Early Friday morning, the 8th of October, the USAC group headed out for Valparaiso and Viña del Mar.  These are neighboring port cities not too far from Santiago.  We first stopped in Valparaiso to look around the docks, then we took one of the town's old ascensors, something of a mix between a rail-car and an elevator that carries people up the steepest hills for a small fee, to the top of a hill to wander around.  Valparaiso is the most colorful town I have ever been in, nearly every house is painted in bold, bright colors, the alleyways are filled with impressive graffiti, and many walls are covered in murals.  The city's unique and widespread beauty was enough to earn it recognition as an international heritage site, and it's easy to see why when standing at the top of any of the areas many hills. 
    After walking through the alleyways and steep roads and listening to a street performer play a very cool percussion instrument we bussed over to Viña del Mar for lunch.  Really, this was a bad idea.  Viña is very nice, but it's kind of like the rich tourist extension of Valparaiso; beaches and expensive hotels are its primary claim to fame, which means it was the wrong place to take a bunch of poor college students for lunch.  Many students had no problem with this, but those of us that did managed to find a cheap place to eat which wasn't bad.  As I recall, most of us ate Pollo Asado, a common dish for those with little money who are looking for a large amount of simple but tasty food, i.e. me.  It usually amounts to 1/4 of a chicken with rice, fries, or something similar.  It's supposed to mean "roasted chicken," but at some places it's a deep-fried chicken instead.  Since you can usually get it for between $3 and $6 in Santiago I eat it pretty often.  Anyways, after a long lunch break we headed to the outskirts of Viña to some rocks and dunes on the coast.  I decided to take full advantage of this opportunity to climb all over some rather impressive rocks, which earned me some spectacular views and a number of amused observers.  There are some pictures from this adventure in the Photogallery.  After that we boarded the bus and headed back into town.
    At this point a number of us split off from the main group which headed back into Santiago.  I stayed behind with a number of other people to explore the area for the rest of the long weekend.  Our first night there we stayed in a hostel where we made dinner and met a Frenchman with whom we later went out on the town.  Unfortunately all of the discotecas were charging high covers to get in, and since Amy and I had little money to spend we went back to the hostel while Katie stayed out dancing with the French gentleman.  The next day, Saturday, we met up with another friend and went to tour Pablo Neruda's house in Valparaiso.  Both the house and its location were beautiful, from Neruda's windows one could see miles and miles of ocean, as well as most of Valparaiso, and at the highest point of the four- or five-story house was his study, the place where he sat down every day to write.  Like his other two Chilean houses, it was filled with his eccentric collections and the works of artists from around the world.  I will be very sad if I have to leave this country without a painting of a watermelon, one of the oddly specific collections of Neruda.  It is interesting to note, by the way, that when touring all three of Neruda's Chilean houses one will hear different and often contradictory information at the different locations.  Odd.
    Anyways, after the tour we searched for and eventually found Valparaiso's open-air museum.  It is a collection of artistic works painted onto the sides of buildings among the tangle of steep winding streets and walkways.  Along the way we found Hostel Bella Vista, a well-known and beautiful hostel in the middle of one of the most artistic sections of the town.  We decided to move to this hostel the next day but in the meantime worked our way back to our own hostel, with the exception of Mimi who was staying elsewhere, and made plans for dinner.  The place we went to, Casino Social J Cruz, was quite difficult to find but very well-known and highly recommended.  Tucked back into an alleyway with only a neon sign identifying it, it had a very interesting atmosphere.  The idea was simple: there were only two dishes to choose from, customers just told them which they wanted and for how many people.  While diners sat there waiting for their food they were entertained by musicians who simply wandered among them playing and singing, collecting tips when they were offered.  People wandered in selling flowers and the like from time to time, and diners sat at large tables alongside strangers who had also decided to partake in the fun.  The place was packed, rowdy, and entertaining; how the waiters managed to keep track of anything is beyond me.  The walls were covered in random decor and the writings of guests, and the tables were equally thoroughly written on. When the food was brought out for a group it was simply a pile of food on one plate, sized more or less appropriately for the number of people, and it was good.  Katie, Amy, and I ordered the Chorrillana, a pile of french fries, pork, onions, and egg that was greasy enough to stop your heart but well worth it.  I didn't see the other dish, but I'm sure it was equally good and unhealthy. 
    Overall it was a blast and not too expensive considering the amount of food we were given.  I would go back any day, if you ever find yourself in Valparaiso stop in, but make it a late dinner since it's geared more toward late-night-into-the-morning entertainment than early-bird specials.  After that we called it a night and returned to Hostal Caracol.
    The next morning we checked out and moved our things over to Hostal Bella Vista.  There we were fairly disappointed; we found that things we had been promised only a day before were unavailable and the only room we could stay in apart from the incense-filled dorms was a room with a door that didn't lock which was more expensive.  Though the place was beautiful it was quite poorly run.  We did receive a discount due the the non-locking door, but we also didn't receive breakfast until long after it was supposed to be served, and there was no one there to answer the door in the middle of the night which left someone stranded outside.  All this, however, was not my biggest problem while we stayed there.  Somehow I managed to come down with some sort of illness; it had been bothering me with a headache and backache all day, but it more or less incapacitated me that night.  Thankfully while I was taking a nap trying to sleep off my sickness my friends were talking to a fellow guest who happened to have some sort of effervescent medication for this sort of thing.  Though it was rather disgusting (I'd like to smack the person who decided that effervescent medications were a good idea) it worked quite well and kept me on my feet for the rest of the trip.  My thanks go out to the individual who was kind enough to help me out with her (legal and medically sound) drugs.  Anyways, before that bug knocked me out we walked around Valparaiso a bit more and took a boat tour of the harbor which was well worth the $4 USD that it cost each of us.
    Monday we had a picnic by the ocean and ate dinner at a seafood place.  Being a port city Valparaiso is well-known for its seafood, and there's a building toward the edge of town which has a huge vegetable market on the first floor and a vast collection of seafood restaurants on the second floor.  There we were accosted by hoards of people trying to get us to eat at their restaurant (seriously, it was ridiculous), so we decided to go to a place that didn't hire people to chase us around yelling about their specials.  The result was a very interesting dinner.  We had seen it the day before and been very intrigued: a sort of seafood stew featuring just about every kind of mussel they sold along with a few shrimp thrown in for fun.  I'm glad I tried it, but I can't say that I would eat it again.  First of all, eating something organs and all is a method I'm not well-accustomed to, but more importantly I DON'T LIKE EATING SAND.  Being filtration animals these little dudes were filled with sand.  I wanted something new and different and I'm happy that I  got it; the broth was good, the shrimp were fine, and the taste of these shelled things was totally new to me but tolerable, however I can't stand eating sand so this dish probably won't pass my palate again.
    Once dinner was over we returned to the bus station to catch our bus back to Santiago.  There my illness persisted for a few more uncomfortable days, but that won't dampen my memories of this interesting a beautiful city along Chile's coast.  If you ever have a chance to see this place take it, but be prepared to walk up and down a lot of hills.

