One month in Chile

Hola! Como estai? This is the greeting I am now used to. You would think between cachai and estai, I should be used to this tense, but I still do a double take when someone asks me como te llamai? However, I am beginning to sprinkle po into my daily vocabulary, so I think that means I’m headed in the right direction with my handle of Chilean Spanish, or at least Chilean slang. Now, if I could only add a little more variety to my diet, I would be set for life here. I am currently searching for Chilean vegetarians to meet so I can learn the tips and tricks, like where to find goodies like tofu, hummus, and almond milk at stores and where to eat out and order something other than cheese empanadas. This weekend, my first free weekend in the country, I plan on making a point to check out the outdoor markets and the grocery store at the mall that have been recommended to me so far. Hopefully by the time I post my next entry, I will have improved my diet, but hey, I always say that as long as I have bread, cheese, and chocolate, I’ll be fine, and those necessities are not at all hard to come by here! And speaking of chocolate—if you’re ever in Santiago, head over to Barrio Lastarria and try the manjar blanco flavor of ice cream at Emporio La Rosa. This is equally as good as the dulce de leche I tried in Buenos Aires. It’s similar (manjar and dulce de leche are basically one and the same), but has pieces of chocolate and a bit of spicy flavor reminiscent of gingerbread. Also try the rosa flavor, if you don’t mind kind of sort of feeling like you’re eating a flower.

Despite some struggles with understanding Chilean Spanish and eating a balanced diet, and a stint with bad allergies (tip: don’t sleep with your bedroom windows open), I am having the most amazing experience here. So far, my list of touristy places visited in Santiago includes Cerro Santa Lucia, Cerro San Cristobal, Plaza Italia, Barrios Bellavista and Lastarria, La Piojera, Parque Bicentenario, and the Costanera Center mall that is part of the tallest building in South America. My favorite place so far is the pool at Cerro San Cristobal. Jumping into a huge, gorgeous pool makes walking halfway up a hill that might as well be a mountain in the strong Chilean sun well worth it, and from the area surrounding the pool, there are incredible views of Santiago on all sides. I’m also a very big fan of the Lastarria neighborhood in its entirety, partly because of ice cream, but also because of a beautiful park with a cute playground and lots of Chilean trees (because Chile is so geographically isolated by its desert, mountain, water, and ice sides, a lot of plants here are different from those growing elsewhere in the world), and because of the neighborhood’s general hipster charm. Luckily, this neighborhood is only a few blocks from FEN so I can indulge in it as often as I want.

My first view of the Pacific Ocean!

My list of places visited in Chile outside of Santiago is small at the moment, but Viña del Mar and Cajon del Maipo were good first experiences. I visited Viña del Mar for the main purpose of dipping my toes into the Pacific Ocean for the first time, and I really enjoyed this cute beach town. Maybe it is because the town is somewhat of a tourist attraction, but it was interesting that while I was there, I didn’t necessarily even feel like I was in Chile—that beach could have been any beach in the world. I couldn’t help but get all the way into the ocean once I felt the familiar feeling of sand between my toes, and now I know it won’t be long before I’m off and visiting my next Chilean beach town. What was uniquely Chilean about that trip was the Chilean hospitality. The FEN buddy of one of the USC girls I went with is from Viña and was home for the weekend, and not only did he pick us up from the bus terminal, but he also gave us a grand tour, making sure we saw both the tourist attractions and a very cool, relaxed beach. Chileans being incredibly nice and welcoming and having fun showing me around has been a recurring theme here, and I’m loving it. I’m convinced that Chilean hospitality not only rivals but beats southern hospitality. As far as my other trip, Cajon del Maipo is not far outside of Santiago but is a cool, hilly (mountainous, I would say, but Chileans would disagree) area that many FEN students are rather familiar with. At the beginning of every semester, FEN buses its students to a park in Cajon for one day to hang out, barbecue, drink, and dance. The mechones, or freshmen, also compete against each other in challenges on this day, representing different color teams. For me, this trip was a fun way to get out in the fresh air, meet lots of FEN students, and learn to dance to reggaeton like a Chilean.

I also experienced Lollapalooza, an international music festival that sets up shop in Santiago for a weekend and entertains huge crowds of Chileans and foreigners alike. I love live music, so I had a great time singing and dancing along to both the small acts in Spanish and the big international acts. I also had a funny realization about living abroad while I was at Lollapalooza. When abroad, speaking English is something that can quickly bond you to strangers. Think about it—at a music festival in the States, you would never turn around and start a conversation with the people behind you solely because they are speaking English. But when abroad, it seems somehow normal to want to talk to people and ask where they’re from just because you overheard their language. I hope that someday I’ll connect with people speaking Spanish in the same way, with them asking me where I’m from or where I learned to speak Spanish.

