinner I ate maybe the best pizza of my life. It had choclo (corn), champiñónes (mushrooms), palmito (heart of palm) and maybe some other things I've forgotten. Needless to say I was surprised since the food in Chile is generally so disappointing. That night we went out to a salsa bar with a live band, had a few drinks, danced a bit, and turned in earlyish so we could get up for the beach in the morning.

The next morning we checked out and took a bus (for like $.60) to Viña del Mar which is about 15-20 minutes away. We didn't see much of Viña but I was happy to lay on the beach all day. The weather was perfect, I avoided getting sunburned too badly, and we had a lovely time. We caught the bus back to Stgo around 6 that evening.

The following week I started medical shadowing at a private clinic in a very nice part of town. The clinic was about a 40 minute bus ride from my house, and I spent about 4 hours a day there, 3 times a week for the last two weeks I was in Stgo. Because the clinic was private and in a rich part of town, the majority of the surgeries they did were plastic surgeries. I had never seen plastic surgeries before, but believe me, I've seen enough to last me a lifetime. Plastic surgery is disgusting (though still interesting) and I NEVER want to be a plastic surgeon. You all are welcome to hold me to that and take away my license if I ever decide to go into plastics.

The first day I saw a liposuction that they said was the biggest one they've ever done at that clinic. I actually got to watch that one because the first surgery I went into (also a liposuction) the surgeon kicked me out of the OR. He yelled a lot at the nurse who was telling me what to do, but I remained blissfully ignorant because I couldn't understand what he was saying :p From what I gathered, no one had told him that I would be there (just another example of how organized SA is) and he was mad. So I watched this HUGE liposuction where they actually ended up taking off about 15 lbs of fat and skin, and they informed me that this was only the first of many surgeries for this woman. Yikes!

After that I saw breast implants, a breast reduction, a face lift, a couple more liposuctions, and a laparoscopic hysterectomy (which was my favorite). I'll spare you all the details because I know not everyone gets as excited as I do about cutting people up, but it was a very cool experience. If you ever want to hear some of the horror stories you know I'd be more than happy to tell you. Some of the doctors were very nice, and were willing to answer questions and to make sure I understood what was going on. They all had instructions not to talk to me in English even though most of them spoke some. There was also one anesthesiologist who kind of took me under her wing and explained a lot and let me see a lot of neat things.

The shadowing made for very long days. I would get up and leave my house by 7:45 to get to the clinic and get changed by 9. Then I would shadow for four hours, take the bus back home and grab lunch between 1 and 2 and then have classes from 2-6. After that I'd go to the gym, eat dinner, shower, and then some nights go out. They were long days but good.

This post is going to be kind of long so bear with me. I was originally supposed to be in Stgo for four weeks but the way that classes worked out it was a lot easier if I extended my time by a week. So I paid for another week of classes and housing (which was a serious project and mess because nothing down here is organized) and stayed an extra week. That last week I moved in with a host family because they needed my room at Casa Loca (the school's house). The family was very nice. It was just a husband and wife. Their daughter lived with them too but was traveling around Peru at the moment so she was not there. I also lived with a Swiss girl who was a student at ECELA as well. The mom didn't speak any English but talked slow enough that she was easy to understand and the dad spoke some English. The food was typical, boring Chilean food, but we did eat a lot of ice cream so I was happy.

During my last week I saw some more sights of Stgo. I climbed up San Cristobal and Santa Lucia, which are two big hills in the city. San Cristobal has a large statue of the Virgin Mary on top and is supposed to be a place of fertility (don't worry I scrubbed down after). I also bought my bus ticket to Buenos Aires and spent some time at the pool. On Friday I passed my test with flying colors and advanced to level B1 which is the first intermediate level. Friday night we went out to celebrate my last night, and Saturday morning I caught the bus to Bs As. I loved Stgo and the people and everything, and miss it a lot. I may or may not have to go back there when I'm done in Argentina. Thanks for bearing with my rambling! Besitos!

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!

Empezamos

Hello friends!! Its Friday and I've just finished my first week of school and I'm not going out tonight (more on this later) so I think its time to start the ol' South America Blog. First off...I hope everyone is doing well and survived the holidays and is staying warm. Miss you all mucho and if you haven't already sent me your skype name please do so! Anyway, enough about you, lets talk about me :p

I left Raleigh last Sat, Jan 1 and flew to Miami and then on to Santiago. I arrived in Santiago on Sun. The house where I am living is fondly called La Casa Loca and is owned by the school. Its got about 10 rooms some of which have one bed and some of which have two. My room is on the third floor in a big attic looking space. It was a pain in the patootie to drag my huge suitcases up the last narrow flight of rickety, wooden stairs. I think the room is one of the bigger ones and one of the only ones with a big bed so I can't complain too much. However, it gets to be about ten thousand degrees during the day so I can't spend time up there in the afternoon. But I have my own bathroom (with no hot water) and I'm very comfortable. I've taken some fotos but I seem to have left my USB cable at home so I can't upload them until I buy a new one. You'll have to use your imaginations for now.

For the rest of Sunday I mainly just puttered around...slept a bit, shopped for some food, and met some peeps. On Monday I had to be at the school (which is about three or four blocks up the road) at 8 to take a placement test. I tested into the level I was expecting and picked up exactly where I stop remembering things from school. The first day was great, my teacher was super sweet and I was seriously loving Chile. I walked around with a new friend that afternoon and met her and another friend that night for drinks.

After that things started to go downhill. School continued to be great, though difficult but I started coming down with what I think was the flu so Tuesday thru Thursday are all kinda a feverish haze. I got talked into going to salsa lessons on Wed night and I'm pretty sure I would've had a lot of fun if I had been able to breathe. I actually had a pretty high fever on Thurs so I skipped school (those of you who know my study habits know I don't take school lightly so that should be some indication of how shitty I felt.) So the majority of this week has been spent taking it easy and hoping that I wasn't going to die my first week in a foreign country. I did manage to find the Farmacia and get some drugs which helped quite a bit and today I'm feeling heaps better! Thank goodness.

On Fridays (every other friday i think) we take a test to determine if we're ready to move to the next level. Each level is two weeks but I think I came in in the middle of a session so I had one week at the level I was at, and will move on to the new one next week. So yeah, despite being sick as a dog all week, I passed my test so yay! Many of the students from the school are going on a pub crawl tonight, but its one where you pay up front and then get free/cheap drinks all night and since I'm still not feeling great and wont be drinking it seemed silly to pay that much. And tomorrow we are going to La Isla Negra to see the museum of Pablo Neruda and the beaches, etc and thats at 9 am so I figured I'd make good life choices and get some sleep tonight.

So I think thats a good recap of my first week. Hopefully things will get more exciting once I'm feeling better. There are so many little stories and fun things that I would love to tell, but then this post would be about twenty pages long so I'll refrain. Suffice it to say, I'm really loving it here. Everyone is very friendly and welcoming and the school is great. Please please please keep in touch with me via skype or facebook or email or I can even text (its a new number so let me know if you want me to text you). And stay tuned for much more excitement to come! Besos!