 Man, it's been a while since I've written anything.  Well, might as well start around where I left off.

The Bicentenario 

   I had the privilege of being in Santiago, Chile's capital city, during the Bicentenario, the 200th anniversary of the birth of Chile as a nation.  The whole city celebrated for the entire four day weekend, there were fondas at multiple locations throughout the city.  These fondas were more or less giant bar-b-cues held in various parks around the city, some of them were free and some required an entrance fee.  Inside there were vendors selling all kinds of things and lots of drinking, or so I have been told.  Unfortunately, due to issues of cost and bad timing I never made it inside one of these fondas, but even outside the parks there was celebration.  People were singing, chanting, and dancing the Cueca, a Chilean folk dance which I attempted to learn (unsuccessfully).

    By far the most impressive aspect of the Bicentenario celebrations was the light show put on by the Chilean government at La Moneda, the capitol building.  The show was put on for six consecutive nights, I attempted to see it the fourth night and was unable to make it within view of the building due to the huge crowd gathered in the plaza.  Some friends and I were linked arm-in-arm trying to snake our way through the crowd, however we were eventually stopped by an immobile mass of people.  Though we didn't get to see the show that night, we did have fun pushing into and out of the crowd.  The last night of the show Amy, Tonya, and I went two hours early to find a place from which to watch the show and were successful.  While waiting for the show to begin we met a very entertaining little dude who got very excited at the sight of the confetti we had purchased.  He very much enjoyed throwing the confetti on us and letting us throw the confetti on him.  He liked the fact that I could shake my head after he had put confetti on it, thus flinging said confetti in all directions.  When we put the confetti away he resorted to using grass, and eventually returned to running around with other children.   Back to the show itself.