Another memorable moment was orientation day at FEN, when we broke up into groups to go around the parts of the city closely surrounding FEN and competed to take funny photos with traditional Chilean things. At FEN, there is an International Student Association that plans events for international students, and after orientation, many of us went with ISA to Bellavista, and that was my first time ever enduring, I mean, enjoying friends’ karaoke performances. Most recently, I had a memorable moment at a Saint Patrick’s Day celebration at an Irish pub fit with all of the Scottish bagpipes and kilts you can imagine. I’m not sure if I’m the only one who found the Scottish/Irish thing so humorous, but to me, it was hilariously worthwhile.

Now, onto why I’m really here, the study in study abroad. FEN is great—each day I’m amazed at how nice and welcoming everyone is, how interesting my classes are, and how much I am able to learn inside and outside of the classroom. I mentioned earlier the FEN buddy program, and although I haven’t yet met my assigned FEN buddy, part of me feels like every FEN student is my FEN buddy. Between IBA cohort members, ISA members, FEN buddies of friends, and the students I’ve met in my classes, I feel as though I can’t go fifteen minutes inside FEN without running into some nice Chilean who is willing to offer a smile and whatever help I need. The FEN students are also great about wanting to speak both English and Spanish with me, and I’m always appreciative of the chance to practice Spanish. Actually, yesterday, I attended the first Habla Po! session, a weekly chance to sit around with Chileans and practice their English for one hour and our Spanish for the next hour, put on by ISA. When it comes to classes, I am most enjoying my two classes in Spanish, yoga and Economia, Humanismo, y Valores. These classes are unlike anything I have taken before and between the language and subject matter, I can feel that I’m being challenged. Especially in Econ, I am really gaining an insight of Chilean students’ opinions and understandings of things (well, from what I can actually make of their rapid-speaking participation). My two classes in English are also interesting, but are overlapping much more with things I’ve learned in the past. In those classes I have opportunities to meet other international students and cool Chileans who are interested in a cultural exchange with us gringos, so that has been beneficial. So far I have had a quiz in only one of my classes, and it was essay-style and open-resources (notes, class readings, Google, whatever we wanted). I really like that style of assessment, not only because it is lower-stress and prevents cramming, but also because it is much more like what life after college will really be like (sorry, all due respect, multiple choice). I am looking forward to the assignments and group projects that are to come in my classes and to keep learning more Spanish every day.

Until next time! Nos vemos!

PD (that’s what PS is here): Please excuse the missing accent marks in many of the Spanish words used in this post. New goal: figure out how to add languages to my new computer before it’s time to write my first essay in Spanish. 

The view from Cerro San Cristobal's pool

A view while walking up Cerro San Cristobal

Piscina Tupahue on Cerro San Cristobal

On Cerro San Cristobal (can you tell I really like Cerro San Cristobal?)

 A cute beach

Our tour of the beach town

Some of the cohort, always representing the Gamecocks, and some of the FEN faculty supporting the program

Lollapalooza at night

Buenos Aires

Hola a todos! Thanks for sticking with me as I blog my way through South America. I realize my last post was a bit rushed, so I am going to embrace Chilean culture with this one and take my sweet time. First, to catch you up, I am now in my second week of classes at FEN and I’m settling in here in Chile. But now, let’s rewind back to where we left off.

A couple weeks ago, I was enjoying Buenos Aires and all it has to offer. To be completely honest, I was afraid that I liked Buenos Aires too much! As we roamed around the city, taking in the sights and sounds and flavors, part of me was enjoying everything immensely and another part of me was increasingly nervous that I would not like Santiago as much and would always compare it to Buenos Aires. Fortunately, I’ve now had equal time in Santiago and I can happily report that this is not the case. Santiago has plenty of sights and sounds of its own. I may need some help with the flavors, but more on that later.

I want to give a quick run-through of my time in Buenos Aires and everything I loved so much about it, partially for my own memory’s sake. As I mentioned last time, we arrived on a Friday and spent some time waiting outside our plane, just casually on the runway. I immediately noted how lax Argentina is about immigration and customs, at least compared to Chile. Case in point, we all paid a hefty reciprocity fee online to enter, and had our printed confirmations ready and waiting to be checked at immigration. But did anyone check the fees? Of course not! This is Argentina! But do not fear, the fees finally came in handy to reenter Argentina after our day trip to Uruguay. And are there dogs sniffing luggage in Argentina like in Chile? In my experience, no, there were not. It does make sense that Chile is stricter with its customs seeing as It is more geographically isolated (by deserts in the north, the Andes in the east, glacial regions in the south, and the Pacific on the west) and has more species that are unique to Chile and as yet unharmed by invasive species. Anyway, we finally made it out of the airport with enough money exchanged to pay for the taxi that Mabel, our Airbnb host, helped set up for us. We ended Friday by getting extremely lost and calling it a night early to plan for our week, and I’m glad we did because our planning really came in handy.

On Saturday, we had an amazing day full of good food and adventure. We walked to Plaza Serrano in Palermo and admired the handicrafts and clothing for sale before settling into the outdoor seating of a very cute restaurant called Querida Gonzalez for lunch, where I tried my first mate and our saint of a waitress taught me how to prepare it. Yierba mate is a strong, bitter green tea packed into a gourd or mate and sipped through a bombilla, a silver straw that filters the leaves. This first time, I tried it dulce, or with sugar, but by the end of the trip, I was drinking my mate amargo as it should be! I love the mate culture of Argentina and Uruguay. A person will carry around a thermos of hot water and a packed mate of yierba all day or all morning and will keep refilling it and sharing it with family and friends, all drinking from the same bombilla. There are many traditions that go into mate, from passing it in a certain direction to heating the water to a certain temperature. It is very cool to watch the locals drink their mate in parks and on the streets. Later in the day, we joined a free (with propina) walking tour of the city. We opted for the aristocratic tour (which we lovingly dubbed the bougie, or bourgeoisie tour), where we made friends with other foreigners, saw many palaces, parks, and monuments, learned about the history of the city and the country, and finally received a recommendation for the best ice cream in the world (I mean…. In Buenos Aires…)! Seriously, if you are ever in Buenos Aires, try the dulce de leche sabor de helado at Freddo. Fun fact: Freddo also delivers. If there is one thing I am sad that we did not do in Argentina, it is order delivery Freddo. Saturday ended in the true porteño (Bs As local) way, by having a dinner reservation at 9:30, staying at the restaurant until midnight, and going out at 2AM. Dinner was right across the street from our Airbnb at a Resto Bar (restaurant that turns into a bar after midnight) called Peron Peron, and the entire restaurant is basically a giant shrine to Evita, which just so happens to also serve good food.

On Sunday, we went to the Feria San Telmo, where I couldn’t help but purchase two handmade mates and a bombilla! We had brunch of croissants, or medialunas, near there, and then had lunch on Florida Street. Unfortunately, this was the first time that I did not give my whole vegetarian spiel to a server (Soy vegetariana, no puedo comer ni carne ni pollo, etc, etc). There didn’t seem to be any need for this spiel, since all I ordered was spinach pizza with white sauce. But no! Of course spinach pizza isn’t vegetarian, of course it comes with ham! Am I the only one perplexed by this? Anyway, I ended up with a vegetable sandwich and the important lesson to always ask if something is vegetarian, no matter how obviously vegetarian it seems. Also, while I am on the topic of ordering in restaurants, I’ll discuss my other restaurant-related culture shocks. In South America, you seat yourself. If you stand around and wait for a host to seat you, you the run the risk of making everyone present look very uncomfortable. Also, don’t expect drinks to come before the meal unless you specify. Even water! And speaking of water, unless you are a fan of carbonated water, you should specify that you want agua sin gas. And finally, separate checks are not at all a thing in this hemisphere from what I can tell. Maybe for these reasons, we decided to cook for ourselves Sunday night. Well, until we realized that the lighter to light the gas stove no longer worked, at which point I suggested Chinese delivery. But the Chinese delivery took over an hour longer than our confirmation stated, and by the time it came, a new lighter was purchased and the pasta was made. But it’s fine, it was quite the adventure and we had plenty of Chinese in the fridge that came in handy in the next few days.