    There were three types of display at the show, there were standard projection screens off to the sides of the main area, these generally showed the images that were appearing on the "screen" directly in front of the building.  This was, in fact, a sheet of mist being blown out from a device on the ground which created a semi-circular white surface through which images were projected.  This gave the images a cool effect and also meant that the screen could be taken down at points throughout the show by simply turning off the flow of mist.  Behind this was the main display: the building itself.  Basically, the building was kept completely dark and an image of the building was projected onto it.  This meant that at first the building simply appeared to be well-lit, but anything that was done to the image of the building appeared to be happening to the building itself, such as the ripple-pattern which started at the bottom-center of the building and traveled along its entire surface.  It was also quite impressive when the building appeared to crumble and fall apart.  This may all sound very strange, but I strongly encourage you to watch a video of the show to get a better idea of what I'm talking about.  One good series of videos that I found is at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v

=qtRCjtw46To.  This is the first video of the series, follow the links on the page to see the subsequent portions of the show.  It was amazing to be there for it, I feel very fortunate to have been in Santiago for this celebration.

Well it's been a busy two weeks since classes began.  I was very surprised on the first day of class when the instructor began addressing the class in Spanish and has continued to do so ever since.  The idea is of course to immerse the class fully in the language we are here to learn, however it does add a fair bit of stress to the learning environment when your next homework assignment is given to you in a language which you admittedly don't understand.  It also posed some problems when our instructor was trying to tell us which days we wouldn't have class and how we would make up the lost time, but overall it's been a positive experience so far.

Just to provide a quick overview of what I've been up to, here are some of the things I've been doing:

Tuesday, 8/31: Lunch in the Belles Artes district accompanied by a wonderful game of Never-Have-I-Ever with Tonya, Trista, Rebecca, and Amy.  Later I decided to join up with the dance class which I am technically not taking, after which some of us ate dinner at a nice restaurant in Patio Belles Artes

Wednesday, 9/1:  After class the aforementioned individuals and I went to a grocery store near the center of Santiago. We picked up some food for dinner and some pisco and made our way to Trista's apartment.  It was quite a night, and I think now we all have a little more respect for the strength of the beloved Chilean/Peruvian liquor.  Overall it was a pretty good time, even if we did forget to eat dinner.

Friday, 9/3:  Tonya, Amy, and I ate lunch in the Belles Artes district again, after which Tonya returned home and Amy and I continued on to La Chascona, one of three houses of Pablo Naruda.  Amy had already taken a tour of the house, but since I had not we decided to take the tour.  The house was amazing; it was designed to be reminiscent of a ship, so all of the halls were narrow and the doors were short.  It was crowded with the eclectic collections of Naruda, which included everything from colored glass bottles to paintings of watermelons.  After the tour Amy and I hiked up Cerro San Cristobal.  This is a hill completely surrounded by the city of Santiago, on top of which is a large statue of Jesus and a small chapel.  It was supposed to have a pretty good view of Santiago along with a botanical garden a ways past the statue, so we headed up.  The view was spectacular and the company was enjoyable, so it made for a pretty good day.

Saturday, 9/4:  In the evening I accompanied my host brother to a party not far from my home here.  Overall it was a good time, but unfortunately I was quite tired and not really in the mood for that sort of entertainment.

Monday, 9/5:  Rebecca, Amy, Tonya, and I picked up some food and two bottles of wine after class and headed to my house for a wine party on the patio behind the house.  Later we were joined by Pedro and a couple of his friends and we disbanded relatively early.

Tuesday, 9/6:  Since most of us didn't have class the next day, we decided to have a middle of the week shindig at Trista's apartment.  Since the metro stops running for the night at 11:00 and none of us are remarkably familiar with the Santiago bus system, we decided to crash for the night at Trista's apartment.  To those of you who are thinking at this point, "My, Tyler seems to be spending quite a bit of money on alcohol," I have only this to say: wine and pisco are ridiculously cheap here.  A decent bottle of Chilean wine costs around $3, and a good bottle costs about $6, so you don't have to spend much money at all to have a pretty good time.

Wednesday, 9/7:  In the morning, Amy, Tonya, and I went to my house to make ourselves a proper breakfast which consisted of eggs expertly prepared by Tonya, hash browns crafted by Amy, and a fair bit of bacon.  In short, it was the best breakfast I've had here so far.  After breakfast we climbed Cerro San Cristobal, returned home, and called it a day.

Friday, 9/9:  This was the day of the first USAC field trip out of the city.  We first went to a small town called Pomaire: it was originally a Mapuche settlement and is over 3000 years old.  It has long been known for the pottery produced there, and nearly all of it is still made in the traditional manner.  This pottery can be found all over Chile, including in the home of my host family.  After looking around a staggering number of pottery shops and deciding that we would have to return to this town at some point, I purchased some pottery which will follow me to my Houghton apartment in the spring.  Since it is meaningful, useful, attractive, and very cheap, there is a good chance that it will find its way into other homes as well.  After the shopping and sightseeing was over we watched some of the townspeople make pottery and some students tried their hand at the difficult task, most with little success.  It was very impressive to watch people make in seconds pottery that I couldn't have made at all; they're very good at what they do in Pomaire.  