Monday was probably my favorite day in the country. We took a taxi to El Caminito in La Boca to take photos and be touristy. Our taxi driver was hilarious and told us all the phrases he knows in English, most of which sounded like they probably came from The Sopranos, and he sang along to all of the music on his playlist. Most humorously, he sang Walk Like an Egyptian, and pronounced it like “Eshypshin.” Interestingly, this was the same day that we had two other sheismo incidents, which my Phonetics & Pronunciation class at USC luckily helped prepare me for. Basically, the main difference in the accent in Argentina is the use of the “sh” sound in words that incorporate “j” or “ll.” So when one of us ordered cebolla on a sandwich, the reaction was confusion and then “oh! Cebosha!” and when one us ordered vainilla ice cream, the Freddo workers actually did not understand until one of us said “vainisha.” Though I knew about this phenomenon, I had no idea that it would actually inhibit Argentine people’s understanding of those who do not have this accent. Nor did I realize how weird it would be to say “asha” in Chile after I got used to saying it in place of “alla.” Fortunately, other than the sheismo, it was very easy to communicate with people in Argentina, so we got some good practice there and grew more comfortable speaking Spanish before delving into the Chilean accent, which isn’t just one thing, but everything. I digress. El Caminito was gorgeous and then we went to Recoleta Cemetery. Believe me, a cemetery is not my idea of a good time, but this one was worth visiting. On Monday night, we went to a steel drum band concert, Bomba del Tiempo, and were surrounded by many other foreigners and lots of very hip porteños, which I have to admit made me feel pretty cool by association, and the music and dancing were incredible. Another anecdote of the lax “rules” in Argentina—posted all over this venue were signs saying No Fumar, but the majority of the crowd was smoking. We decided to use a flier we were given at the entrance of Bomba del Tiempo to get in free to an after party and Bahrein, a really cool place that played a good mix of old American pop music and new reggaeton. By the way, Buenos Aires never sleeps. I’m convinced. Our fliers allowed free entrance before 1AM and we were actually some of the first people there. And when we left, people were still waiting to enter.

On Tuesday, the highlights were a personal tour of Museo Bellas Artes and seeing Puerto Madero at night. Of course, we did not realize we would get a personal museum tour, and actually the main reason we wanted to tour the museum was to practice Spanish comprehension, but our tour guide loved showing off and speaking to us in English, so we made the most of the experience anyway. This is a common theme. Whenever we most want to practice Spanish, we end up speaking English. So many people in Buenos Aires seem to know English, and out of pride or curiosity, they want to speak it with tourists. Our most authentic language experiences usually happened to be with taxi drivers.

On Wednesday we had our day trip to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. Colonia is a gorgeous, historic little town, and most of it is an untouched UNESCO World Heritage site. In Colonia, we climbed a lighthouse, had many lovely photo opportunities, and alternated between walking and sitting, whether in parks, on docks, or at restaurants. I highly recommend going to Colonia, but I do not recommend spending the whole day there unless you really enjoy leisurely vacationing. If I go back to Uruguay, I will make a point to go to Montevideo, and I really want to because the Uruguayan people are so nice and welcoming. We never once had to wait to cross a street in Uruguay because drivers would stop and wave us on, no matter what. Compared to Buenos Aires, we were sometimes afraid to cross streets even at red lights, and where we had fun counting the red lights that our taxi drivers ran, this was a nice change of pace. My other recommendation is to wait until you are in Buenos Aires to purchase your ferry boat tickets to Uruguay. That way, you can opt out if rain is in the forecast. It rained on our way back to Buenos Aires, and let’s just say I could have lived without the experience of spending an hour on a boat that I was convinced would tip over.

On Thursday, we spent time at the gorgeous Rosedal of Bosques de Palermo, a huge flower garden complete with an island. Then, we went to MALBA and took in the exquisite Latin American art exhibits there. On Thursday night, we managed to get our names on a list to get into what is supposedly a very cool place to spend Thursday nights. But once we got in and got over the initial enthusiasm of being on a list, we soon realized that everyone there was extremely rude to us. This is interesting because we were warned before coming to Buenos Aires that people there might be rude and unhelpful to tourists (of course, the people of Chile and Argentina don’t like each other, so we took this with a grain of salt). This warning was not the case for us at all, until our very last night there. As a whole, the people of Buenos Aires were extremely friendly and helpful. But I think it’s actually a good thing that our last night there wasn’t as great as the others, because it helped make it feel like it was time to move on to our next adventure (in Chile, po)! And on Friday morning, we flew “home.”

Since this post has already grown longer than I had anticipated, and because I need to go to class soon, I promise to post again soon about my new home in Chile and the experiences I have had here so far! Nos vemos.

Gourds for drinking yierba mate purchased at San Telmo Fair

A palace in Buenos Aires that is still used for residential living (casual)

In Recoleta - seen on walking tour

Colorful El Caminito

In Recoleta Cemetery - believe it or not, this is minimalist compared to the rest

Puerto Madero

Colonia, Uruguay

El Rosedal in Palermo

The view from the lighthouse in Colonia

Arrival in South America

Written on February 21, 2015

I'm writing from the beautiful terrace of my Airbnb in the Palermo Hollywood neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina while I wait for either of my travel buddies to wake up.

I arrived in Santiago, Chile on Wednesday morning after an overnight flight and a very long day of travel. Yesterday, we flew to Buenos Aires. So far I've only had Wednesday and Thursday to spend in Santiago and although those were days of errands, I already love the city. On my first day, I moved into my apartment and then Josh, an American from the cohort met up with me there and we embarked on our errands. We went to the bank to pay my landlord, found FEN and walked around the campus and up and down the stairs of a couple buildings, grabbed lunch from the convenience store that's right downstairs next to my apartment, went to a very confusing electronics shop so Josh could buy another adapter, and did a little grocery shopping at Lider Express. Side note: if anyone knows where to purchase refrigerated liquid milk, or better yet, almond milk, in Santiago, please let me know. I was exhausted from my flight, so after all this, I went back to my apartment and got some tips from my roommate on things to see and do in Santiago, as he has been there for half a year now. It wasn't long before I decided to stop unpacking and to just go to bed. 

On Thursday, I woke up early to meet up with Josh and Ceci, one of the Chileans in the cohort and also my guide and guardian angel for the day. We first walked to the international police building to register our visas. Thank God Josh asked about this at immigration in the airport. I knew I would have to do this within 30 days of entering the country on a student visa, but I hadn't connected that I would have to do it before leaving and re entering the country. The system there was even more confusing than the one at the electronics store, and we waited there for several hours. Imagine a giant DMV with more lines, more checkpoints, and more waiting. It was a good thing we thought to pull a number for Kady, too. These types of government and official offices close at 2, as do banks, and we had yet another building to do business at after this one to get our RUN numbers and apply for cédulas, or identity cards. Kady is another American friend in the cohort, and she arrived at the first office with Vale's mom and little sister, guardian angels #2 and 3. Vale is another of the Chileans in the cohort, and she and Kady will live together this year. By the time we finished up at both offices, it was after 2 and we were all hungry. After walking for what felt like a really long time to find a fast place that may be acceptable for me, the difficult vegetarian, McDonald's was decided on. I was actually happy here because I tried only things that you can't find in McDonalds back home (at least I think not, although I can't tell you the last time I was there). Vale's mom took over ordering for all of us and even treated us to lunch. I somehow ended up with 9 cheese empanadas (I could only eat 7 and that was only because this was the hungriest I think I had ever felt) and a bag of "shake shake fries." You put French fries in a bag, sprinkle a little packet of cheddar cheese powder over the top, and shake the bag. Spoiler alert: carbs and cheese are pretty much the only things I've eaten in South America so far. Maybe I should try to fix that today. In addition to lunch on Thursday, Josh, Ceci, and I also had some fun. With them, I took my first touristy pictures around Santiago, walked around a couple cute plazas and barrios, and stopped in La Piojera, a traditional Chilean restaurant/bar decorated with more banderas than I've ever seen in one place and with traditional art behind the bar and murals and graffiti on the walls. When we walked in, there were several people standing around in what I'll call a hallway for lack of a better word, but it was actually this wide open space with pretty plants and flowers all around and with no ceiling, and further back there was the restaurant (with a ceiling). Here, we tried terremotos (translation: earthquakes) and enjoyed people-watching and listening to the live music of a man who played for tips and had this great booming, Italian-sounding voice. On Thursday I also had my first experiences with the metro system of Santiago, which I think is actually really fast and cool, but also can be packed body to body depending on the line and the hour. After such an eventful day, I still had to unpack and repack before I could head to bed and head out to Buenos Aires in the morning. 

Yesterday in Buenos Aires, we had a fun, crazy, and exhausting day. Argentina doesn't feel like real life. From the moment we stepped off the plane and waited a while for a bus to come and let us off the runway, things already felt surreal. I mean seriously, who lets people wait on an airport runway? Yesterday was also eventful because we got lost and had to walk quite a long way back to Palermo. Even though we were actually there when we started and got ourselves lost. Yeah, I don't want to talk about it. But today, we will carry around a physical map and purchase a SIM card so that we can have some cell data and minutes in case we need emergency directions, translations, or to get a cab. After such a long day, we decided to stay in last night and spend some time with our wifi, researching and planning out some more things to do and see on this trip. 

Yesterday was also so beautiful! The weather, the plazas, the buildings, the trees lining the busy city streets all are so beautiful here. And now that I think about it, I'm ready to get back out there. Excuse me while I attempt to wake up Kady and Josh. 

Included are a few photos from the past days. Many more to come! Here we have me and Josh at the international police. I think they were calling around number B150 at this point. Then there's graffiti and the outside mural of La Piojera. And then there is me and Kady taking in Buenos Aires!