We then went to the town of Isla Negra for a tour of the main house of the Chilean poet Pablo Naruda.  Like his Santiago house, it was designed to be reminiscent of a ship and was filled with his eclectic collections.  The art covering the walls was created by such artists as Pablo Picasso and a number of well-known Chilean artists.  His collection of seashells and sea creatures was fascinating and the view from nearly every room was truly amazing.  His bedroom faced the sea, of course, and two of the walls were almost entirely windows; I would give anything to sit on that bed during a good storm.

After the tour we had little time to look around since we had to return to the bus to head home.  Once we got back to Santiago, Katy, Amy, Tonya, Rebecca and I returned to our respective homes to change our clothes and met up back at my place in our best attire for a pizza and wine party.  This was, as always, a spectacular time, and we enjoyed having Katy in attendance this time.

Well it was, for the most part, a very enjoyable two weeks.  However, I do hope that things will slow down a bit in the coming weeks.  Given the upcoming tests in my classes, our social functions are more likely to be study sessions (probably accompanied by a glass of wine) than excursions around the city, but soon we'll be able to travel independently outside of Santiago, and I look forward to that.

Now where was I?  Ah yes, the first weekend.  So I met my host family on Thursday and was oriented to the house and surroundings shortly thereafter.  With the help of my host mother I purchased a cellphone and a card to use the city metro system.  The house of my host family is in an area of Santiago called Las Condes; I have my own room and the house and neighborhood are very nice.  Friday, as part of the official orientation, I went on a bus tour of Santiago.  It's a very large city with a population of over seven million.  In short, there is a large flat plain surrounded by mountains and hills, and Santiago has expanded to take up all of the flat land: it's kind of huge.

Anyways, around 4:00 on Friday my host brother met me at my university and we met up with a friend of his.  We went to a bar and sat outside, drinking a few beers while discussing everything from the mechanics of the English language to the people of Chile.  We then met up with the sister of Pedro's friend who was to drive us back home.  Unfortunately, the car ran out of gas and/or just died, still not sure which, while driving down a stereotypically busy Santiago road.  We had to push the car off the road and walked to a gas station twice to get enough gas in the car to get it running again.  Unfortunately we weren't able to get it running again, so Pedro and I took a bus back home while the other two began the process of getting the car fixed.

Once home, we did some pre-gaming and headed out to a birthday party.  Since nearly everyone there was Chilean and I speak very, very little Spanish, many people had fun practicing their English with me.  After that died down we went to a second party where I learned that talking to drunk communists who speak no English is surprisingly entertaining, though just as difficult as it sounds.  Also learned that night: pisco, a Chilean/Peruvian liquor made from grapes is very good.  It is also alarmingly potent.

Sunday I went with my extended-host-family to an anniversary memorial service for my host mother's mother, followed by a barbecue at my host mother's brother's house.  The people of Chile really know how to work a barbecue and everyone was very friendly, so that was a pretty good time.

Thus ended my first weekend in Chile, and classes began on Monday.

At this point in the tale my USAC friends, Tim, Jeanine, and Lauryn, and I were stranded in Atlanta waiting for a 10:00 flight.  Unfortunately Lauryn was in a different hotel and we had no means of contacting her, so the other three of us took a free shuttle back to the airport to check in and catch a train into town.  Not knowing anything about Atlanta we chose to stop where several rail-lines crossed, assuming that this must be roughly the center of town.  There we found an underground shopping center called Atlanta Underground.  The search was on for food, and we quickly found more than we had bargained for; upon entering the food court the workers at the closest eatery, and every other one as we walked down the line, called us over to try free samples of their food.  We obliged at each establishment, and eventually chose one to patronize.  While we ate, we were entertained by the creative and amusing calls of the vendors trying to convince passers by of the superiority of their restaurant.

After lunch we continued to wander Atlanta Underground, though the rest of it wasn't nearly as entertaining as the food court.  (Note for my mother: I found an "As Seen On TV" store, I went in and looked around, and I'm afraid it's not nearly as exciting as you seemed to believe it would be.)  We then proceeded to walk around Atlanta; long story short, we chose to tour the aquarium rather than the Coca-Cola factory, and it was amazing.  This place had three whale sharks and let me tell you, that's a lot of shark.  (Side note: whale sharks cannot comfortably swallow anything larger in diameter than a quarter.  Neat.)  The aquarium was wonderful, and it was a great way to take our minds off of the stresses of travel, or rather, the failure to travel.

We rode the train around for a bit after that, though it turned out to be kind of a bad idea since we were all falling asleep.  We made it to the airport around 7:00 and waited there for out plane to arrive.  I spoke to some people that I had met the day before and learned that they were from Santiago.  They were very nice and told me a bit about the neighborhood which would be my home for the next four months.  Two of them, brothers, had been on studies abroad themselves, one in Alabama and the other in Flint, Michigan.  With them were the wife of one brother and the girlfriend of the other, and they were all very nice.  I have means to contact them, so I'm sure this isn't the last you'll hear of them.

This time the plane actually took off, albeit a bit late, and the flight was unproblematic.  Of the four USAC students, none slept for very long, so we spent quite a bit of time talking.  Overall the flight wasn't bad, but most importantly it got me to Santiago.

 OKAY.  So here's the deal, the travel was going well yesterday.  My mother drove me, along with my aunt Nancy and my cousin Caleb, to O'Hare International Airport yesterday, we ate lunch at Red Robin and I bought myself some spectacular new headphones for an unusually low price.  I got my boarding passes, checked my baggage, and made it through security with no problems.  Found my gate, killed some time, and my plane left for Atlanta roughly ten minutes late, no big deal.  I got to the Atlanta airport later than expected and nearly ran the entire length of the complex to get to my next plane before they began boarding passengers.  At this point I was sweaty and out of breath (Concourse A to Concourse E is a pretty impressive distance when you're hoofing it), but still not doing too bad.  They began boarding passengers, I got on the plane with no issues, and I waited on the plane for it to do its thing.  While there I ran into the other guy from Tech who's going to Chile.  The plane then began to taxi to the runway and my night got far more interesting.  

We were about to cross a runway when the plane stopped moving, most of the lights when out, and the monitors shut off.  Immediately thereafter, a jet took off right in front of us, so I assumed this was merely some sort of evasive maneuver that had somehow shut off the lights.  It seemed reasonable at the time.  Then we sat there for quite some time and I watched the other jets take off for a while.  Then the captain told us that they had some indication of an electrical problem and needed to return to the terminal to figure out what was wrong, so there we sat.  We got off the plane and went back into the terminal when they told us that they would be getting us a new plane which, they later told us, might be ready to go by 1:15.

By this point I had discovered that I would not be allowed to take my food through customs in Santiago, so I went around with my bag of no-bake cookies (thanks again for making them, father), offering them to hungry and irritated passengers who were then both confused and appreciative.  Through Tim, the other Tech person, I met the other two USAC people on the flight.  After a number of seat changes resulting from the smaller size of the new plane, we boarded and waited to go.  Now this is when things got really interesting: I was really tired by this point so I decided to sleep until we took off, under the assumption that lift-off would wake me up.  I was half-asleep as we drove the plane around the runway for what seemed like an absurdly long time.  I was beginning to wonder if perhaps I had slept through take-off and we were now flying: not so.  We then had to return to the terminal again due to navigation problems on this plane.  By this point I had realized that I also had an entire bag of almonds which would not be allowed through customs, so they had to go as well.  After they told us that our flight was now cancelled and we were waiting in line to receive our hotel and meal vouchers I made another pass of the crowd to offer my almonds.  People were amused and appreciative.  Got my vouchers, took a taxi to the hotel with two of the USAC people, and waited to get a room.  Of course, the computer system was running extremely slowly so it was taking between five and ten minutes per person.  Now I'm sitting at the hotel, regretting my decision to eat at the Waffle House, and trying to figure out what to do in Atlanta with a 30 lb carry-on dragging along behind me.  

My flight is supposed to be a 10:00 tonight, wish me luck, I'm damn sure going to need it.

Comments:

Name: Richelle
Subject: Airport Cookie Lovin' 
Message: My favorite part of your blog post about your unfortunate flying experience(s) was when you distributed free no-bake cookies and almonds to your fellow disgruntled passengers. I had to ask myself if I would actually take one of those cookies... jury's still out on that question. It's a fantastic image, though, and a great little detail among all the episodes of misfortune. Hope you've arrived safely by now!

Oh my, the first blog.  So at this point I have purchased my plane ticket, registered for my courses, paid the upfront cost of the program (all but my food and the like), purchased and received my textbooks, contacted my host family, applied for and received my visa (by far the most difficult part of the process), paid a final visit to Houghton, and even enhanced my wardrobe for the occasion.  Now I wait.  I wait until my last day at work ends.  I wait until August 24th arrives.  I wait until I leave my family and friends behind at O'Hare's security checkpoint.  At this point the gravity of my decision to leave the country by myself, travel to a new place where they don't speak my language, and stay there for four months will finally hit me.  Man, I'm pretty excited.